I'm a backpacker!

I did it! I survived a weekend of real, hard-core camping. No showers, no deodorant, no "creature comforts" of any sort. And I actually enjoyed it! And I'm thinking of doing it again!

I'd always said that I would try backpacking if Mike would organize *everything.* Quite honestly, I thought that would ensure that I would never actually have to do it, since Mike's not really an organizer. But then he did the planning, and so he called my bluff! Initially he said it would be a really easy "intro to camping" (i.e., that it would be a car-camping trip). But then later he let slip that all the car-camping sites at the north shore were already reserved so he "had" to reserve us a "back-country" site. Uh-oh...

So after I got done with my "tour of duty" on Friday, we headed up to Jay Cooke State Park, arriving at about 8pm. So we set off for our 3-mile hike to the site. Here I am, just as we were ready to leave the parking lot:



The trail started off very beautiful - too bad I didn't get a good picture of the swinging bridge and the gorgeous slate slabs in the river. But only a little way in, our nicely mowed path suddenly stopped and we started following a little deer path through the brush. And then came the big streams we had to cross - without any bridges. It was really wet, dirty, and gross, and I was having some serious second thoughts about this whole camping thing. Thankfully, Mike really stepped up and he basically lifted me over the muck so I wouldn't have to get too dirty (he's the best!!). And, luckily, the deer path opened up into a neatly mowed trail again within about 1/2 a mile. Whew!

Brief aside: In addition to sparing me from the muck, I also need to give Mike credit for all our firewood. Since we arrived so late on Friday we were concerned we wouldn't have time to find wood once we got to our campsite. So Mike hiked in about 50lbs of wood that we bought at the ranger station. He really is wonderful, isn't he?!

We finally reached our camp (the "Ash Ridge" site) at dusk. We were able to set up our tent pretty quickly, and then could enjoy the campfire.



Here was our camp in the light of day:





I should also mention that I did an experiment and left my watch in the car for the weekend. It was an oddly terrifying, but also liberating, experience to have really no idea what time it was. We just slept when tired, ate when hungry, and didn't sweat the small stuff. I would recommend (to anyone else who is Type A like me) to try going watch-less at some point and see what it's like!

Here's the beautiful, calm river just a few feet away from our campsite:
(These pictures were taken right after I woke up on Saturday, before the fog completely lifted)




Saturday we spent the day hiking! We walking a loop of about 20km (~12.5 miles) to the "High Trail" lookout point. Well, it certainly was high (my legs were killing me on some of those elevation changes!), but the lookout was mostly blocked by some big trees. Oh, well.






BTW, the bugs got pretty bad on the way back to our camp site:



After sleeping in on Sunday, we leisurely packed back up again and headed out:






Again, overall it was really fun! It was definitely a learning experience for us both, though. For example, now I know the importance of a well-fitting pack (but thanks so much to my coworker Jenna for letting us borrow theirs!) and the importance of knowing how to operate the camp stove! But I liked it enough to agree to another backpacking trip in September - next time we'll be going to Itasca State Park to see the headwaters of the Mississippi! I'm already looking forward to it, which may just mean I'm a backpacker at heart after all.