What are you doing this weekend??

“LOL LyndyS

So far this weekend I got in about 3 hours of blowdown removal in Saint Mary's Wilderness before it started raining - it was OK - I had practiced Tree-age and took care of the worst ones first - mainly just step overs with a couple straddles left. Tomorrow I get to see my son for the day - orders from the ex is to give him a talking to about getting caught browsing the porn sites (sigh). Sunday looks a bit like rain so I may just go up to Big Meadows in SNP to look at some trail maintenance stuff - its the 25th anniv. of the Wilderness act for SNP wilderness areas.”

“You're a good fella, HOI. Good luck with your day with your son.”

“Keep up the good work HOI!

This weekend, I'm gonna lay around on the sofa and watch Football and Racing!
It's good to be a guy.”

“was supposed to go to St. Georges Island, but the automobile is making a "funny" $ound....instead,
i am going climbing......the ladder, hammering, sawing
screening.... .. sweep the pine needles off the roof....i love being on the roof.....maybe its the elevation gain...
if its nice. steal my sons truck while he is asleep sunday morning and take the kayak out to cedar key after temple”

“Hey Chas- Have a good time at Jefferson (now I actually know, where you're talkin' about)

Walkindude- You got the right idea, for this weekend! Good thing my kid's a football fan”

“Kids are going to swimming lessons, on sunday if it's raining i might take a short hike to the ice caves @ Big Four and see if there is any thing neat going on there.”

“Same as the last three weekends....working.”

“Well the backyard campout with the brownie girl scouts went really well. We did some relay races and leaf rubbings. Then the we had dinner and the kids danced to some kidbop music. When it got dark, we set up a pit campfire with charcoal (too dry lately for a wood fire). The six year olds were so cute in their pajamas, standing around the campfire singing songs like a group of little entertainers. Apparently they sing a lot in 1st grade. Then we got them to settle down to sleep. One of my friends and her daughter decided to sleep out under the stars, outside of the tent, with me. My daughter said "What are you, nuts!" Of course then the clouds rolled in, and we worried that we would get rained on, but it was fine. We had an incident in one tent at 10:45 with a VERY large spider. Most of the parents didn't sleep well, but the kids slept soundly. The temperature stayed between 50 and 60 degrees all night, which helped make things more enjoyable. All in all, the kids had a blast, and the parents decided that they couldn't wait for the kids to get older, so that they could troop camp without their parents. My co-leader, who is a guy, was the worst whiner. Every time he opened his mouth, my friend or I would say, "Put a sock in it" until it got to be a silly joke. But we all really had a great time. Now to get them into the real woods.”

“I forgot to mention the apple-bobbing, where I discovered that my town has tripled the amount of chlorine that they are putting in the water. Kinda ominous. And I failed to get the apple, and almost drowned myself. The kids, with their missing front teeth, were expert at it, though.”

“I'm looking for a house. Watch out, me & my motorcycle could be moving to YOUR neighborhood, vroooooooom.”

“Friday I went camping with a life long friend. We set up camp and started in clearing brush and dead trees and limbs away, we cut the grass and ran a weedeater around everything that didn?t move, or didn?t move fast enough.

That done, we went about cutting enough firewood to last our camp for the winter, it took us until after dark to get it done and we were spent. We decided we?d bow hunt in the morning, but we both needed a shower and some grub in us so, off to my house we tore.

I started supper for us while he was getting his shower and I also threw the makings in an ice-chest for breakfast, lunch and dinner the next night. I hauled out the pots pans and things to go with it all and had most of it in the truck by the time he got out. He helped me finish up and we had supper.

That done I cleaned up the kitchen and myself and we tore back off for the woods and a good nights sleep. Before we got back to camp though we started seeing deer cross the roads on us and we decided to ride around a bit and see what was stirring. We saw lots of deer that night and one big bullwinklel of a critter. He had horns a plenty and they stood tall and wide off of his proud head. He was in no hurry standing in the road, he knew we meant him no harm, he just stood there looking at us. We parted ways not long after that and made our way back to a dark camp.

I got a fire up and glowing and my friend put us some coffee on to boil. We talked about the morning hunt and of hunts long ago, we laughed and carried on like the kids we once were when we first started camping together. It was great to see through his eyes and know he saw some things the same as I do. We made an end to the coffee and easy talk and fell off to sleep.

Not long into the night our sleep was shortened by lightening and the crack of thunder. It was close and loud when it next struck and it just got worse from then on out for the next five hours. The wind came up and blew us around some and we got wet in places, the blowing rain couldn?t be kept out. We did the best we could and made do until the worst of it blew out. We trailed back off to sleep with a steady rain beating out the rhythm to sleep by. I love the sound of beating rain and a good sound and light show isn?t to be missed either.

The alarmclock went off and neither of us bothered to turn it off, we just let the wind-up clock wind down. It was coming down in buckets, there was no way we could set in that mess and ever hope to see anything moving. The added few hours of sleep were welcome because of the lack we got during the storm. We did wake up not long after it got light though and when the rain let a bit we went about getting a fire up and breakfast on and coffee going good. I love breakfast cooked over an open fire pit and fresh hot coffee to wash it down.

That done we cleaned up a bit and decided to ride around and see what we might. We didn?t get very far until we had to turn around and come back to camp for my truck and the chainsaws. Trees were down across the roads everywhere and we couldn?t even pull them outta the way with the truck and a chain, they were just to big. We spent the better part of Saturday cutting trees and clearing the roads, we could hear saws off in the distance and knew that others must be doing the same. Good thing or we would have never got done in a day, we had rode out the high winds of a few tornadoes and we never even knew it. We never thought to turn a radio on, we both just enjoy it being quiet.

After we cut our way out we went and got more gas for the saws and helped finish up on some other roads in that part of the country. The storm messed up our plans, but we had a great time, just like always, it never turns out like you think it will when you camp, you just got to go with what you get and make the best of it.

Good Friends, Good Times!!!

---Bigfoot”

“THE BigFoot or someone else? Is BigFoot using a new name now? Great story no matter who you are. Glad you weren't in the path of one of those blowdowns.”

“Thanks Spellchecker sweetie!

LyndyS, it is my story of this weekend, but I lost spellcheck when my computer crashed.

I`m glad you liked it, sorry it was so long!”

“Just came back from an overnighter. It was very sunny and mild. Turned in at 8pm...tried to get some sleep. Can't, because I usually sleep around 3 to 4am. The wind picked up (it was actually howling) at midnight and was whipping the branches around. Got only a few shut eyes since it was so noisy. Started BPking again at 7am and the wind hadn't died down. Really tried now.”

“Well
went to Harriman to see the leaves turn. It wound up to be the weekend that 120 Boy Scouts showed up to train for philmont. Luckly we didnt see much of them. Friday night - under the stars away from the shelter. Dry camp.

Saturday was interesting. We did 10 miles that day. THERE WAS NO WATER!!. We only had what we lugged in on Friday. All the areas that usually have water were dried up. One of the boys managed to scare a rattlesnake in a dry stream though. So by 2:30pm we got to a road and I walked down to where we were parked and loaded up with water to bring back to the group. They rejuvinated and we wound up hiking up to the cave shelter. Beautiful area overlooking the park. Campfire Had a great night under the stars again. Slept in and after walking out on Sunday we went to a diner and ate vast amounts of food.

This was the boys first exposure to what "dry" really means. It wasn't bad - could have been alot worse. Good thing thought - the boys really pulled thru.”

“Just waiting now to see if I won anything in the Lions Club Oktoberfest cash raffel. Daylong rain Saturday didn't seem to dampen Oktoberfest spirits, but lots of beer, schnitzel, bratwurst, and Black Forest torts can drive away any thoughts of bad weather outside the big tent. Friday night I experienced a first: "Eidelweiss" performed on Austrian cowbells. Saturday night brought an alpenhorn (like those in the Riccola lozenge ads) player who took a break from the German tunes to toot out "On Wisconsin" and a couple rock tunes. That's some lung power.”

“Not much. Took a night hike in PQ canyon. I saw more f&*king mulies then you could shake a stick at. Couple of track that looked like moutain lion. Got to test out he red lense for my flashlight. Complete waste of money, should of put it toward a PT Photon II.”

“Just got back from an awesome solo trip in the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness.

I'd been avoiding this area of the wilderness for years as it is normally a zoo. As the guidebook says, up to 500 people visit on a good August weekend.

I can see why! The place is amazing. I entered from the south on the PCT to Jefferson Park. On the way up you only get glimpses of the very top of the mountain. At the 7000' saddle that overlooks the Jefferson Park area, the view is breath taking. Mt. Jefferson occupies the entire southern horizon and the park plateau with open meadows and lots of lakes lies a thousand feet below.

Saturday was a clear but windy day. The visibility was great. I climbed a peak to the west of the saddle. From that vantage point I could see east across the Oregon desert all the way to the Blue Mountains. To the West the coast mountains were clearly visible. I dropped down the saddle into the park and spent the night at Russell Lake.

Today was an entirely different story! Around 3 AM a storm blew in. And I do mean BLEW in. Jefferson Park is a plateau that is more like a big saddle. A major drainage flows out the west. The east drainage is narrower and makes for a perfect funnel.

I'll have to give high marks to my newly acquired SIL Shelter. I'd estimate the sustained wind at about 35 to 40 miles an hour with much higher gusts. Rain was flying sideways and in great sheets. I thought for sure that the SIL Shelter was toast but it handled every gust and I stayed bone dry. Of course I didn't get a lot of sleep.

Around 8 AM it became evident that the storm was not going to subside anytime soon. So, I packed up and made a run for the trailhead. The clouds were screaming low across the sky. Upon reaching the saddle the winds were raging. At one point I had to do a quick two step shuffle and plant my poles to keep from being blown off the ridge. Woo Hoo. Decending toward the trailhead I finally hit the tree line and the relative safety of the forest. The wind through the tops of the trees was deafening. There was fresh blow down everywhere. After passing through 6000' the winds subsided and it was a fast truck to the trailhead.

All in all a great trip. It's been awhile since I've been in a storm like that and the scenery from yesterday made it all worth while.”

“I had a great time at the rain delayed Busch Race, but lost my shorts at the casino. Big wreck on I-40 had me sitting behind a semi for three hours till I could go eight miles to the next exit. I took a detour and made the 200 mile trip in 7 hours.

I will be in the woods next weekend. Civilization is making me crazy.”

“Oh man that race was cool! Green didn't win and Randy Lajoy being the punka$$ he is backed into a win and then got stuck in the grass doing post race burnouts.”

“Hey Chas- Wild times huh? Glad to hear that your SIL held up. Had you rigged something, for that closure, or do alright without?

Maybe we can head in there, next time I'm down your way. It sounds awesome.”

“I wanted to see Jay Sauter win. Green was roughing him up, but the 'incident' was on the far turn from me so I couldn't tell exactly what happened.

Did you see me on TV? I was the one with a beer in one hand and a flag in the other. I was wearing a NASCAR T-shirt with a pretty decent mustard stain on my belly and a 'NRA forever' hat.”

“Hey bc, it would be a good trip around this time of year. Except for two day hikers, I had the whole place to myself. Anytime during the summer though and the place is crowded. They do have a quota but day hikers are exempt. However, as is my nature, I did spy quite a few off trail opportunities.”

“Sounds like you live dangerously, ChinaChas. An experience like that would scare the crap out of me, but sounds like it was just a weekend in the park to you. Awesome places that you have access to.”

“LyndyS, the Boy Scouts sum it up best . . . "Be Prepared."

Although the weather folks didn't really predict such a blow, I was well equipped to handle it. Actually, it could have been worse. The temperature was around 38 degrees. Just a few more degrees lower and it could have been a tad more challenging.”

“I agree with ChinaChas ... "Be Prepared". I take a big pack even for dayhikes. On our 30 day trip, our packs were pretty light (not ultralight) but we were prepared for rain, wind, and snow.

I'm working on this weekends canoe trip report, and will add it to my Trips thread.

This coming weekend will be the 49th consecutive weekend in the wilderness for me. I have to break that chain the following weekend to attend a wedding in Chicago. Anyone from CA going out to the Sierras? I'm flexible, will drive up as far as Mammoth, maybe Bridgeport.”

“Snow Nymph, that is a very impressive record - 49 weekends in a row!”

“This is the weekend to make sure everything is good to go for the trip to the Big Bend. Only 8 days until I am out here...visibility this morning at +/- 130 miles. Big Bend”

“I think I'll do the Manistee River Trail - again. 4th time this year. Can't stand to sit inside!”

“blodd mtn wilderness for the eleventyhundredeth time!”

“"blood"!

and no more sarabelle for me! harrumph!”

“West Rim Trail at the Pine Creek Gorge, PA, with RichB, Steiny and M.Silver.”

“Getting my stuff together for Ocala National Forest next weekend.”

“sweet! i was actually thinking about heading to ONF, THIS weekend, but i have a lot of driving to do, the next two weekends.”

“Every year I head out at this time for a weekend alone when the leaves are all falling and everything is so beautiful. This year I'm going to do the whole south loop of Shawnee State forest in sothern Ohio. I'm feeling a bit burnt out so I'm ready to ride!”

“that's what i'm shooting for, this weekend, nigal. i think alot of the leaves are actually falling, here, tho.”

“If you don't like kids don't be at hidden pond in ONF next weekend. I'm taking some Scouts out for their first backpacking trip. Luckily this group isn't a bunch of animals.

I'm thinking about doing the River Rise Trail in Oleno SP (North of Gainesville, Fl.) the first weekend in Nov.”

“Road rally Saturday night”

“dang! i'll be on ECTs on both of those weekends. we need a florida ECT, this winter!”

“OK when?
Wait a minute let's do this right.”

“Backpack in the Sierras with WLD and WingDing”

“I'm headed to Sacramento for Annual Training. I love the timing of the National Guard. My birthday is the 28th, and I'll probably be out playing in the dirt. Like the saying goes- "It's all good!!"”

“Black powder season starts this weekend and I`ll be camped in the woods.

Leaves turning, long walks, wild things a plenty, lifelong friends, wood smoke, hot coffee next to an open fire, great food, big talk, lots of laughter, sun up and sunsets, the wind in my face, the thrill of the unknown, the star filled sky at night and I wouldn`t miss it for anything.”

“Grand Canyon Hikers meeting on Sunday followed by a three day service project at Bright Angel campground. I have to cut it a day short because I have jury duty.

Obi Wan--I love to be out in a storm like that. You never choose it but when it happens you never forget it.”

“Going backpacking at Chevlon Lake OR in the Grand Canyon...don't know yet”

“Why, the RRGII of course!”

“Biz, I hiked Chevlon Canyon to the lake, with Orbitmanifesto, last year. We were out there for three days. Nice place, beautifully colored, cold water.

ONF folks! Rad, humanpackmule, I'll probably be at Juniper Springs this weekend. I want to kayak the spring run. Is that where you'll be hiking into Hidden Pond from, hpm? They have a very pretty campground at Juniper. I plan on spending some weekends down there.”

“I'm leading a group of Boy Scouts on a "shakedown" training hike in preparation of our first A.T. trip. I'm trying to drum into their (thick) skulls the beauty of simplicity and self reliance. For many of them, this'll be their first occasion to cook solo. The responsibilty for their meals and water is solely on their shoulders. I'm interested in seeing what they pack for meals. They have had it all explained to them. I've made the concession that they can share equipment if they equitably share the load.

If you folks have concerns about scouts on the trail, start a new thread with constructive suggestions. I'll pass them on. They are a good group of kids. Not a CONVICTED felon among them!”

“I hope you give a merit badge to the kid who shows up with steak & potato and has a little extra for the scoutmaster.”

“Sipsey Wilderness with my son.”