My daughter & I got out during an unseasonably warm January weekend & enjoyed an overnight trip to Stone Mountain State Park in N.C.
It was 65* when we started out, and overnight lows were probably around mid-50's. Gotta love the Carolinas.
I wanted to try Stone Mountain during the off season as there are only 6 sites, and it is first come, first serve. You sign in at the trailhead.
I higly recommend reading eflat7's site description before going (quoted at the bottom of this).
My plan was to re-read his site descriptions at the trailhead but that failed because there was NO cell service, so I couldn't remember if site "B" was "bad" or "beautiful".
The hike in was nice - the trail started out uphill, then followed a creek. After passing site A (which looked like a nice option), we went further uphill to site B.
Site B turned out to be "beautiful" (thankfully), but it had 2 strangers occupying it. Hmmm...
Then I noticed a hammock was setup.. "Are you on HammockForums?" "Yes"... found it was CubicleWarrior (from HF) and his friend. I had camped near his dad (Groundhog) at Uwharrie this year. Groundhog also happened to be at Wilderness Logics over the holidays & happened to see them fill my order & sent me PM telling me it was being shipped. Cue the "Small World" music.
Turns out somebody was occupying their site (F) and they were hoping site B would be free. Well, we invited them to stay & we enjoyed a night of hammock talk, a nice fire, and they shared some hot chocolate (and later pop tarts) with my daughter, and some adult beverages with me. Life couldn't get much better.
Now I'm not sure if it was the beverages or what.. but one memorable part was CubicleWarrior shouting out (around midnight?) that he had heard a tree crack, then come crashing down in the woods someplace. I slept thru the crashing part, but I did hear him talking and heard my daughter say she was ok. I do recall being slightly bothered that his friend didn't chime in but not worried enough I guess to go check on him. (If you watch the video, check out the tree I hung off of.. probably not my best choice).
This was my daughters first night in a hammock. She didn't sleep as much as she would have liked, but I'd warned her ahead of time it might not go perfect the first time so she wasn't put off. She was talking about a garage or backyard hang already on the way home
One lesson learned is while hammocks allow you to camp on a hillside, the hillside can be challenge. The ground went from a little slippery to pretty slippery. We ended up holding onto the ridgeline to get everything setup. It was never a real problem but it made me realize how much longer things take compared to flat ground with trees perfectly spaced.
Here's a short video on the trip.
Here's a link to eflat7's 2009 write-up (an oldie but a goodie).
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