Many years ago, before I had a husband or kids, I used to dream about
getting some gear and going backpacking. Being a college student at
the time, it pretty much stayed a dream because I just could not afford
all the bells and whistles like a decent sleeping bag or a back pack.
In fact, most of my camping and out door gear most closely resembled the
findings at Grogan's War Surplus, of which Patrick McMannus writes so
eloquently in his stories LOL!
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| The day of the big trip! I feel so OLD with all these youngsters :P |
I decided recently that at the fair age of 50, it was time to start DOING the things I had always just dreamed about. So I started researching backpacking and hiking trails and state parks in West Virginia. There is so much in this state it is almost overwhelming! I thought to myself ... "Self, there's the rail trail that passes really close by here - you could go hiking on that. I think there's even a park or something associated with it.". So I looked up North Bend State Park and found out, to my utter delight, that they have a Quest program! This is a wonderful thing for someone like me, who wants to try something out, but doesn't want to spend all the money for gear if they don't know if it will be something they will continue.
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| Marina and Jared |
I signed up for a quest - and started chatting with Steve, the park superintendent, about planning something for dear daughter and I to try. I KNEW it had to have backpacking. And I KNEW it had to have map reading and compass use. Those were absolutes in my mind. What Steve and our two guides, Marina and Jared, came up with blew my expectations out of the water!!
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| North Bend Lake |
We arrived on Monday, August 1st, 2016 to the park and found our way to base camp by around 10am. Marina and Jared had packs, tents, sleeping bags, compasses, and a variety of other things laid out for us to inspect. We started out with the basics of packing a pack and what things were necessary to take into the woods and took an hour to learn how to pack the packs and adjust them for our backs. Then we started on the fundamentals of reading USGS maps, what all those symbols mean and how to use a protractor and compass (hint, it's not like the ones you used in math class, folks :P )
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| Off we go! |
We piled in to a Park Service van and headed to the drop off point on the other side of the lake and from there used our compasses to navigate to our first map coordinates. Each point on the map that we found had our next way point tucked up in a plastic bottle.
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| Happy Campers! |
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| Which way do we go? |
It was like a treasure map leading us to our camp site. We came to a gorgeous little spot on Lost Creek just before it runs in to North Bend Lake. We stopped and had lunch and a demonstration of different types of water filters. You would not believe how clear this water was! So beautiful, and it's not a place you can ever get to by car.
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| Look how clear that water is! It was deep too, About 2 to 3 feet deep under that stump! That's where we refilled our water bottles. |
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| Little Brazil |
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| Too much condensation, not enough evaporation :P |
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Then, when we were sustained for the last leg of our journey, we started up the hill. I remember Drag Ass hill from Basic Training on Ft. Jackson, South Carolina ... and it had NOTHING on this hill. We trudged, we sweated, we condensed, we had too little evaporation of the condensation, we huffed, we puffed ... it was Little Brazil, in Jared's words.
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| It looks like we go that-a-way |
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| I'd like to introduce you to my leezard friend |
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There were a lot of very interesting things we saw before we made it to camp, including an Osprey nest on our way to the drop off point, many blue jays and even a few red headed woodpeckers. Squirrels and deer kept us company and at one point, we even saw a little, bitty lizard. Marina also caught a tiny toad that hopped across our path.
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| Osprey Nest on North Bend Lake |
So much Nature! This place really is a gem hidden in the hills of West Virginia. Did you know that Euelle Gibbons loved this place?
I like this quote from him...
"My love affair with nature is so deep that I am not satisfied with being
a mere onlooker, or nature tourist. I crave a more real and meaningful
relationship. The spicy teas and tasty delicacies I prepare from wild
ingredients are the bread and wine in which I have communion and
fellowship with nature, and with the Author of that nature."
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| Boaters on North Bend Lake. We were looking forward to our turn the next day |
We finally made it to the top, with a view of the lake and a
wonderful clearing where we took off our packs. What a relief it was to get the air flowing over us. The trail was
only around 3 miles, but for this old, fat woman, it was a challenging
trek.
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| Hey, look! It's camp! |
Setting up camp was easy, everything was on a slope, so we set our tent
and sleeping bags up so our heads would be uphill. We left the rain
flies off the tents, trusting that we would would not get rained on in
the night.The tent was simple to set up and we decided to pitch right next to
Marina as that was the most level area. Jared had the right idea to hang in his hammock!
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Boots and packs OFF!
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They don't look so big now!
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Maybe the tent could double as a summer bobsled?
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| Camp Cooking! |
Jared brought out his Primus dual gas stove and demonstrated how to set it up and get it lit. It sounded like an old steam train, it was so loud, but it boiled water really fast. I liked how compact it was and that the stove bit sat a little ways from the fuel canister. This differs from Isobutane/Propane mix canister stoves in that those sit on top of the fuel.
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| Add more sauce! I think we have enough :P |
Supper was spaghetti and sauce, and a Chicken and potatoes Mountain House meal to share between the 4 of us. Marina was not so sure about the dehydrated chicken pieces, but once they were re-hydrated, they were pretty good. The potatoes, we put too much water in them and they turned in to potato soup, but they were still pretty good. We had the Lord's plenty of spaghetti sauce, as Steve had made sure we took a large plastic canister of Ragu with us LOL! I think we used about 1/4 of that container. We were all full and happy after that meal :D
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| So sad, even in the woods I am a Facebook junky! |
After supper, we had a camp fire and enjoyed watching the wildlife. There was a dear that would come out in to the clearing a bit above camp. She would start to graze, look up at us and then go bolting in to the woods. A few minutes later she would repeat this performance. I think she did it 4 or 5 times during the course of our evening. We talked about all the animals we had seen - a wood chuck, several squirrels, all the birds, and we talked about the different trees and plants that could be found in the park. We talked about nature conservancy, soil science and college. There is nothing like a campfire under the stars to bond with other human beings!
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| I love campfires at night |
Finally, it was time to call it a night and head for bed. Jared had gone to hang the garbage up in a tree and place the Bear Vault canister, where all our food was stored, well away from camp.
Even though we saw no evidence of them, there are black bears on park property, not to mention raccoons and other varmints that will get in to your stuff, you always want to hang your food at least 10 feet off the ground or put it in a bear can type set up to keep it safe from the critters.
We could see the stars well from our tent and without light pollution, it was quite a display. We were lulled to sleep by the croaking of tree frogs and the occasional hoot of an owl hunting for their supper.
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| Still asleep at 7:30 am |
Breakfast the next morning was oatmeal and another Mountain House to split between the 4 of us. The biscuits and gravy was quite good, though it was more like gravy and biscuity dumplings. We cleaned up camp and headed back down to the little pool in Lost
Creek where we met up with Ken and Kathy, rangers at the park, who had
brought us kayaks and took our packs.
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| Eastern Rose Mallow |
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We slathered up in sun screen and learned the basics of getting in to a touring canoe without falling on one's face in the water. It was fun to paddle around in the outlet. Then we headed out on to the lake. We went all over, seeing geese and deer and some amazing flowers. Jared told us that last summer, there was a deer that swam out to the island to give birth to her fawn, so this little baby deer stayed there all summer till it was big enough to swim to the mainland on it's own!
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| It's around here somewhere! |
We paddled to the dam, a water conservation and flood control project on Lost Creek, and we found a Geocache in the little island in the lake. There is so much to this park I had never even imagined. And it is so close by where I live! I feel like I've neglected a treasure!
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Oooh! Squeaky toys!
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| And now for something completely different ..... BOATS! |
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| Row, row row row your boat ... |
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| Gently down the stream .... |
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| Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily .... |
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| Life is but a dream! |
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| OUCH! |
I should have listened to Marina when she asked if I needed more sunscreen. ADVICE - if your guides tell you to put on sunscreen, you put on sunscreen. I ended up with a nasty kayaker's sunburn on the inside of both legs. Lesson learned!
(Update) I will blog later about this sunburn and the resulting doctor's visit and medical leave I have taken as a result. USE SUNSCREEN FOLKS!!
We took the kayaks to the boating ramp and headed back to base camp where we showered and cleaned up, and set up our tents for one more night. North Bend State Park restaurant made us some yummy box lunches of ham sandwiches, chips, cookies, soda and watermelon. The sweat bees liked the watermelon too as marina found out when she got stung :/ Pesky bees!
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| Demonstrating their base camp bush craft |
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| Oh yum! |
That evening, Marina and Jared cooked steak, potatoes, grilled peppers, onions, zucchini and mushrooms over a hot coal base in the fire pit and we enjoyed talking about everything we saw on the lake, and about the Quest program. Next year, they are considering incorporating climbing in to the program as there are some very nice boulder problems and 1 pitch climbs throughout the park.
This is the second year they have been doing Quest, and there are some great
plans to expand the program next year. With some luck and some good
resources to reach out to in the schools and Upward Bound and
Envirothon, hopefully this will be a program that the State sees a great
deal of value in and continues not only in North Bend, but in all the
state parks.
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| The lodge at North Bend |
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I highly recommend reaching out to Steve, Marina, Jared, Ken, Kathy and the rest of the great crew at North Bend and scheduling your own Quest. It was very affordable for dear daughter and I, with the variety of things we did, coming in at under $400 with much education and exposure to new things. You can build a Quest that suites you for as many or as few days and activities that you want and according to your own pocket book. They have guided nature hikes, classes in fishing, boats to rent, two camp grounds, a play ground, minature golf ... there is so much here it would take you a month to do it all! And if camping isn't your thing, there's a lodge where you can rent a room.
Coming up at the end of August, they will be hosting BOW - Becoming an Outdoor Woman - with many different classes for women 18 years of age and up. From the web site ...
August 26-28, 2016
Becoming an Outdoors Woman (BOW)
Becoming an Outdoors Woman is a three
day, two night event dedicated to instruction about and interpretation
of the outdoors and outdoor activities. Becoming an Outdoors Woman (BOW)
offers hands-on, outdoor workshops held in a safe, supportive
atmosphere with patient, enthusiastic instructors. No experience or
special equipment is necessary. BOW is for adult women of all ages and
fitness levels.
This weekend, titled BOW-Quest
includes instruction and experiencing Survival Skills, Trail Biking,
Lake Fishing, Kayaking, Map & Compass and other outdoor based
activities, speakers and interaction. Registration and fee information
and classes content are linked below. Advance reservation/registration
is required.
I recommend any woman to take advantage of this opportunity to learn and grow in the context of the great outdoors in Wild Wonderful West Virginia! I recommend any PERSON, man or woman, going to North Bend State Park and taking advantage of all the great outdoor offerings they have for the whole family!
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| We HAVE to do this again soon! |
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The first few days after we got home, I was in severe pain. My legs were intensely red, my feet and legs were swelling and it was excruciating to even walk. Moving my feet from being elevated to the floor was enough to make me sick, and standing up was an exercise in determination.
