Well my wife and got the chance to take a short notice trip. After a little planning we decided to head out to Lake Ouachita, in the Ouachita national forest for a three day/two night trip. This was going to be our first multi-day backpacking trip so I was pretty excited. The weather was going to be mid 80's during the day and around 60 at night. Our packs weighed out at about 18 lbs each. We hiked a total 15 miles over the three days and were the total definition of lazy! It was perfect! We both slept about 11 hours each night, we stayed up late, slept in and went swimming when ever we wanted to. We ate like kings and had the best time of our lives. Now, on to the pics!
We first stepped out onto the trail at the Denby Bay trail head headed to the Eagle Vista spur (6.4 miles) Here we go!
We saw lots of amazing things on the trail including lots of wild boar scat, tracks and even heard them about 20 feet awayWe found this crazy fungus growing on this tree.
This is Mandy about 4 miles down the trail. This was just after the near run-in with some wild pigs. Notice how my knife magically appeared on her pack strap instead of mine. Guess I need buy another one.
We arrived at camp off of the spur trail around 3:00PM. Hiked a total of 7 miles today (partially because of a little confusion at a trail crossing, sorry babe) This swim was amazing! The water pretty warm at the surface but really cold a few feet down. It felt great to just soak in that cold water. There were eagles flying overhead while we enjoyed the sun and water tucked away in this little cove.
Mandy put this old fire ring back together with the addition of a "stove" rock which worked out perfectly. Dinner tonight was Pack-it-Gourmet chicken and dumplings. Absolutely best trail meal I've ever had!
We carried dinner out onto the shore and ate with the sunset. This place is absolutely stunning! Desert was Backpackers Pantry Hot apple cobbler. An extra cup of coffee and a sip of whiskey (40 creek barrel select) around the fire made for a perfect evening.
After dinner I hung the bear bag and finished rigging camp. I love it when we can triangle hang and overlap our tarps. It makes the best camp setup for us.
Morning of day two came at around 9:00am with 11 hours of glorious sleep in the hammock. Also this was the first flight of my "Dangerous Bird" hammock and DIY Apex TQ/UQ. All of my DIY gear worked perfectly the whole trip! Breakfast was some homemade oatmeal and coffee. Once we packed up we were back on the trail by noon and didn't get many pictures because we had such an amazing day I forgot to get the camera out until we got to our next camp.
Our second day we hiked about 5 miles, mostly along the shore line which was pretty awesome and totally different from hiking in the woods all day. Lunch was chicken and rice with a few snack bars along the way. Around 4:00pm we found this quiet spot on the shore with a awesome hang spot just up in the tree line. Mandy made another fire ring similar to the one we used the night before (and we scattered them all back out before we left) Dinner was Mountain House lasagna on the shore watching the sun go down with some chocolate pudding for desert. Then a little after dinner swim and some bourbon around the campfire pretty much rounded out our night.
The morning of day three came again at around 9:00am with another 11 hours of sleep. My "Dangerous Bird" hammock is so comfortable! We got up to a misty cool morning and stoked up the camp fire. Ate breakfast and drank coffee while the sun burned off the mist. Once we were feeling alive again, we packed up "Adventure Camp" which was right on the edge of this mini cliff. (note to self: yes you can camp on the side of a hill, but getting to pee in the middle of the night can be a little tricky! I almost slide right off the edge)
We hiked the three miles back to the trail head, took a shower, changed into our clean clothes we left in the car and made a bee line for Five Guys! It's amazing how satisfying food can be after you've been talking about for three days!
So our first multi-day trip was a success! All of our gear to include my DIY gear worked great. Our GSI dualist cook kit is PERFECT for us! Our packs rode well and we didn't bring anything we didn't use. The Sawyer Squeeze is awesome and filter about 10 liters of lake water and I couldn't tell the difference between the water that came in the bottle and the filtered water. Camp stools are totally worth carrying the extra weight and also do double duty as a make shift latrine seat (it's really nice not to hang your back side in the pine needles first thing in the morning.)
The only thing that could have made this trip better would have been a salt shaker. LoL. We are already planning our next trip along the Buffalo river and I can't wait to get back out on the trail!
Thanks for looking
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Originally Posted by 2ply
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