The Trail Less Trekked: Test Run

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)