My buddy and his boys on a hammock trip
Took my buddy and his four sons on a 12 mile backpacking trip at the Thunder Swamp Trail in northeastern Pennsylvania. The kids ranged from a 60# grammar schooler to a strapping 15 year old. Photos are in my Picasa Web Album.
We left late afternoon Tuesday and after shuttling cars we hit the trail at 7:30PM amid torrential downpours and lightning. A risky move considering sunset was about 45 minutes away and the trail is notoriously rocky. Sure enough my target camp for night one, 1 mile in, proved useless. In the dark we pushed on with headlamps to reach the Bushkill Creek another mile down the trail. The boys took it all in stride and enjoyed the challenge. I kept paraphrasing Yvon Chouinard, saying "when things go wrong, the adventure begins."
Finding trees, in the dark, to keep my friend close to his three younger sons was a challenge but we were successful. As the only one with hammock experience it was up to me to setup all six hammocks so it took a while but the rain had stopped and in the end everything worked out.
The next morning we ate breakfast along the shore of Bushkill Creek. The skies were clear and would be for the rest of the trip. After breaking camp and a short hike we took a swim in the Bushkill before the trail left its banks. The trail was usually very rocky but we covered about five miles w/o incident to reach camp two at the edge of a beautiful swamp. Setting up was easier since my friend and his oldest two sons were able to almost take care of themselves.
Our hammock kits were: two Hennessy Scouts, one Hennessy Explorer with KAQ underquilt and one Hennessy Expedition with SuperShelter, all sporting the standard asymmetric tarps, one Speer with an OES MacCat Deluxe and my DIY gathered end hammock with DIY tarp and bugnet.
With only about five miles left to the car we decided to just do one more day of hiking. The trail was very overgrown and we passed through a lot of areas where all the trees had died years ago and underbrush was 3-4' tall (mostly blueberries, ferns and briars). Ticks weren't a problem until we walked through grassy areas. During one break I think every hiker had at least one tick on their clothing. Most of us wore permethrin treated clothes so odds are the ticks would have dropped off anyway. Crossing a road about 1.5-2 miles from the car we dropped our packs behind some boulders and slack packed the remainder of the trip.
Finishing a day ahead of schedule we decide to go to my lake house for some boating and swimming. A stop for ice cream also became a stop to change a flat tire. Once at the house we dropped all our gear and clothing in the porch and changed to swimsuits. The smell of hiking funk in that porch was almost unbearable. The washing machine would remedy that later.
We all had a great time. Everyone got trail names (Poppa, Smiley, Bug Bait, Questions and Nameless) and thoroughly enjoyed sleeping off the ground.
Not sure I'll be visiting the Thunder Swamp Trail again soon, at least not with a big group. Beyond being very rocky and often overgrown, there are few locations suitable for camp due to tall underbrush and lots of dead trees.
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That is good stuff. I'm sure that group will look back on this for a long time.
- Anyways - 6/9/13 
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