Backpacking Again

Thanks to Going Gear, I haven’t overnighted in the woods in over a year.  The last trip we did was last January to Cumberland Island, and calling that roughing it is a stretch.  Now that I have lackeys employees, I finally have the ability to take a couple of days off to get outside.  The wife and I are going to head up to North Georgia in the middle of the week next week and wander around in the woods for a bit.  We might even take our mutt, which would be his first overnight trip ever.  I’m sure he is drooling with anticipation.

We are able to go on hikes every now and then, but that’s just not the same.  Having a store full of all this new and high tech gear that I never really get to use has been driving me insane, so I am highly anticipating dragging way too much stuff through the woods, eating freeze dried meals, wishing swift deaths upon Georgia’s insect population, wondering if the bear on the trail is going to get in a fight with our dog, and all that other fun stuff.  Hopefully I do not keel over due to my lack of exercise.

Anyone else been out of the outdoors for too long?  Discuss in the comments or in the forum.

More Callaway Pictures

Here are some more shots from Callaway Gardens. You can find larger versions of all of them in the forums.

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Costa Rica Trip Report Part 4 – Monteverde Day 2

OK, I lied. I only did one trip report last week. After this day’s trip report, it was mostly a bunch of wandering around on the beach, so maybe I’ll actually finish this up this week. Dak had to go and make me look bad by posting his soon after he got back.

Flickr set for Monteverde
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Costa Rica Trip Report Part 3 – Arenal to Monteverde

I think I might actually get two trip reports in this week. Maybe even the rest of them!

The wife got quick sick in the middle of our last night in Arenal, and she was in rough shape the next morning. We were supposed to take a boat across the lake, then take horses most of the way to the Monteverde lodge. The wife tried to get me to still do the horse part, but I figured that would not be the best course of action with one of us having to take regular bathroom breaks. We did the taxi-boat-taxi transfer instead, which would have been really nice in other circumstances. The trip across the lake was chock full of great views of the water with the volcano billowing smoke and ash in the background.

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Costa Rica Trip Report Part 2 – Arenal Day Two

The saga continues…

We woke up and peeked outside at the fire god mountain to see if our deaths were imminent. They didn’t seem to be, but we did notice that the staff were all outside on the restaurant patio looking at the volcano and taking pictures. Kind of odd for people that work there and see it every day, right? The volcano had some pyroclastic flow going on, which was apparently a big deal. Scientists were called, seismographs were checked, trails were closed, etc.

This was what the flow looked like:

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Arenal Volcano Video

It’s super crappy quality and nothing shows up very well, but here is a video shot off my hotel room’s balcony of the active volcano that was in front of our hotel in Arenal, Costa Rica.

Discuss in forums

Trip Report – Tallulah Gorge, GA

I went to Tallulah Gorge up in NE GA a couple of weeks back when it was nice and freezing cold (30s, which is like Antarctica to me). I took the day off from work for the specific purpose of going on a hike, so weather be damned.

You have to get a permit to hike down into the gorge, so we went and got one from the “Interpretive Center” or whatever weirdo name they had for their visitors’ center. The ranger lady sketched out a good route for us on a park map. I thought it was odd that she marked a part on the map down in the gorge that did not have trails for a good mile or so.
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Trip Report – Great Smoky Mountains Part 2

After I got back from BNR, I had one whole day to prepare for my next trip, to the Smokies. This one wasn’t quite roughing it though, since my girl and I stayed in a cabin on top of a mountain with a couple of friends. The cabin was pretty crappy, so I guess it was at least slightly rough. Note to cabin builders: Put insulation in the floors between first and second story bedrooms so you don’t have to hear each other breathing, let alone anything else. It did have a hot tub though, which is always awesome.

We got in on Thursday and after checking in to the cabin, we wandered around Gatlinburg and procured the essential fudge and jerky. A trip to the Smokies is nothing without fudge and jerky. The trip from the cabin in Townsend to Gatlinburg went through Pigeon Forge, so our friends finally understood what we meant when we called Pigeon Forge the “butthole of the southeast.” Gatlinburg looks like Monaco in comparison. We also ate at a mediocre Brewery type restaurant and noticed that Gatlinburg’s restaurants are at least 50% staffed by eastern Europeans. Maybe someone can help me understand why Gatlinburg is the place to go for immigrating Czechs.
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Trip Report – Buffalo National River

Buffalo National River is a National Park in Arkansas, in case you were not already aware of it. I sure wasn’t until I saw a post about it in another forum. My dad and I were planning a backpacking trip, and BNR looked like the perfect spot.

We had planned on backpacking for 5-6 days along the river. When we got to the outfitter, they told us that the river was low but floatable. Couple that with the topo map that made the hikes look pretty brutal to two out of shape guys, and lazily meandering down a calm river seemed awfully appealing. Plus, the trails were mostly loops on top of the bluffs and none really follow the river for its entire length. If I am going to a national park for a river, I want to be on or right next to the river, damnit.
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Trip Report – Great Smoky Mountains

I spent a soaking wet week with my girl in the Smokies a couple of weeks back. It rained literally every day, and rained the entire hike on a couple of the hikes we went on. We were going to backpack a couple of the days, but I wussed out since I messed my ankle up on the AT. We still had fun, since it was a week away from work in the woods, but at least one day with no rain would have been nice.

See the rest with pics and discuss in the forums