I am a little late with this trail report, but here it is. This trip had been planed for several weeks.
On Friday September the 16th me and my son (8) picked up my brother and my sisters son (8) and took them a local state park for the boys first overnight. The park has 4 trails ranging from 3 to 20 miles, with loops that you can mix & match to get the miles that you want. They also have 3 shelters, I opted to stay at one of them so no one had to pack a tent. I brought along my hammock & tarp. (Warbonnet Outdoors) I had my brother try it out, I didn't try too hard to show him how good it was, I didn't want him to steal it. lol
Since this was the boys first time and my brothers first time backpacking, I took them through the easy way, about 1.6 miles to the shelter. We had some bad storms back in May, so there was plenty of firewood on the ground. The boys loved the fire, I thought that they were going burn every leaf & twig on the ground. Normally I just use my alcohol stove, but for the boys we did hotdogs, marshmallows & smores over a fire. I tried out some of my Packet Gourmet meals. They are very good, I even tried cornbread in a skillet, it tasted good, but I would not win any prizes for looks. Very hard to flip it over without it folding in half. The temps were good, no one got cold & the boys never got scared.
The next morning we cooked bacon, pancakes & biscuits. Freezing the bacon the night before works pretty good. I know some of you will get a big laugh out of this, but my brother has done lots of car & canoe camping, but never backpacking. I had told him I would handle most everything, but he would be in charge of cooking the bacon and that I only had one skillet, for the pancakes. He had brought a 12” cast iron skillet for the bacon. It worked great, but I was glad I was not carrying it.
We only did a short 1 mile hike without packs and then hiked back to the trailhead, I had been having major sinus issues for a couple of days and my brother had work to do, so we cut it a little short.
Hopefully we will do again soon, I know my son would go again, all I have to do is say the word.



My brother, my son, nephew & me on the right.


My son making himself at home in the shelter.


FIRE!! We must play in the Fire! Could not keep them out.


My hammock & tarp set up. Perfect weather.


Heading back to the truck.