Post Apocalyptic Backpacking Trip. Laney Camp.

Sage keeping warm in her condensation covered sleeping bag. Sage got to sleep inside of the tent as long as her body was completly enclosed in her bag so she could not foul the tent.

First night in my Tartpent Bowfin.

So many car campgrounds have been shut down. I even found an old viewpoint that had been shut down. I've been hiking into the old closed car campgrounds. I'm starting to call these post apocalyptic campgrounds. The infrastructure in the National Forest is falling apart, funds are being cut and we are slowly being excluded from the forests.

 How many permanently closed campground on public land can you name?

I wanted to photograph star trails with my one year old camera.  My camera has a special feature that shoots and compiles star trails.  I was really eager to try out this feature but it took me a year to finally get to do it.

I picked Laney Camp because it has a nearly clear sky view to the North and because I know I would get solitude there with the wild life gates shut.  The shut gates are another way to keep people out.

My hike started at the gate the blocks access to the Upper South Fork Skokmosh trail head.  I don't like the wildlife gates, but at least they do offer new hiking opportunities when they are shut.  The hike being mostly on a logging road was not pretty or even very fun but it lead to a nice place.

I pitched my never used Tarptent bowfin two near the river and waited for sunset.  Just before sunset thick fog moved in blocking any potential view of the stars. 

The fog eventually moved out but the moon was up.  I did a few start trails with the moon up and a few after moon set. I like the pre moonset photos the most as the moon lights up the foreground.

  It was quite cold so I stayed in my sleeping bag while my camera worked for 25 minutes at a time for each start trail.

I have a great cold weather sleep system now with a 800 fill power down comforter, two sleeping pads, down booties and a down hat.  But all that getting in and out of my bag caused me to lose too much heat even while sleeping in full rain gear a down vest and a fleece sweater.   My new USB hand warmer came to the rescue!  The new hand warmer gets much hotter than my old one.  It also doubles as a flash light and a USB battery charger for all my electronics.

I turned on the hand warmer and put it between my legs and against both of my femoral arteries and before I knew it,  I was fast asleep.

Star trails over Wonder Mountain while the Moon was up

Star trails over Wonder Mountain after moon set.

I brought my GPS on this trip so I could keep track of celestial things and I brought my Delorme inReach so I could sent messages home.  I brought my Ricoh GR II camera for astro photography. I also had my cell phone.  So many electronics, oh well, it's fun.  There was no cell service, I only brought the phone so there would be no risk of it being stolen from my car.  I used the phone to time my photography and to tell me the time of day.  My phone has a huge font for the time and I don't have to put my reading glasses on to see it.

Sadly my tripod broke before I could do any astro-photography.  I had to find things to lean my camera on and could not get the exact views that I wanted.  I was planning on maybe staying for two nights but the broken tripod and the cold convinced me to spend just one night.

Massive amounts of dew settled on the ground and on my tent by morning.  I mostly stayed dry in my tent, only a little bit of condensation dripped onto me when I moved around.  This is a good tent!

For the first time ever I let a dog sleep in my tent with me.  But she was only allowed in her sleeping bag and fully zipped up so she could not touch anything in the tent.    Perhaps the tent was a little bit warmer thanks to her.  She stayed warm enough in her new coat and inside of the sleeping bag.  She did not shiver at all until morning when we left the tent and she refused to stay in her sleeping bag.  

Morning Coffee as the first rays of sun hit Wonder Mountain

I did not sleep as well as I usually do.  The river made too many random noises as rocked rolled down stream.  I find that I sleep best up on the silent ridge tops with a view of everything around me.

I sat around reading "Lady Chatterley's Lover"and slowly packing up until 2pm.  The sun rays were never strong enough to dry all the condensation from my tent.  The sun is so weak at the end of October.  I'll have to finish drying out my tent at home.

The second sentence of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" says.  "The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes".  This reminds me of what it is like to try to set up camp in a post apocalyptic campground.

This campground is post apocalyptic due to the road washing out.  There is no maintenance here now and all that remains is old fire pits, empty signboards a falling down outhouse and half a picnic table.

Half a picnic table is all that is left along with blank sign boards and a falling down outhouse.
Two boards and one bench are missing from this table.  But it was real luxury to have a picnic
table in the "back country" of this post apocalyptic campground.

Closed road leads to closed car viewpoint.  All that remains is the split rail fence to keep
people from falling over the edge.

The road to the campground was very freshly graded.  The grader was still parked there when I walked in, but it was gone when I hiked out.

What evil is this?  Stewardship has become a dirty word to me as the forest service
always finds a way to cut down trees while doing "stewardship"

This outhouse has seen better days.

The old viewpoint

Found on the road just like this.

8.4 miles rt with about 300 feet total elevation gain.

Mildred Lakes

This was supposed to be a backpacking trip to catch both the sweet light and the fall colors, but my hiking companion backed out and just wanted to do a day hike.

This is the camera I use on all of my hikes now:



Got some okay photos, but no sweet light.  We left home at 6:45 and reached the trail head at 8:00.  I ate breakfast at the trail head and the hike started at 8:10.  Phil got there first and started hiking and he left notes with time stamps on them.  His pace was slightly faster because he was not stopping to take pictures.  We met up with him at the creek.

I had a fairly easy time hiking up to the top of the hike.  Taking care of my Iron stores has made a tremendous difference.  I'm going to have to watch it though.  I need a new way to measure how tired I am and how hard I have been working.  I used my extreme breathlessness to pace myself in the past.

We hit the top at about 1 and the first lake at about 1:30.  My hiking partners looked tired and I was feeling it too.  I suggested that we turn around at the first lake and my partners agreed.  I wanted to go to the second lake anyway and made a very short false start at it before I turned back.

We had a long lunch at the first lake.  We were back to the ridge top at 3:30.  We hiked the rest of the way out with out taking any breaks.  We were running out of light and did not savor hiking this trail in the dark.  I have hiked this trail in the dark from Huckleberry Creek to the trail head.  On this hike we only had to use our headlamps for about half an hour.

We were back at our cars at 7pm.  I don't know where the time went.  How did we spend 11 hours?  Even if we only hiked 1mph then that means we spent 4 hours not moving.  I don't get it.

Sadly I had to leave Sage at home.  She will not ever be up for this hike with her bad hip.

I took both my Ricoh GR II  and my Nikon D90 for this hike.  My Ricoh with its prime lens outshone the D90 on every comparison shot.  The Nikon was equipped with an 18-55 lens.

7 miles with with 3,100 feet TOTAL elevation gain on this up and down route.

This is the camera I use on all of my hikes now:

LOTA Fall Colors

Used to be able to come here for solitude and now it is a freaking zoo.  Another nice place getting loved to death.  ONP is going to need to enforce quotas and a reservation system in this fragile habitat.

I won't come back here on a weekend ever again.  All of Seattle seems to know about it now.  I felt like I was at Serene Lake or Lake 22.    I won't be naming this lake or trail ever again on my blog or in trip reports.

14 miles RT with 5,300 feet elevation gain