This trip was a prep for upcoming summer High Adventure Trip. It was cold, but everyone that went had a great time. We were tested with rain and snow on Saturday night and rewarded by sunshine on Sunday.
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Category: backpacking
For our Patrol trip we decided to go to Sipsey Wilderness in AL but take a different route. We left the church and arrived at the trail-head well after dark shouts out to winter. We started hiking in and found a campsite but decided to carry on until we could find something better. We hiked for about 2 1/2 miles until we came across another unoccupied campsite. It wasn’t much better but we decided to take it anyways. We then had a wonderful cracker barrel of penguins and proceeded to set up camp and turn in for the night. We woke up and had an oatmeal breakfast and broke camp and were ready to hit the trails at 9:00
We hiked for a good ways and found some neat-o stuff like a rock tree and a natural rock tent. We decided along down the trail that we would have lunch after the imminent river crossing which we eventually came to.
Lunch was bountiful as to be expected from whistlepigz. We hing around for like an hour and eventually continued on our journey. Our hike lasted a good long 15 miles and another river crossing before we came to a small but cozy campsite.
We set up camp and started dinner. while cooking we discussed the finer points if whistlepig lyfe such as nikes and defecation. We then enjoyed a wonderful meal cooked by Leo and Frederick and cleansed our palates with graham crackers. we hung around while Collin cleaned up and chatted before turning in for the night. We woke up in the morning and ate grits and dat crystal egg for breakfast before breaking camp. We hit the trails at the same time as the day before to continue our trek.
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Our hike from there on out wasn’t too difficult except for some long uphill sections. We came to the logging trail where most of our second day hike took place. we came to a bridge and decided to stop and have lunch a little earlier that day. Our lunch consisted of nutella and peanut butter paper tortilla wraps and an extensive selection of cookies.
After lunch we got back on the trail. this was the longest, most dreadful part of our hike. We hiked for what seemed like forever. Eventually me and Leo decided to stop for a restroom break and never fully caught back up, but it didn’t matter, we all made it back to the cars relatively soon after that. Overall the trip functioned very flawlessly and was a extremely fun trip. 9.5/10 would do again.
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Sipsey Wilderness
Honey Badgers
All of the patrols and parents going on the trip meet up at the church at 5:30 to split food and check packs. We all got into our cars and we were off!
Once we got to the Sipsey parking area we ate our cracker barrel (lots of snacks) in the cars. after we ate we put on our packs and headed down the hill to the trail head. We found a rocky area that we could stay at for the night and decided to stay there.
when we woke up in the morning it was very cold!
We took down our tents and ate oatmeal. as we started walking it got warmer, and warmer, and warmer, until we were sweating!
we met Libor at a stream and he helped us get across.
Soon we saw the Otters at the other end of a knee deep river. Yes, we had to cross it, and it was very very very cold. once we all got across we sat and dried off and ate snacks. But we had to keep on going, so we crossed a few more streams and did a ton of walking.
then we ended up at our campsite. we all set up tents and collected firewood Raleigh and I ( water-men ) went down to the river and filled up water bottles for everyone and filled up pots for dinner. soon after, we had dinner, mashed potatoes and pork. It was delicious! Our fire ceremony turned out well and we then told stories. After that was lights out. we woke up early in the morning and i had to go get water again from the cold stream! Breakfast was good and we after that we were off. we hiked for a long time until we came upon Alabama’s biggest tree, and a beautiful waterfall. As we explored the waterfall and caves we found many huge ice sickles. we then climbed up the steep hill that led to a strait trail that was pretty boring, and at last we got to eat lunch.after lunch we stayed on the trail and ended up at the trail head.
We were exhausted! When everyone got there we left and got back at the church at about 8:00. And that was it for our Sipsey Wilderness trip!
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fiery gizard pics
Our troop left for Fall Creek Falls on Friday at five o’clock. Our patrols were smaller than usual. The Bucks had seven people including adults, and the otters had five people including adults. We also had two dogs with us. We arrived at our campsite in the dark, set up camp, and went to sleep.
The next morning we woke up to a bitterly cold morning. We could slide our bag of breakfast on the frosty picnic table. It even hurt to get fire wood. We tried to get a fire going, but all we managed to do was melt the frost on the kindling and make it wet. So, we ate our cold breakfast, took down our tents, packed up our stuff, and put it in the cars to go to the trail.
We arrived at a saw mill and got out of the cars. We decided which trail to take and headed off. It was a comfortable fifty-three degrees when we started hiking. We planned to hike nine miles that day and three miles the next. The terrain was pretty much a gradual downhill at first with a few water crossings.
By about the third mile we got to a steep downhill into a valley. We could see what we were about to hike up- the next mountain. When we got to the bottom, we took a rest, filled our water bottles, and started up the mountain.
It was very rocky and steep. We were already very tired from the five miles we hiked down the mountain. The two things that motivated us were food and sleep. After we were through the rocks, we took a one minute rest and kept going. We turned the corner and there was a seventy degree uphill. We were so close! We kept trudging on and finally we saw a sign that said the next campsite was in 400 yards.
We walked for what felt like an eternity, and then finally we reached the top of the mountain. It was one of my favorite campsites as soon as I saw it. It was a clearing surrounded by trees and brush. It had a water pump, which was broken, but it was a beautiful campsite with a fire pit and fire wood already there for us.
We rested a bit then set up our tents and started collecting fire wood. The water men were sent back to fill up our water bottles since the pump was broken. We gathered wood for about forty-five minutes then started dinner. We were making backpacking pizza, so we needed to get the fire going early to make a bed of coals to cook it on.
After we ate dinner, we had our campfire ceremony. We pretty much only told stories because we were so tired. We all sat by the campfire for another hour or two and then we went to bed.
The next morning we woke up at six thirty so we could get breakfast going and pack up our tents. The bucks had oatmeal deluxe with beef jerky and the otters had poptarts and oatmeal. We were already running a bit behind schedule, but all we had to do now was a sweep of the campsite.
We made up for being behind on the trail. We were moving very swiftly since it was downhill most of the way. We only stopped a few times for water, but other than that it was pretty much non-stop. We were about five miles from our cars and we stopped some places like overlooks and waterfalls.
When we reached the Fall Creek Falls, we stopped to rest and ate most of the remaining food while we figured out how much further we had to go. It turned out the Otters had to do an extra three miles to get credit for their merit badge. The bucks wanted to go to the cars while the Otters would go on the three-mile loop that started at the beginning of the trail. The adults decided that the Bucks would go too.
As we were on our journey from the falls to the cars we were pointing out various landmarks that we remembered from the second day. Each time we saw one we would think “just one more mile!” Our guesses were usually wrong. Then we came across a road. This was the one we crossed about half a mile in. We were almost there!
We were hiking and looking around remembering the things around us that we had passed earlier. The two things that motivated us were being able to sit down in comfy seats and fast food. We were walking, quite fast, and we looked up to our right. There were our cars! We practically ran up the hill to them. We got there, set our packs down, drank the rest of the water, and headed home.
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Virgin Falls backpacking
We left at 8 to go to Bridgestone Firestone wilderness after a Becky biscuit breakfast. Upon arrival, we found that it was closed due to hunting and soon heard gun shots.
So we decided to go to virgin falls.
We hiked 2.5 miles then ate lunch and crawled in a small cave. It took about a hour of downhill hiking to get to the campsite. The bucks had phô and the wolverines had sweet and sour tuna couscous for dinner. Afterwards we played hide and tag in the reeds. Pocket knives were lost. Then followed the fire ceremony led by Frederick Behaylo and Owen Thompson. After the fire ceremony we went to sleep. The next morning brought a breakfast of oatmeal deluxe. After packing for about a half mile, we got to virgin falls. We spent about fifteen minutes there, played hacky sack, then headed out. Our motivation was a fast-food stop on the way home. It took us about two and a half hours hike back to the parking lot. We headed out, stopped at hardy’s, then went home.
Here is a gallery of photos from a 2008 trip to the Sipsey Wilderness. There is also a screencast about how to upload photos to the website. Let me know if you have any questions. Feel free to comment on the website. This is a great place for us to communicate things we don’t mind if other people know too!
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Virgin Falls
This weekend, we went down to Sparta, TN, to go backpacking at Virgin Falls. The ride down there had no problems.Once we arrived, we got on our packs and set off for our campsite. The weather was perfect that day. After a few water breaks, we arrived at our lunch stop, where an amazing waterfall was located. Not too much longer, we got on our packs again and went the last couple miles to our campsite. It was a spacious campsite with a great river view. Shortly after setting up camp, most everyone hiked up to the main waterfall, the cave above it, and Sheep Cave as well. The next day, however, was not as great. We had to eat breakfast and break camp in the rain. The trail, which just happened to be uphill, was very muddy and wet. Some snow made it even worse.Most of us were miserable, wet, cold, and tired as we hiked along. It felt like forever before we finally reached the parking lot to leave. Over all, it was a great trip with great views, such as Laurel Falls and the Caney Fork River.
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Nick’s HAT report
High Adventure was really fun but was also very challenging at the same time. It was a trip to learn a lot of things about camping and to really get you into shape. I personally learned a lot about being prepared and not leaving things in cars. Pretty much the whole backpacking part of the trip I was unprepared because I left a bunch of things that I needed in Reuben‘s car. This trip also got a big break off of technology which I think a bunch of people are addicted too. This trip also had activities such as white water rafting and climbing and rappelling. We all learned some valuable things on this trip. This was one of the hardest but one of the most fun trips I have been on.