9 Days In The Rain

[Tipi Walter]

BACKPACKING THE BALD RIVER WILDERNESS
May 6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14 2009
Subtitled: 9 DAYS WITH THE FECAL EATERS!

DAY ONE
Uncle Fungus atop Sugar Mountain in the rain after climbing the 10 switchbacks south from the Tellico River. I start my trip by parking at the Tellico River fish hatchery and climbing the Sugar Mt BMT trail up to the high shoulder of Sugar Mt.

DAY TWO
Since the creek crossings are all dangerously high, I decide to forego the Upper Bald River crossing on the other side of Sugar Mt on the Brookshire Creek trail, and instead follow the old Sugar Mt Lead logging cut trail to junction with the Holly Flats/Bald River road and take it to the back entrance to the Bald River wilderness.

Coming out at the Sky Ranch horse camps and Brookshire Creek tralhead. It's a good place to rest.

I decide to duplicate Sgt Rock and pull out everything to cook up a real lunch during an extended break.

I leave the Sky Ranch area and take another break at the Holly Flats bridge. The water's up.

DAY THREE
I spend my second night in the middle of the wilderness and under terribly dark clouds pack up and move in a heavy rain further downriver where I take refuge in this old black cave.

After the worst of it I set up nearby on some high ground by the cave. Here I wait for my fellow backpackers from Whiteblaze, Two Speed and Auburn Breeze.

[Tipi Walter]

BACKPACKING THE BALD RIVER WILDERNESS
May 6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14 2009
Subtitled: 9 DAYS WITH THE FECAL EATERS

DAY THREE(continued)
A view of my thermarest Base Camp pad and Marmot summer bag. Home Sweet(dry)Home in wet conditions.

Right next to camp there is a series of waterfalls, now engorged with the "spring thaw".

Here I am preparing to hike out to the trailhead to meet up with Two Speed and Auburn Breeze.

Around dusk Two Speed and Auburn Breeze arrive and we walk back to camp at near dark.

Here's a fotog of Auburn Breeze setting up her little REI tent by the Black Cave.

DAY FOUR
The next morning I get up early and fotog Two Speed and Auburn Breeze's camp.

Here's a good shot taken around 6:30 in the morning of Two Speed sleeping in his Etowah 8x10 tarp.

[Tipi Walter]

BACKPACKING THE BALD RIVER WILDERNESS
May 6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14 2009

DAY FOUR(continued)
We pack up and backpack thru the Bald River area and go downstream.

Two Speed and Auburn Breeze pass thru a bad blowdown area.

Midway thru the wilderness valley we decide to take a lunch break and certainly see serious clouds so Two Speed sets up his tarp for shelter.

Two Speed enters his monk/sand people/jedi phase.

Two Speed's dog Barney likes being under the tarp.

My dog as usual sits in the rain on guard.

Auburn Breeze sits under the tarp and waits out the hard falling rain.

[Tipi Walter]

BACKPACKING THE BALD RIVER WILDERNESS
May 6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14 2009

DAY FOUR(continued)
9 DAYS WITH THE FECAL EATERS!!!
Herein begins the chronicle of the notorious backpacking fecal eaters who I first met at a gathering on Slickrock Creek in the summer of 2007. Not only did they carry out their own waste bagged in ziplocs, but upon occasion would grill such tight turds in a splendid sauce of fava beans with a nice chianti. The next time I camped and backpacked with the turd-porting fecal eaters was on a wilderness trip into the Upper Bald River area in the late summer of 2008. Here again they ate heartily of their own wastes and what wasn't eaten was carried out in turd-pocketed packs of their own design.

THE FECAL EATERS OF TRIP 95
For this fine May trip I was once again reunited with the roving stool-savers as we criss-crossed the Bald River valley proper and set up camp near the high water roar of the white water caps. Once again, using a simple alcohol stove, the waste-wanters picked out the best turds of the bunch and sliced them into a fine stew of potatoes and onions. What was not eaten was carried out and so nothing was wasted. It could even be said that the cycle from turd-to-food-to-yet-another-turd bespoke a field of philosophy not yet explored and I thought of such thngs at the appointed hour of their departure.

LEFT ALL ALONE
Now left to my own devices I have made no attempt to have or to hold my own fecal bag, nor have I attempted to put flame to such stool for solitary repasts. The joy of fecal-less cooking could best describe my culinary habit, though it must be said that when Two Speed whipped out his bag of colon dogs, my eyes watered and widened, and my mouth did salivate a bit. But before I had a chance to plumb my bittersweet and confused depths, the 3 stoutly feces were cooked and eaten around an outdoor camp with the high gusto of the fresh air palate.

If cheese, which I eat often, could be considered cow snot or bovine teat effluent, so should a human turd be considered a gourmet delectable to the discerning tongue. "You are what you eat" hits home here, and the fecal eaters have proven time and again to be consistently full of themselves.

FOTOS
Two Speed with his bagged colon dogs.

Close up of hand carried fecal-food.

I ran into these 2 backpackers on Day 2 and they had an interesting story to share. They've been out for 30 days backpacking all the trails in the area and started at Calderwood Lake in the Slickrock wilderness, on to the Stiffknee, the Fodderstack ridge, the North Fork and South Fork Citico, Whiggs Meadow, into the Snowbirds, up Brookshire and over Waucheesi Mt, and in the Bald River. I told them I was just doing a short 9 day trip.

Two Speed, Auburn Breeze and I reach the end of the wilderness and back track to this campsite where we set up the tents for the night. The Hill Camps.

DAY FIVE
In the morning we take a group shot in the Hill Camps with Bald River behind.

Auburn Breeze, Two Speed and Barney prepare to leave.

My friends head one direction and I head the other out of Bald River and up the Brookshire all the way to near Sled Runner Gap where I set up for the night at this nice camp(with water!).

[Tipi Walter]

BACKPACKING THE BALD RIVER WILDERNESS
May 6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14 2009

DAY SIX
The next day I pack up and quickly reach the BMT trailpost below Sled Runner for a self portrait before starting my journey along the State Line Ridge.

I find this fine camp and set up with 2 liters of water I carried from Brookshire in the morning. I first discovered this camp on Trip 94 with the Chattanooga boys.

DAY SEVEN
I keep walking the State Line trail and reach Sandy Gap and head down Kirkland Creek trail where I pull 10 crossings in the Crocs and finally reach this crossing over Bald River, much lower now.

I trek back into the Bald River wilderness and set up at Big Pine Camp like on Day 2.

DAY EIGHT
I leave the wilderness for good and get back on the Brookshire trail for my journey over Sugar Mt. Here's the Brookshire trailhead.

I reach the BMT junction at the Brookshire crossing and set up camp at a little camp shown to me by CBSSTony, a fellow Whiteblazer.

DAY NINE
So ends another trip as I hump over Sugar Mt and out.

[JAK]

Awesome report, as always.
Who says you can't be twenty?

[JAK]

Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star
Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like, when youre older, must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and dawn
Were captive on the carousel of time
We cant return we con only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.

Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town
And they tell him,
Take your time, it wont be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and dawn
Were captive on the carousel of time
We cant return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur
Coming true
Therell be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through.
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
Were captive on the carousel of time
We cant return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

[Bearpaw]

Very nice stuff. Good to see Auburn Breeze and Two Speed out there as well. Any big plans for the summer?

[Tipi Walter]

Very nice stuff. Good to see Auburn Breeze and Two Speed out there as well. Any big plans for the summer?

My plans for the summer are about like my plans for the winter: to get out as much as possible for as long as possible. Maybe in late summer I'll try a bear canister food cache and see if I can pull a 25-30 day trip with one cached resupply. Long trips interest me the most, and I'd like to experiment with enormous loads to see how long I can stay out.

[Bearpaw]

My plans for the summer are about like my plans for the winter: to get out as much as possible for as long as possible. Maybe in late summer I'll try a bear canister food cache and see if I can pull a 25-30 day trip with one cached resupply. Long trips interest me the most, and I'd like to experiment with enormous loads to see how long I can stay out.

Should be doable. With NOLS, we stayed out 30 days and got resupplied twice by horsepackers. The only trick is that it's hard to get more than about 6 or 7 days in a standard bear cannister.

If you're just using it to resupply and not actually carrying it in your pack, you might want to stash a very large ammo can (like the one 40 mm grenade belts come in) and hump it in to a resupply area. They're waterproof and very very tough, moreso than a cannister. Only drawback is having to go back in and get it at the end of a long trip.

This picture (http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2161239240041432250feymmz) shows the size of can I mean. If your local surplus store doesn't have any, I know you can order them online. I'm confident you could fit two weeks of food in one. It wouldn't be hard to hide one either since it is already OD green.

[JAK]

I think 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness would be epic.

Depending on land use and ownerships someone like Tipi that gets out so often might be able to make some semi-permament buried caches in strategic locations, somewhat off the beaten path but within distance of his favourite trails. If he wanted to do an epic 40 day and 40 nighter he could get all his caches stocked up in a series of shorter trips ahead of time, and then do the 40 day and 40 night hike and camp in one big loop. Those ammo boxes look like they would be very good for the job. Might be tricky getting at them in winter if buried, but not if done right in terms of drainage. Fun stuff to think about, as long as everyone doesn't do it of course. Someone like Tipi should though. They would certainly get lots of good use. Better use than preparing and waiting for WWIII or whatever, not that that ain't fun either I suppose. ;)

[JAK]

These get expensive when you go above 4", but are available in 6", even 8".
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=USPlastic&category%5Fname=21341&product%5Fid=2005
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=USPlastic&category%5Fname=21341&product%5Fid=18161

A 30" length might be easy to deploy, and not too much trouble digging a posthole for.
A 4" x 30" length would be 6 litres, or 5 days food, maybe. A 6" x 30" length would be 14 litres, and you would have a little more flexibility on what you might fit in. Burying on an angle might make it easier in some ways. A sealed tube slid into another wider pipe might be easier in some ways also. Other problems to work out are getting dirt or water or snow out that might fall in, frozen water, frost heave, surface covering, initial digging, eventual removal, remembering where you left it, keeping it secret, what to do if you find it empty. Fun stuff to think about for sure.

This is what happens to higher life forms that evolve from squirrels.

[Tipi Walter]

Should be doable. With NOLS, we stayed out 30 days and got resupplied twice by horsepackers. The only trick is that it's hard to get more than about 6 or 7 days in a standard bear cannister.

If you're just using it to resupply and not actually carrying it in your pack, you might want to stash a very large ammo can (like the one 40 mm grenade belts come in) and hump it in to a resupply area. They're waterproof and very very tough, moreso than a cannister. Only drawback is having to go back in and get it at the end of a long trip.

This picture (http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2161239240041432250feymmz) shows the size of can I mean. If your local surplus store doesn't have any, I know you can order them online. I'm confident you could fit two weeks of food in one. It wouldn't be hard to hide one either since it is already OD green.

I at first thought of getting about 3 bear canisters and caching them full of food(too expensive, probably), but the ammo container sounds interesting. Just wondering if a black bear can pry open an ammo box? I figure they can rip a car door off . . . hmm . . . but I imagine a 40mm ammo box would stop any bear. The 17x10x5.5 inch size of the 40mm box would be about perfect for an extra two weeks, and I could easily stash it wherever I'm let out. Considering I used to cache food in Igloo coolers with duct tape over the top . . . not very reliable or waterproof.


I think 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness would be epic.

Depending on land use and ownerships someone like Tipi that gets out so often might be able to make some semi-permament buried caches in strategic locations, somewhat off the beaten path but within distance of his favourite trails. If he wanted to do an epic 40 day and 40 nighter he could get all his caches stocked up in a series of shorter trips ahead of time, and then do the 40 day and 40 night hike and camp in one big loop. Those ammo boxes look like they would be very good for the job. Might be tricky getting at them in winter if buried, but not if done right in terms of drainage. Fun stuff to think about, as long as everyone doesn't do it of course. Someone like Tipi should though. They would certainly get lots of good use. Better use than preparing and waiting for WWIII or whatever, not that that ain't fun either I suppose. ;)

The biggest challenge I can see with a long backpacking trip and having a cache of food, is I better want to eat what I have cached, and it probably shouldn't be the same stuff I ate for the first two weeks(food boredom, etc). This means figuring out what I'll want in the future(hard to do), and wondering what variety of meals would most keep my interest.

I've been on a Tasty Bite pouch kick for the last several months, and so I see no problem in caching 10 or 15 of them. I'd probably even cache several pounds of cheese and maybe even a dozen eggs. And throw in some new and various items like a few HawkVittle meals and the usual grocery store/oatmeal/crackers/rice cakes/honey/jelly stuff. Let's go and eat like kings!! Oh, and don't forget about some apples, pears, or whatever else could be stored fresh.

[JAK]

That is a problem. I haven't done long trips like you, so that is alot of the reason why my trail food is rather plain. Oats. Skim Milk. Currants. Almonds. Lentils. Jerky. I've recently added lemons, but your dog probably has a more varied menu on the trail than I do. lol

Still, maybe you could maintain several caches, with a variety in each one, and a different variety in each cache. Maybe when you do your small trips, you might hike out to a cache and leave some food you've brought for a later trip, plus leave some stuff you've decided not to eat that trip and take some stuff you've decided you would. Then on a really long trip, and here's where it might get interesting, you might change your travel plans depending on where the food is that you've decided to eat. This is where squirrels and hikers that can't make up their mind go a little crazy. ;)

For the more consumable foods, I can see that getting tricky, as they tend to be heavier also. Maybe you could also have a few hidden berry patches and fruit and nut trees. Alot of that stuff can be preserved and cached though and still be very tastey. :)

[auburnbreeze]

We had a great time! Lots of rain, high water but great company!