TX> Goodwater Loop> April 7-9, The Goodwater Death March!

[foulmouthedruffian]

I may have over zealously arrived early. I'm parked in a yellow Kia Soul by the gross terlits.

[Rat]

My number, 512 525 7299

[UncleMJM]

Rolling west from Aggieland in 3 minutes...

[Tony c]

We're halfway on day one. Perfect weather!

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[Rat]

A boatload of fun!

[foulmouthedruffian]

[foulmouthedruffian]

[Rat]

What a weekend! First though here is the official attendance list. TonyC, Pointer, Foulmouthedruffian, Nick, Paul, Tara, Flyakker, Amy, Gage, me and UncleMike (temporarily).

Despite missing the official kickoff at the trail head (you know, last minutes stuff) and my boat not running quite right, Gage and I did make it to camp not too far past our projected time. After lugging everything up into camp from the boat, we were off to pick up UncleMike. After an uneventful, if slow, boat ride we were ready for hikers to start showing up.

TonyC called first, not sure where he was in relation to camp. He was so close though I could quite literally hear him when he spoke to me on the phone, with my non-phone ear. So he was closer than he thought. Everyone else wandered in to camp in short order, some in better shape than others.

We had a large amount of first time hikers on this trip, which is cool, since it is an easy hike to bail on; that's kind of the whole point of having the boat for support. We made new friends around the fire, caught up with old friends, ate large amounts of food and told tall tales well into the night.

Saturday morning broke with a great sunrise over Lake Georgetown, I set to cooking a breakfast that would suffer the hikers through a pretty long day on the trail. Thanks to UncleMike everyone had as much coffee as they could drink.

Everyone set off down the trail, some with much lightened packs as they left gear with me to shuttle to the next camp. We were also heavy two hikers who chose the shuttle to day two camp. They would not be the only two to not make the entire loop, Goodwater is tough on first timers.

Day two camp was at Russell Park, not a favorite of hikers with all the weekend warriors, and the park was full, but we would make do. Once at Russell we set up camp, had to make a supply into town, then spent the remainder hanging around camp talking hammocks and stuff. Not long we got the call for the second pick up, a few hikers needed a lift off the trail. Ruffian was kind enough to make the run in her cool little Kia. So we gained three hikers in camp, Flyakker decided to soldier on and see how far he could make it. We had a quick lunch, and then naps were had.

Wood is a rare commodity at Russell Park but our troop managed to scrounge enough foe a decent fire. We spent the night again regaling in stories of old, drinking, and generally having a good time. We even had some next door campers come over late and entertain us with their drunken endeavors. Overly friendly drunk people are funny.

Sunday broke with cloud cover and a camp full of wounded (if only slightly) hikers. The two who kept going, TonyC and Pointer, struck camp and left soon after breakfast was eaten. Later the rest of us struck camp, said our farewells and hit the road. Gage and I headed tot he end of the trail to meet TonyC and Pointer, make sure they made it alright and wish them well. They arrived within about 20 minutes of each other and we all lit out for home.

It was a great weekend, with perfect weather, good friends, good food, and better company. We all agreed it should be at least be an annual affair, so that will be the goal.

Thanks for a great trip everyone, see y'all at the next one!

If you would like, we tagged the pictures for searching. Just look up the hashtag #brutesgdm2017 on Facebook.

[foulmouthedruffian]

Thanks for everything, Rat! You and Gage are the real MVPs.

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[UncleMJM]

It was a great weekend. I wish I could have been able to do the hike... gotta work on the fitness increasing and schedule decreasing.

Thanks for putting this together Rat. It was great seeing you and Gage and I really enjoyed meeting some more folks as well.

Let's do this again, sooner than 4 years out.