1st night:
- lots of hurt - back, bruising on love handles & hips, precarious knees
- very thirsty
- lots of lovely wind
- sometimes felt like I should be in more authentic clothes, like pants & tunic in a desert in the Middle East or Sahara
- sometimes, with some distance from the group, felt like an individual quest
- more about the endurance, the will-power, the independence
- I find it a forbidding landscape. sometimes it can be strikingly pretty; rugged, ancient, haggard.
- enjoying it as an experience, not as an actual natural communion or landscape
- I think this is the first time I've actually been camping - owp, no, river rafting. but almost. I always knew I loved it.
2nd night:
- ow. very precarious knees. I was seriously worried. and my back is dead. shoulders & hips fine, though.
- feels awesome to drink natural in-the-wild water (filtered, bien sur)
- long long long day. much easier when the distances and goals were definitive, much harder when we didn't know
- frustrating pace of slowness & frustrating when the group would wait up and then take off so we didn't have a break
- loved the narrows - crawling, lots of time in the water, also the point where I knew our goals & I felt so much happier - even sang a few Andrew Bird songs as we went
- Melissa & Abby are hilarious. love being with them
- in the water, with the snake grass on the sides and my pack - felt like Vietnam
- with poncho, felt like a hobbit
- some beautiful sandstone cliffs
- good backpacking experience, having fun despite some crappy situations - would love it MUCH more in the shenandoah.
whoever put this picture on facebook labeled me as 'granola'... really?
I went camping up American Fork Canyon with andy on thursday night. I think we fared quite well for 2 rather inexperienced campers :) we were going to go with his sister mary and the kids but she decided she needed to get some other stuff done instead. I was so sad at another outdoor adventure falling through that andy said, hey let's go anyway! and we did and it made me so happy.
our plan was to camp on the north side of the alpine loop so we could drive down and hike up to timp cave early in the morning before it got too hot. we planned to camp at granite flat, but the campsites were all full, so we headed over to some more free-spirited camping right next door. we found a great little spot under some lovely trees and right next to the creek (andy informs me that I am not allowed to make fun of people who say 'crik'. thanks to bloomability, I wasn't planning on it).
well, neither of us slept very well in the cold (my joints never do too well with quick temperature changes) so when we woke up in the morning and should've gotten up to go hiking, we didn't. we lazed around and slept some more in the warmer morning. and then it took us like a million years to roll up the self-inflatable pads - true to their REI customer reviews, they didn't compact down to stuff sack size very well.
so then we didn't quite have time to do the hike, take the cave tour, and get home for showers before I had to be at work. instead, we mosied around tibble fork reservoir, skipped some stones, waded in the freezing water, before we drove the alpine loop the long way home. it was lovely :)
the reservoir
on the loop:
of course, andy was adorable in all of the pictures we took
but for some strange reason, I looked like a fool every time
so here's all you get of me:
I love my keens :)
our plan was to camp on the north side of the alpine loop so we could drive down and hike up to timp cave early in the morning before it got too hot. we planned to camp at granite flat, but the campsites were all full, so we headed over to some more free-spirited camping right next door. we found a great little spot under some lovely trees and right next to the creek (andy informs me that I am not allowed to make fun of people who say 'crik'. thanks to bloomability, I wasn't planning on it).
well, neither of us slept very well in the cold (my joints never do too well with quick temperature changes) so when we woke up in the morning and should've gotten up to go hiking, we didn't. we lazed around and slept some more in the warmer morning. and then it took us like a million years to roll up the self-inflatable pads - true to their REI customer reviews, they didn't compact down to stuff sack size very well.
so then we didn't quite have time to do the hike, take the cave tour, and get home for showers before I had to be at work. instead, we mosied around tibble fork reservoir, skipped some stones, waded in the freezing water, before we drove the alpine loop the long way home. it was lovely :)
the reservoir
on the loop:
of course, andy was adorable in all of the pictures we took
but for some strange reason, I looked like a fool every time
so here's all you get of me:
I love my keens :)ahhh I can't wait to get my own camping gear!!
I recently got my own climbing harness.
next step, sleeping bag and pad
(pfft who needs a tent anyway? not me)
then ... BACKPACK!
I recently got my own climbing harness.
next step, sleeping bag and pad
(pfft who needs a tent anyway? not me)
then ... BACKPACK!
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