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.