Backpacking Passion 2016 in Review

[PatmanTN]

Hello my fellow outdoor enthusiasts! I hope everyone had a great year of enjoying our amazing planet!


I don't post much but I still enjoy sharing with my like-minded peers. And besides, this sort of stuff doesn't interest 99.99% of the population, so I have few places to share or talk about such things.


I had another fantastic year of trips and the passion is still strong (though the body has started to decline a bit now at age 44).


I work full time M-F but have generally free weekends and feel the call of the mountains at all times.


I'm geeky enough to have roughly counted a few numbers (probably not 100% accurate as I took a handful of trips with no pictures or records; these are conservative estimates):


In 2016 I was able to pull about 37 trips, with about 72 nights in tent, and covered just over 1000 miles under pack. Again, I'm sharing these not to be boastful in anyway, but rather because, really, there are only so many folks out there that can appreciate it.

Here some highlights of the year for me:

• Several difficult but rewarding off-trail trips in the GSMNP including following Thunderhead Prong all the way from the Tremont Road to Beechnut Gap on the AT (had to walk in the creek most of the way), taking two attempts to find the route from Sam's Creek, to Starkey Creek and up to Starkey Gap on the AT, following the Thunderhead Manway up to and across Defeat Ridge and connecting that Manway with Sams Creek via the Green Mtn path.
• Having my old MSR Hoop tent shredded by a nuisance bear at Cosby Knob. (kind of a highlight I guess)
• Glacier National Park!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Two beautiful trips to Grayson Highlands
• Amazing weather on Roan Mountain
• Celebrating my anniversary with my wife on a multi-day backpack in Big South Fork

The full years photos are here : https://patricktn.smugmug.com/2016

And here I've selected one photo from each month for fun:


Campsite 18 in GSMNP in January


Rocky Flats with Tipi Walter in February


Rime Ice on the AT near Dry Sluice Gap in March


My wife Susan walking barefoot on the Porters Manway in April (she's crazy).


Undisclosed Appalachian Mtn site in May


Bob's Bald in June


Roan Mtn in July


OK, one more July : this was on Pinnacle Creek in the GSMNP (unmaintained trail not on current maps)


Grayson Highlands in August


Stoney Indian Pass Glacier National Park in September


Susan and me on our Anniversary Trip in Big South Fork in October


Sun setting on a single digit night at Grayson Highlands in November


Hangover Mountain Sunrise in December

Happy Trails Friends!

[Engine]

Thanks for the pics, it looks like you had a great year!

[Tipi Walter]

Great pics as usual Patman!! Who's that incredibly well-endowed and strikingly handsome gentleman in your second picture? I remember that morning as it was butt cold!!!! We even had a rarity---a campfire.


We figured it was about 8F that morning by the chimney site on Rocky Flats.

I'm trying to figure out how many of my trips I've seen Patman out and about---it would have to be around 25. For those interested, check him out on my Smugmug page---

https://tipiwalter.smugmug.com/keyword/patman/

[orthofingers]

• "Having my old MSR Hoop tent shredded by a nuisance bear at Cosby Knob. (kind of a highlight I guess)"

Please, do tell us about that.

[PatmanTN]

hey guys much appreciated!

orthofingers, ok if you'll forgive my laziness, here is cut and paste post from a Trailspace forum where I told that story:

"Alright then , this is the last time I start a bear thread.
I just got home from another weekend trip and had my second outing in a row with a rough bear encounter. This one cost me a tent.
After a long 20 mile day of hiking yesterday I opted to pitch in the overflow tent camping area just south of Cosby Knob shelter in the smokies. I got socked in by intense rain for a couple hours and when it cleared I went to walk around a bit in the area between the tent spots and the shelter ( where the secondary steel cables are and where I hung my food).
On the way back to camp I came face to face with one of the largest black bears I've ever seen in person. I started yelling at it to no avail; it moved in between me my camp. I sort of froze then slowly slipped behind a tree while peeking at it every couple of seconds. I watched it climb the tree that my food was hung from and start shaking the steel cables. I attempted to do an end around and go get my stuff so I scrambled up to the trail (about 100 feet away) through the rhodo and came back down to the camp..... but it was too late. In the time it took me to circle around the big blackie was at my tent. I continued to yell but it just looked at me and turned back to examining my camp.
At that point I decided to go to the shelter and see if I could recruit some folks to accompany me back to my camp to hopefully recover my wallet and car keys at least. Luckily it was gone by the time the four of us made it back there. It had torn through my tent walls and collapsed it, but all my stuff was accounted for.
The kind hikers helped me lug my stuff back to the shelter and told me the bear had just come through there before they heard me hollering.
I didn't get much sleep but mostly because my sleeping pad turned out to be punctured and deflated every little while.(wake up, blow, doze, repeat)
I woke about 6AM this morning (about first light) and rolled over to look out and that same bear was five feet from my head, inside the shelter, ( I was on the lower bunk) sniffing the packs hanging in the shelter. I started yelling and everyone woke up and joined me (there maybe 10 or 11 of us by then). The bear at first sat down outside but then sauntered down to the main cables, stood on it's hind legs, and started shaking each cable trying to knock the food bags loose while ignoring our commotion. It was unsuccessful and eventually walked out of view.
Bears are part of the experience for sure...
So this is kind of like a fish story because I did not get a single picture of that magnificent bear. I was not thinking about that at the time but also my camera was in the tent while it was "opened" and then it was hanging with pack this morning of course.
Here was my camp spot:




And here is that tent now (pictures taken from front porch at home a few minutes ago):

[Tipi Walter]

Good story. I often stay in camp and by or inside my tent for this very reason---marauding bears and/or pigs. The old days where I used to set up and do ranging dayhikes all over the map may be over, due in part to your pack-mauled-by-bear story and this tent-mauling story. I even tend to take my pack down to water sources off the trail instead of leaving it topside and "alone". In bear psychology it's Guarding the Carcass---as in I will stay by my food and gear and Defend it to the death---which a bear easily understands.

[Maineiac64]

Nice post! Have a great 2017 too.

[Cadenza]

Very nice, Patman!

Another good year in the woods.

[Cadenza]

I'm so glad to see the drought is over. I was just out in the Citico earlier this week and am happy to report that Slickrock, Little Slickrock, Doublecamp Creek, Citico Creek, were all running fast and full.

Gotta love mountains streams in all their glory.

[Venchka]

I'm so glad to see the drought is over. I was just out in the Citico earlier this week and am happy to report that Slickrock, Little Slickrock, Doublecamp Creek, Citico Creek, were all running fast and full.

Gotta love mountains streams in all their glory.

It takes more than a few scattered showers to end a drought.
On the other hand, it takes more than a dryer than normal summer and fall to make a drought.
Contrary to what the Climate Change folks are saying, the climate of the North Carolina Rainforest has not changed. I'm sorry that I missed the recent light snow. Maybe next time.
Wayne


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dogwood]

Patman, wife and you look like a great couple in good spirits.

I highly commend you for recounting your yr's hiking experiences with appreciation and gratitude. Lets' ya know you're alive. Really enjoyed that about your thread.

Thank you.

[Dogwood]

That's life being lived in the faces of your wife and you.

[Time Zone]

How wonderful to have a spouse with whom you can share these adventures!
Body declining at the tender young age of 44? Not so wonderful! I hope you were just kidding, or that it's something minor (like needing reading glasses).

Greetings from Chattanooga -

[PatmanTN]

Hey thanks for the kind words everyone, much appreciated and I'm glad the post came across as intended. Tomorrow isn't promised to any of us, we should go to the mountain now, not later

cspan, ah, I probably don't deserve to make statements like that but I chose to quit running this year (and start backing off some of the trip miles) as a response to severe knee pain, something had to give it seemed; I had been jogging about 20-25 miles per week in addition to 30-40 miles of backpacking and could not keep it all up. I didn't realize how addictive running for exercise was but stopping was something to get over for me I guess, as well as coming to grips with the idea that I have to back off in general and not do everything I want. (typical of our culture and my generation of course) . But so many folks deal with so much more than knee pain I feel whiney for mentioning it, but I do have to be careful now if I want to keep at it.

[Time Zone]

From what I gather, running is addictive, and can be hard to give up. Some of us were lucky enough to have knee problems before we got out of our teens and thus avoided a midlife day of reckoning.

[rocketsocks]

Very nice Patman, sorry to hear about the knees, that grabs many of us.