Swift Camp Creek Trail - Red River Gorge, KY

Saturday morning I left out for Red River Gorge, Swift Camp Creek Trail to break in my new hiking boots and test out my new Tempurpedic ProLight sleeping pad. This trail was designated as hard and I wanted a challenge to prep me for my trip, well I got what I asked for. The trail is in the Clifty Wilderness area of the Gorge, it was a beautiful trail and truly "clifty" that follows the creek. But there are several parts where it was ridiculously narrow so you had to focus on your footing (FYI I am extremely ungraceful), there were a few parts where I felt like it was just a mad scramble and a little luck that got you up the muddy embankment without falling face first into the mud. I set up camp by following Dog Fork Creek (a shoot off of the main creek) due to the park rule that require campsites to be 300 feet away from the trail this was the best location for me to get off the trail and follow the river down to a nice area that seemed to have gotten a lot of use from other hikers with the same idea.
 By the time I got up the creek to the campsite my new boots were slightly wet on the inside but the biggest problem was the soles of my feet were sore because the Dr. Scholls foot inserts kept sliding around in my boot when I would go up or down hills. But my feet felt so good at first with that extra padding the inserts gave me, so I am back to the drawing board on this idea.
That night I had the Chicken Alfredo Mountain House Meals, it smelled amazing upon opening up the bag, like a big bag of popcorn (the reason for which I later found out was that it had a ton of dried white cheddar as seasoning). The pasta was very good I accidentally added to much water making it a bit watered down, but that is what I get for "eyeballing" the measurement.
When I went to bed I was LAZY and draped the back portion of my tent with my rain fly (I feel slightly claustrophobic with the rain fly on completely) good thing that I did because at 4:20am I was rudely woken up by it raining on my face. At that point I began scrambling around trying to get all the corners tied down and covering little leaf (tent). LESSON LEARNED: at least tie down lower portion of rain fly before bad that way when it does start raining the only part remaining is the top part. (My main issue was that I wear contacts/glasses - I have to be within a foot or so to see something clearly, so squatting down/bending down to the ground trying to get the little hooks of the fly onto the tent - VERY ATTRACTIVE)
I woke up again at 9am, it was STILL raining steadily. I laid there debating my option of trying to wait it out or march on ahead. Since it didn't sound like it was letting up any time soon I choose to go ahead and pack up. Since I was trying to stay as dry as possible till I hit the trail I choose to pack up my backpack while in the tent (which was comical), I was wallering around in my tiny tent trying to get my sleeping bag in its bag then trying to roll up my sleeping pad (which is the length of my tent), still not sure how I did that one. By the end of packing up I was a hot mess.
The hike back to the car while very wet was uneventful. The trail was even muddier and slipperier than the day before at times I thought for sure I was going to get a nice exfoliating mud bath or go rolling down the hillside.

Summary: Boots have officially been broken in, the sleeping pad works amazing (like sleeping on a cloud), need to figure out foot insert issue, and tie down bottom part of rain fly before dark and raining.

Test Run - Cumberland Gap

Mom and I wanted to give my gear a test run prior to heading west so we squeezed a back country hike on August 3-4.  We drove down to the Cumberland Gap and did part of there Ridge Trail, we hiked in at Lewis Hollow Trail and camped at Martins Fork for the night. Total miles hiked was around 26 miles, yes we were exhausted and physically in pain by the time we got back to the car.

First off I think we were a little overeager on what we thought we could do and the time we could do it in. The way to our campsite was a little ruff mainly due to the constant up hills. We would go down for a bit but then up for what felt like forever. And this is coming from someone who likes going uphill than down. Mom and I also would swear those stupid mileage signs were liars. We would hike for what seemed like two miles then as soon as we would discuss that we must have gone a couple miles with in the next hundred feet we would find a mileage sign that said we only went one (VERY depressing). Once we finally made it to camp and sat with our swollen feet in the cool water. we had a very nice dinner of lasagna from the dehydrated meals, we boiled water over my MSR Pocket Rocket which didn't take 5 minutes to boil then put the water in the bag with the noodles and waited.

The night was the most interesting, Mom decided not to pack her rain fly for her tent due to the added weight, even though it was a 50% chance on rain. It didn't start raining until full dark but when it did it poured. Mom's tent was drenched, luckily for her there was a small uninhabited cabin on the grounds where she took her sleeping bag and "tried" to sleep underneath the porch. I by the way while mom was in the middle of a tsunami, I was nice and dry in my little sierra, "Leaf" is it's name. But I would have to say it felt like I was camped right under a waterfall. Once it finally stopped raining I heard mom yell "GET OUT OF HERE" then heard something scuttle of the roof. Not five minutes after that did mom come to my tent and told me to scoot over. I will tell you this right now if you want to fit two people in a one person tent you better really love them because you are going to be right smack on top of them. And if your like me and like to roll around while you sleep two people makes it really ruff.

The way out was long but easier due to most of it being down hill, even though my toes were being crammed into the front of my boot the whole time. Once we finally made it back we nursed our wounds and treated ourselves to a PEPSI!!!! I know we went all out on that one :)

At the end of the hike we determined we both needed new hiking boots and I needed a sleeping pad. The only wildlife we saw was a turtle named "Speedy 2" and a frog which was so lost we saw him going in and going out. BUT after we were getting onto the main road we saw a very large doe not 30 feet from the road... (Typical)

Mom's Rigged Boots

Fence at Hennesy

Morning in the Forest (Peaceful)

Leaf with its rain fly

Dew caught in a Spider Web

 

Buying Equipment

I don't know what most of you keep in your houses/attics but when I decided to go backpacking for this long distance journey I realized I was grossly unprepared for four and five night back country camping in WY and CO. In Kentucky I would be fine with the glow and the dark American Girl sleeping bag or the tin clunky mess kit that I have had since I was in the Girls Scouts. With temperatures averaging low 30's at night in Wyoming in September I felt it was in my best interest buy by new equipment. The only item that isn't new would be my backpack that I bought for my backpacking trip to Europe a few years ago.

So below is a list of my new products:
Kelty - Cosmic 20 degree down women's sleeping bag - 21oz
Sierra Designs - Light Year 1 person tent - 2lbs 11oz
MSR Pocket Rocket - 3oz
8oz fuel can that is suppose to last me 60 minutes
Bear Vault 450 - Capacity 7.2 Liters - 2lbs 1oz

The only reason for the Bear Vault is because I am going to the Grand Tetons (they require it) and apparently the bears there are smarter than your average bear.