TENNESSEE TRAILS
Mousetail Landing State Park -
Nathon Bedfor Forest State Park
Natchez Trace State Park North and South Sections
Land Between the Lakes Canal Loop
Land Between the Lakes Fort Henry Trail System
Land Between the Lakes North South
Meeman Shelby Forest Trails
Fort Pillow
Big Hill Pond
MISSOURI TRAILS
The Ozark Trail Taum Sauk Section - 33 miles one way
The Ozark Trail Marble Creek Section - 8 miles one way
Arkansas Trails
Ouachita Mountains - Eagle Rock Loop - 30 miles
Hot Springs National Park - Sunset Trail Loop - 15 miles
North Sylamore Trail - Mountain View - 13.75 miles one way
Alabama Trails
Sipsey Wilderness
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
I am in the process of planning our next three trips.
Big Hill Pond. Going to try and do a short over night at Big Hill Pond State Park on a Sat and Sun before the end of the year, just to check out more of the trails and test out some camping gear and food recipes . Plan on the first day to go past Grassy Point Shelter and camp at Tuscumbia Bend Shelter, and then back to the parking area on the second day.
Sipsey Wilderness. Planning a 3 day weekend trip in Jan or Feb of 2010 at Sipsey Wilderness Area in Bankhead National Forest Alabama. Going to try and do around 15 miles and see some water falls and some BIG trees.
LBL - Planning a LBL Fort Henry Trail System backpacking trip as soon as hunting season is over.
J
Big Hill Pond. Going to try and do a short over night at Big Hill Pond State Park on a Sat and Sun before the end of the year, just to check out more of the trails and test out some camping gear and food recipes . Plan on the first day to go past Grassy Point Shelter and camp at Tuscumbia Bend Shelter, and then back to the parking area on the second day.
Sipsey Wilderness. Planning a 3 day weekend trip in Jan or Feb of 2010 at Sipsey Wilderness Area in Bankhead National Forest Alabama. Going to try and do around 15 miles and see some water falls and some BIG trees.
LBL - Planning a LBL Fort Henry Trail System backpacking trip as soon as hunting season is over.
J
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Eagle Rock Loop postponed
Well lucky for us we postponed our 30 miler to Eagle Rock Loop. That 27 mile loop has MANY MANY creek and river crossings that get pretty dangerous during rain and well thats about all we have got in the last several days
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Next Trip Eagle Rock Loop - Ouachita Nat Forest AR.
Well we have started planning for our next trip which will be the Eagle Rock Loop in Arkansas Ouachita National Forest. It is about a 27 mile loop, but we will make it a minimum of 30 miles. The reason for 30 miles is, it will be for the BSA Backpacking Merit Badge so it must be a minimum of 5 days and 30 miles, so we are going to a take this trip Oct 9 - 13. I have the maps and I am figuring out how far we want to go each day and the good places to camp and the things we weant to see.
LBL trip delayed
Well we did not get to make our LBL trip BUT it is still planned just maybe after hunting season.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Next Trip LBL Fort Henry Trail
Well it looks like the our next trip will be at LBL and it will be the Fort Henry Trail System. We plan to do about 20 miles on Sept 18 - 20.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Big Hill Pond Backpacking Trip Aug 7-9 2009
Temps 90's HOT
Day 1 total 7.22 miles
Day 2 total 7.91 miles
Total This Trip 15.13 miles
J and J Total 26.83 miles
WOW this was a great trip. I went with my son and my friend Bob and his son went. Bob showed up at my house about 10am on Friday and we drove out to Big Hill Pond. We started hiking about 12:30. We started at the boat dock and head down the East side of the park to Big Hill Pond. Once we got to the pond we decided to stop and eat and fill up our water using out pumps. Well the pumps did not like the scummy dirty water and they both clogged quick. Luckily I brought water treat tabs as a backup. So we used iodine tabs all weekend long. We had planned to go to the Dogwood Shelter but once we hit the railroad tracks we figured, since we hiked in the heat of the day and we would have about 7 miles for the day, we would stop at the first shelter instead which is Pipe Rock Shelter. We knew we were close to the Pipe Rock Shelter trail but we didnt see a sign or a trail marker or anything. We finally saw a sign that said Dogwood Shelter 1.9 miles, then we knew we went too far so we turned around and started looking for the sign to Pipe Rock Shelter that we obviously missed. Well we walked a very short way back when my son saw two wood posts sticking out of the ground and some rocks leading up a BIG HILL. SO we figured that was the sign posts for the Pipe Rock Shelter sign. SO we headed up and finally got to the shelter. Nice shelter but we sure are glad we brought tents. We looked into the shelter and saw about 40 bats hanging from the rafters and HUGE piles of bat droppings on the floor. Once we got the tents up and the fire going we sent the two boys down the hill to fill all out water bottles up with water from the creek. My son and I had spaghetti and meat sauce for dinner and Bob and his son had Ramen noodles. Boy where we tired. We ended up doing 7.22 miles the first day in the heat.
Well we woke up early and Bob had what looked like fire ant bites all over his body. Hundreds of blister looking bites that oozed clear fluid when they popped. Not much we could do since we where several miles from anywhere. We had a quick breakfast and broke camp and headed out. WOW a good nights sleep sure makes you feel good even when your hot and tired. So Saturday morning we took the shortest router back to the truck which was 3.5 miles. We loaded up in the truck and drove to town to get some ointments for Bob and by then Bob's son and my son and myself all had some itching starting on our legs, so we got some anti-itch cream. We headed back to finish up our hike. When we got back we headed to the board walk and then to the 73 foot tower. WOW what a view from the top of the tower. We did another 4.41 miles which gave us our 15 miles minimum the boys needed for their Boy Scout Backpacking merit badge, so we camped at the camp ground had a good dinner on the backpacking stove and went to bed. We got up on Sunday and had a great breakfast and packed up and headed home.
We learned a lot of things on this trip and we saw several deer and a turtle.
Day 1 total 7.22 miles
Day 2 total 7.91 miles
Total This Trip 15.13 miles
J and J Total 26.83 miles
WOW this was a great trip. I went with my son and my friend Bob and his son went. Bob showed up at my house about 10am on Friday and we drove out to Big Hill Pond. We started hiking about 12:30. We started at the boat dock and head down the East side of the park to Big Hill Pond. Once we got to the pond we decided to stop and eat and fill up our water using out pumps. Well the pumps did not like the scummy dirty water and they both clogged quick. Luckily I brought water treat tabs as a backup. So we used iodine tabs all weekend long. We had planned to go to the Dogwood Shelter but once we hit the railroad tracks we figured, since we hiked in the heat of the day and we would have about 7 miles for the day, we would stop at the first shelter instead which is Pipe Rock Shelter. We knew we were close to the Pipe Rock Shelter trail but we didnt see a sign or a trail marker or anything. We finally saw a sign that said Dogwood Shelter 1.9 miles, then we knew we went too far so we turned around and started looking for the sign to Pipe Rock Shelter that we obviously missed. Well we walked a very short way back when my son saw two wood posts sticking out of the ground and some rocks leading up a BIG HILL. SO we figured that was the sign posts for the Pipe Rock Shelter sign. SO we headed up and finally got to the shelter. Nice shelter but we sure are glad we brought tents. We looked into the shelter and saw about 40 bats hanging from the rafters and HUGE piles of bat droppings on the floor. Once we got the tents up and the fire going we sent the two boys down the hill to fill all out water bottles up with water from the creek. My son and I had spaghetti and meat sauce for dinner and Bob and his son had Ramen noodles. Boy where we tired. We ended up doing 7.22 miles the first day in the heat.
Well we woke up early and Bob had what looked like fire ant bites all over his body. Hundreds of blister looking bites that oozed clear fluid when they popped. Not much we could do since we where several miles from anywhere. We had a quick breakfast and broke camp and headed out. WOW a good nights sleep sure makes you feel good even when your hot and tired. So Saturday morning we took the shortest router back to the truck which was 3.5 miles. We loaded up in the truck and drove to town to get some ointments for Bob and by then Bob's son and my son and myself all had some itching starting on our legs, so we got some anti-itch cream. We headed back to finish up our hike. When we got back we headed to the board walk and then to the 73 foot tower. WOW what a view from the top of the tower. We did another 4.41 miles which gave us our 15 miles minimum the boys needed for their Boy Scout Backpacking merit badge, so we camped at the camp ground had a good dinner on the backpacking stove and went to bed. We got up on Sunday and had a great breakfast and packed up and headed home.
We learned a lot of things on this trip and we saw several deer and a turtle.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Getting Ready for Big Hill Pond
Well im getting everything ready for a 3 day backpacking trip to Big Hill Pond State Park Aug 7 - 9. I am making my list of things I still need to buy and I will get everything I need tonight and get my backpack packed for tomorrow.
Only plan on doing about 15 miles this trip but its going to be a HOT 15 miles this weekend.
J
Only plan on doing about 15 miles this trip but its going to be a HOT 15 miles this weekend.
J
Monday, June 22, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Mousetail Landing Backpacking April 25-26 2009
Day 1 From Park Office to Overnight Shelter #1 - 5.19 miles
From Shelter #1 to creek for water and back - 2.00 miles
Day 2 From Overnight Shelter #1 to Park Office - 4.51 miles
Total Miles his trip - 11.70 miles
Our Total Miles - 11.70 miles
Well my son and I finally took out first backpacking trip. It was with my sons Boy Scout Troop. To protect the innocent I will not mention any names or the name of the troop. BUT, all in all it was a good trip as backpacking trips go. Because it was the first backpacking event for the Scout Troop we did not do too many miles. We did about 5.5 on Saturday and about 4.5 on Sunday. Our packs weighed in at 26 pounds each before food and water.
We started off at the park office a little before 11 am and walked to the picnic pavilion west of the park office and we had lunch. From there we took the bike trail until we hit the road again and then we jumped over to the hiking trail. At the Y in the hiking trail we decide since we where camping in Shelter 1 and we had a couple people who where a little slower than the rest we would take the short way and go straight to the shelter. We did have a couple boys who wanted to take the long way and pass shelter two so we let them do the loop past shelter 2. Once we got to the shelter we started dinner. That may sound early for dinner, but because of many issues we had it took us until 6 pm to hike 5.5 miles.
Jacob and I decided to eat our dehydrated backpacking Chicken Noodle Soup. This was our first time eating MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) type backpacking food. It was pretty good but I will remember to bring salt next trip.
The temps where well into the 80's all day so we went thru a lot of water, so after dinner a bunch of us decided to take the mile or so walk to the closest water source, a creek of the Tennessee river, and get some water. WOW was this water dirty and brown. BUT I did have my MSR Sweetwater filter that worked AMAZING. Between using the filter and the chlorine drops that came with the filter my son and I had clear clean great tasting water.
When we got back to camp after getting our water we sat around a while and all talked about the day and what we liked about out first backpacking trip and then we went to bed.
The next morning we woke up and my son and I had some dehydrated scrambled eggs and bacon, and again, I made a note to bring SALT next trip. In between meals we did have plenty of snacks to eat so we where ok. There was only one tent incident over night. One scout had a single person tent that used only one pole to hold the front of the tent up and his tent collapsed over night since it wasn't staked down properly, but he was just too tired to get up and fix it so he kinda held the pole up with his hand all night as he slept.
After breakfast we took our tent down and got all out stuff packed up so we would be ready to go. As we waited for everyone else to make breakfast and pack up my son and I sat back and watched the fun. One scout caught is liquid fuel stove on fire and dumped two quarts of water on it before an adult leader tossed it off the wood picnic bench on the ground and finally go it put out. Another scout knocked over is pot off his stove and his roman noodles dumped all over the ground.
Once everyone was packed and ready to go we took of and headed the direction toward shelter two. Once we got to the service road where the bridge is over the creek we took a long break and ate and played in the COLD water for a while. When we took off from there to take the last leg of out trip we broke up into two groups. About 4 people decided to take the hiking trail back to the park office and the rest of us took the road back. WOW that was one BIG HILL going we went up, about 1/2 way up I was thinking I took the wrong way, maybe I should of taken the hiking trail. Once I got to the top of the hill where the bathrooms are for the campground I saw a SODA MACHINE, OMG my energy doubled just seeing that machine. I almost RAN to get to that machine since my energy was almost drained by then. I got me and my son and ice cold sugary caffeine filled drink and within minutes we felt ready to do another 5 miles, but luckily we only had about a mile to go and it was mostly all down hill.
We all finally made it back to the park office and sat and talked a few minutes and headed back to Memphis.
I woke up this morning, the Monday morning after the trip, and learned several things. ONE, I am pretty good shape for 44, but I sure need to work on my leg muscles more, WOW do my legs hurt today. TWO, I understand now the reason to buy a good quality, correctly fitted backpack, since that is NOT what my son and I had. THREE, even if you take extra food with you, take MORE extra food with you. FOUR, a thin,cheap,light sleeping pad, is NOT better than a self inflating sleeping pad.
It was a good trip for our first backpacking trip and most everyone learned things on this trip which will make the next trip better. The best part, we saw 2 big black snakes and a copperhead. Shame we didnt see any rattle snakes.
From Shelter #1 to creek for water and back - 2.00 miles
Day 2 From Overnight Shelter #1 to Park Office - 4.51 miles
Total Miles his trip - 11.70 miles
Our Total Miles - 11.70 miles
Well my son and I finally took out first backpacking trip. It was with my sons Boy Scout Troop. To protect the innocent I will not mention any names or the name of the troop. BUT, all in all it was a good trip as backpacking trips go. Because it was the first backpacking event for the Scout Troop we did not do too many miles. We did about 5.5 on Saturday and about 4.5 on Sunday. Our packs weighed in at 26 pounds each before food and water.
We started off at the park office a little before 11 am and walked to the picnic pavilion west of the park office and we had lunch. From there we took the bike trail until we hit the road again and then we jumped over to the hiking trail. At the Y in the hiking trail we decide since we where camping in Shelter 1 and we had a couple people who where a little slower than the rest we would take the short way and go straight to the shelter. We did have a couple boys who wanted to take the long way and pass shelter two so we let them do the loop past shelter 2. Once we got to the shelter we started dinner. That may sound early for dinner, but because of many issues we had it took us until 6 pm to hike 5.5 miles.
Jacob and I decided to eat our dehydrated backpacking Chicken Noodle Soup. This was our first time eating MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) type backpacking food. It was pretty good but I will remember to bring salt next trip.
The temps where well into the 80's all day so we went thru a lot of water, so after dinner a bunch of us decided to take the mile or so walk to the closest water source, a creek of the Tennessee river, and get some water. WOW was this water dirty and brown. BUT I did have my MSR Sweetwater filter that worked AMAZING. Between using the filter and the chlorine drops that came with the filter my son and I had clear clean great tasting water.
When we got back to camp after getting our water we sat around a while and all talked about the day and what we liked about out first backpacking trip and then we went to bed.
The next morning we woke up and my son and I had some dehydrated scrambled eggs and bacon, and again, I made a note to bring SALT next trip. In between meals we did have plenty of snacks to eat so we where ok. There was only one tent incident over night. One scout had a single person tent that used only one pole to hold the front of the tent up and his tent collapsed over night since it wasn't staked down properly, but he was just too tired to get up and fix it so he kinda held the pole up with his hand all night as he slept.
After breakfast we took our tent down and got all out stuff packed up so we would be ready to go. As we waited for everyone else to make breakfast and pack up my son and I sat back and watched the fun. One scout caught is liquid fuel stove on fire and dumped two quarts of water on it before an adult leader tossed it off the wood picnic bench on the ground and finally go it put out. Another scout knocked over is pot off his stove and his roman noodles dumped all over the ground.
Once everyone was packed and ready to go we took of and headed the direction toward shelter two. Once we got to the service road where the bridge is over the creek we took a long break and ate and played in the COLD water for a while. When we took off from there to take the last leg of out trip we broke up into two groups. About 4 people decided to take the hiking trail back to the park office and the rest of us took the road back. WOW that was one BIG HILL going we went up, about 1/2 way up I was thinking I took the wrong way, maybe I should of taken the hiking trail. Once I got to the top of the hill where the bathrooms are for the campground I saw a SODA MACHINE, OMG my energy doubled just seeing that machine. I almost RAN to get to that machine since my energy was almost drained by then. I got me and my son and ice cold sugary caffeine filled drink and within minutes we felt ready to do another 5 miles, but luckily we only had about a mile to go and it was mostly all down hill.
We all finally made it back to the park office and sat and talked a few minutes and headed back to Memphis.
I woke up this morning, the Monday morning after the trip, and learned several things. ONE, I am pretty good shape for 44, but I sure need to work on my leg muscles more, WOW do my legs hurt today. TWO, I understand now the reason to buy a good quality, correctly fitted backpack, since that is NOT what my son and I had. THREE, even if you take extra food with you, take MORE extra food with you. FOUR, a thin,cheap,light sleeping pad, is NOT better than a self inflating sleeping pad.
It was a good trip for our first backpacking trip and most everyone learned things on this trip which will make the next trip better. The best part, we saw 2 big black snakes and a copperhead. Shame we didnt see any rattle snakes.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
We finally got our tent and 2nd sleeping back in. We now have all our gear and are ready for our first trip. The tent is a Kelty Gunnisan 3.1 and the new sleeping bag is a Coleman Casper 15 degree. Our other sleeping bag is a Sleumberjack Odyssey 10 degree. We will try these sleeping bags and see how well they do. Most our camping wont be below freezing so we hope these bags will work ok. The Kelty Gunnisan 3.1 tent is AWESOME it is nice and big for two people and gear inside the tent.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Idea
When I was a young Boy Scout around 14 years old I went to Philmont and hiked the mountains of Cimarron New Mexico. I really didn't like hiking or backpacking as a boy, in fact I hated it, I did enough hiking and backpacking to get the merit badges and that is about it.
Well a couple years ago my son informed me that I was going back to Philmont sometime with him. So last year my son and I decided we are going to start doing some backpacking trips together. I am a life long Scouter, I have been in Scouting for a 35 years now and my son has been in for about 7 years now. Since many Boy Scout troops do not do much backpacking, we had very little real backpacking gear. So at the end of 2008 my son and I started getting all the gear we need to begin backpacking. We are not starting off with lots of high end, hi-tech gear, we are starting off getting mostly inexpensive stuff so we can get on the trail and as we go along we will upgrade things a little at a time. We have just about everything we need, all that is left is a backpacking tent that I plan to buy next month, then we will start are journey.
We plan on doing several short 2 or 3 day weekend trips a year and hopefully at least one long trip a year of 5 days or more. This is the PLAN, we will see what actually happens LOL
Well a couple years ago my son informed me that I was going back to Philmont sometime with him. So last year my son and I decided we are going to start doing some backpacking trips together. I am a life long Scouter, I have been in Scouting for a 35 years now and my son has been in for about 7 years now. Since many Boy Scout troops do not do much backpacking, we had very little real backpacking gear. So at the end of 2008 my son and I started getting all the gear we need to begin backpacking. We are not starting off with lots of high end, hi-tech gear, we are starting off getting mostly inexpensive stuff so we can get on the trail and as we go along we will upgrade things a little at a time. We have just about everything we need, all that is left is a backpacking tent that I plan to buy next month, then we will start are journey.
We plan on doing several short 2 or 3 day weekend trips a year and hopefully at least one long trip a year of 5 days or more. This is the PLAN, we will see what actually happens LOL
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