I am going to get things started with an abbreviated trip report and will leave the greater detail and pictures to others. Long story short... WE HAD A BLAST!!
We started arriving at about 10:30 on Friday with emcee, olddog, grinder, and samsara (and Scooby the dog that lives with samsara) heading out to the camp site first along the scenic trail that is about a two mile hike to the camp site. The camp set up began with two dutch ovens (a 12" and a 10") a few camp chairs and a search for more firewood. Soon happycamaper and his son (forgot his forum name) showed up with some store bought firewood and then headed out for more that they had in their car. The multiple trips would be a theme with lilricky as the raining champion for most trips along the trail.
More folks filtered in and we soon had a dozen people including three from Canada. Scooby got dropped off at home (another trip for samsara after two others before the official hike even began) and then the steaks started hitting the grill. There were steaks, sausages, tinfoil baked potatoes, tinfoil veggies, and other delicious creations to eat. The festivities really began when olddog made a big peach cobbler in the dutch oven for everyone.
The next morning we started climbing out of our hammocks to a nice campfire... I mean cooking fire. There is a burn ban in the county for everything but cooking fires, fortunately we were almost constantly cooking on our fire anyway so we were legal. We made possibly the best mountain man breakfast anyone has ever had (maybe we were just that hungry), especially when mixed with some of olddog's delicious grits. We relaxed for a while around the cooking fire, trying to let all of that great food settle.
About 11 we headed out for our hike to the lakeside camp site and a trip to "the cypress trees". These were ones we visited during the fall hang but many more got to join in this time. We came back to the camp site to find a few more folks that couldn't make it on Friday and our numbers got up to the 18 mark. We had lunch, napped, relaxed, visited, watched lilricky do trip after trip out to bring more stuff, and relaxed some more.
That evening everyone made their dinners and punctuated it with another world famous olddog cobbler. Everyone sat around the cooking fire and had a great time. I think sometimes our laughter could be heard for miles! It was a good time. Eventually everyone headed off to their hammocks for another peaceful nights sleep. This night would be better than the previous because it was quite a bit cooler (it got up to 87 on Friday and didn't cool off near enough that night).
Sunday morning found everyone telling about the strange bird that they heard flying around camp clicking and making a strange noise. I think it was either lilricky or Melissa trying to find their hammock again
The mountain man breakfast for Sunday is going to be legendary. It had 54 eggs, 4 bell peppers, 2 onions, a pound or two of sausage, and a pound of cheese. It came out like a french chef can only dream about! We all ate too much then packed up for the final trip back out to the road.
I know that I had a great time and I think everyone agreed. We are already planning on Sherpa-Con 2013. There is plenty of room at the camp site for many more people... so don't be shy and come on down next year!
Dave
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