After picking my Jeep up from the shop on Friday I packed it up and headed to the Pines. I had been waiting weeks for my solo backpacking trip and I was ready and rearing to go. I headed over to the Atsion Station to pay for my campsites. I brought 2 dollars with me to pay for my two primitive camp sites (a dollar a piece in february). I went inside the station and told the two women working that I was planning to hike part of the Batona trail and that I would be utilizing two of their primitive campsites, the Batona Camp and the Lower Forge Camp. They said no problem and told me it was a total $4.
"Arn't the campsites $1 a piece?" I asked.
"The prices went up a few weeks ago," ...and so i put a $4 charge on my credit card.
Just then another women walked in to reserve a campsite and pointed out a sign that i had not noticed earlier. The sign read: FIRE BAN IN EFFECT, NO GROUNDFIRES. I nodded in slight disappointment and headed out the door.
I headed over to the Batona Camp, across from the Carranza Memorial over in Tabernacle. When I arrived I was met with renewed spirits, the fresh piney air had brought back the excitment I had started the trip with, and I had the whole campground to myself.
I found a nice log to sit on while driving through to find a site but it was heavy and it was a ways from my desired camping area... so i put it in my jeep and hauled it along over to my site. I set up tent rather quickly and soon began to notice the mosquitoes. I wanted that fire now more than ever. I proceeded to saturate myself with bugspray in hopes that this would relieve the incessant buzzing and biting. It worked for a while.
I took a seat on the log which I had brought over earlier. Pulling out my cook stove and mess kit, I felt a great satisfaction that I had taken the time out of my schedual to come and do this, this was exactly what I needed. I boiled off the water i needed and poured it into one of those fancy freeze dried dinners from REI. I had never had one before and was anxious to see what it was like. Jamaican BBQ Chicken, which was mostly just rice and seasoning and a little bit of chicken. It seemed like there was a lot of water, it had a kind of soupy consistany... but it wasnt all that bad.
After dinner I filtered some water and another group of campers came to the site. There was a lot of them and they liked singing and playing acoustic guitars. I didnt mind but I got the idea in my head that they were over there singing all those god-fearing campsongs like coombiya and all those that follow along with it.I could have sworn i hear them singing "Jonah rowed the boat ashore," I couldnt help but smile. With no fire to keep my moral up and an early morning ahead of me i turned in for the night. About a half hour later the sky started to light up and thunder started booming. I was almost certain that it would rain. The other campers were too, so certain in fact that they packed up and left. It never rained.
The morning was beatiful, I lingered in my sleeping bag for a little longer before changing into my hiking attire and breaking down camp. After having a blueberry and granola breakfast and after getting all the equiment I need into my near 40lb pack I filtered the rest of the water I needed for my trek and parked the jeep at the Carranza Memorial.
The woods were lush with chest high vegitation, mostly blueberry bushes. I was a month or two early I figured, just a little soon for ripe blueberries. It would have been nice to have a free snack but I was stocked with Wild Bill's beef jerky and trail mix so I was set.
I noticed almost immediatly how bad the Pines were hit with Gypsy Moths this year. They were EVERYWHERE. Ticks were even worse. At one point on the trail I stopped to rest at a small clearing and sat ontop of my pack. I watched handfulls of different sized ticks race to be the first one on me. After a while flicking them off seemed useless and I was covered correctly and they couldnt bite into my skin so I picked up my pack and pressed on. I went through 3 bottles of water and I was very pleased with my new Katadyn Hiker Pro water filtration system.
It was a little after 2pm when i arrived at my spot for the night at Lower Forge. I set up camp and hung a clothes line then proceeded to the water for a cool dip. The water was amazingly cool. Just what i needed after my 6mi hike. I went in, in my boots to help protect my feet. Afterwards I put my socks that I had taken off on and hung my boots to dry. I air dried in my socks and appriciated the fact that I had the woods to myself. When it came time to get dressed I noticed that I hadnt checked my socks for left over ticks before putting them back on and I found that i had made some friends, about 12 to be precise. Mostly they came right out but I did have to burn a couple. I checked my clothes thoroughly after that.
I made myself dinner, beef stroganoff, much better than my meal from yesterday, it was thick and creamy and they didnt skimp on the beef.
I had a real hard time hanging my bear bag. There were hardly any descent trees down wind and there were almost no rocks to tie to the rope. When I finally did get the bag up in a tree a few pieces of bark fell from above and landed right in my hair. I brushed it off thought nothing of it until later when i felt a tick biting into my head. Luckily I had added some Bertie Bees products to my first aid kit and had with me a hand salve which i applied generously around the tick that was now imbedded into my skull. I waited a few minutes and gave the culprit a tug, thankfully it came out easily. (recent information has informed me that this is a bad idea and I would only recommend this technique as a last resort.)
Around 5 or 6PM I started to hear some voices and 4 people walked up the hill from the water. They had canoed down to the site. Two adult males and two children a boy and a girl. The older of the two males apperared to be the father of the other and the grandfather of the children. Anyhow they were very loud and the father of the children was a jerk. Yelling at his children about everything he could and acting like they were home and i wasnt anywhere in sight. It was starting to get to me. I go solo hiking to... imagine this, be alone in the woods. I felt far from alone in the woods. Then I noticed the smell of smoke and I look over to find that they are having a fire. Granted it was in a special fire stand but it was a fire during a fire ban none the less. Now as someone who deeply loves the outdoors and is avid about protecting them I felt forced to say something. All I ended up doing was making sure that they were aware of the fire ban and making sure that they had paid for their site so that their mistakes werent stuck on me, after all who am I? I may love the outdoors but Im in no position of authority and they would have blown me off anyway, so I just made sure that they kept it small and I jealously returned to my side of the campground. I turned in early again, thoroughly checking for any sign of ticks everywhere. The neighbors were loud.
Morning came and the sky was dark and the plants were poised and ready for rain. I broke down camp, filtered water and headed on my way. I kept looking at the sky hoping for a cool rainfall. It didnt rain until I was back to the Jeep, which would have been best if I was in a survival situation but since I was only hiking I was disappointed that I didnt get a nice cool shower on the hike back.
At some point on the trail I came across a medium sized gecko that was really, really cool. It made me notice how similar the pine barrens really are to a desert. Hot days, cool nights and fine grain sand. It doesnt matter how much vegitation there is because when you are out there chugging along the Batona, water sources are far apart and if you dont carry enough, especially at this time of year, you will deeply regret it.
Despite all the hardships, the increase in price, the fire ban, the other campers, the ticks, gyspy moths and poison oak as well as the heat... it was an amazing trip. Amazing, though I would at least wait till blueberry season next time.
"Arn't the campsites $1 a piece?" I asked.
"The prices went up a few weeks ago," ...and so i put a $4 charge on my credit card.
Just then another women walked in to reserve a campsite and pointed out a sign that i had not noticed earlier. The sign read: FIRE BAN IN EFFECT, NO GROUNDFIRES. I nodded in slight disappointment and headed out the door.
I headed over to the Batona Camp, across from the Carranza Memorial over in Tabernacle. When I arrived I was met with renewed spirits, the fresh piney air had brought back the excitment I had started the trip with, and I had the whole campground to myself.
I found a nice log to sit on while driving through to find a site but it was heavy and it was a ways from my desired camping area... so i put it in my jeep and hauled it along over to my site. I set up tent rather quickly and soon began to notice the mosquitoes. I wanted that fire now more than ever. I proceeded to saturate myself with bugspray in hopes that this would relieve the incessant buzzing and biting. It worked for a while.
I took a seat on the log which I had brought over earlier. Pulling out my cook stove and mess kit, I felt a great satisfaction that I had taken the time out of my schedual to come and do this, this was exactly what I needed. I boiled off the water i needed and poured it into one of those fancy freeze dried dinners from REI. I had never had one before and was anxious to see what it was like. Jamaican BBQ Chicken, which was mostly just rice and seasoning and a little bit of chicken. It seemed like there was a lot of water, it had a kind of soupy consistany... but it wasnt all that bad.
After dinner I filtered some water and another group of campers came to the site. There was a lot of them and they liked singing and playing acoustic guitars. I didnt mind but I got the idea in my head that they were over there singing all those god-fearing campsongs like coombiya and all those that follow along with it.I could have sworn i hear them singing "Jonah rowed the boat ashore," I couldnt help but smile. With no fire to keep my moral up and an early morning ahead of me i turned in for the night. About a half hour later the sky started to light up and thunder started booming. I was almost certain that it would rain. The other campers were too, so certain in fact that they packed up and left. It never rained.
The morning was beatiful, I lingered in my sleeping bag for a little longer before changing into my hiking attire and breaking down camp. After having a blueberry and granola breakfast and after getting all the equiment I need into my near 40lb pack I filtered the rest of the water I needed for my trek and parked the jeep at the Carranza Memorial.
The woods were lush with chest high vegitation, mostly blueberry bushes. I was a month or two early I figured, just a little soon for ripe blueberries. It would have been nice to have a free snack but I was stocked with Wild Bill's beef jerky and trail mix so I was set.
I noticed almost immediatly how bad the Pines were hit with Gypsy Moths this year. They were EVERYWHERE. Ticks were even worse. At one point on the trail I stopped to rest at a small clearing and sat ontop of my pack. I watched handfulls of different sized ticks race to be the first one on me. After a while flicking them off seemed useless and I was covered correctly and they couldnt bite into my skin so I picked up my pack and pressed on. I went through 3 bottles of water and I was very pleased with my new Katadyn Hiker Pro water filtration system.
It was a little after 2pm when i arrived at my spot for the night at Lower Forge. I set up camp and hung a clothes line then proceeded to the water for a cool dip. The water was amazingly cool. Just what i needed after my 6mi hike. I went in, in my boots to help protect my feet. Afterwards I put my socks that I had taken off on and hung my boots to dry. I air dried in my socks and appriciated the fact that I had the woods to myself. When it came time to get dressed I noticed that I hadnt checked my socks for left over ticks before putting them back on and I found that i had made some friends, about 12 to be precise. Mostly they came right out but I did have to burn a couple. I checked my clothes thoroughly after that.
I made myself dinner, beef stroganoff, much better than my meal from yesterday, it was thick and creamy and they didnt skimp on the beef.
I had a real hard time hanging my bear bag. There were hardly any descent trees down wind and there were almost no rocks to tie to the rope. When I finally did get the bag up in a tree a few pieces of bark fell from above and landed right in my hair. I brushed it off thought nothing of it until later when i felt a tick biting into my head. Luckily I had added some Bertie Bees products to my first aid kit and had with me a hand salve which i applied generously around the tick that was now imbedded into my skull. I waited a few minutes and gave the culprit a tug, thankfully it came out easily. (recent information has informed me that this is a bad idea and I would only recommend this technique as a last resort.)
Around 5 or 6PM I started to hear some voices and 4 people walked up the hill from the water. They had canoed down to the site. Two adult males and two children a boy and a girl. The older of the two males apperared to be the father of the other and the grandfather of the children. Anyhow they were very loud and the father of the children was a jerk. Yelling at his children about everything he could and acting like they were home and i wasnt anywhere in sight. It was starting to get to me. I go solo hiking to... imagine this, be alone in the woods. I felt far from alone in the woods. Then I noticed the smell of smoke and I look over to find that they are having a fire. Granted it was in a special fire stand but it was a fire during a fire ban none the less. Now as someone who deeply loves the outdoors and is avid about protecting them I felt forced to say something. All I ended up doing was making sure that they were aware of the fire ban and making sure that they had paid for their site so that their mistakes werent stuck on me, after all who am I? I may love the outdoors but Im in no position of authority and they would have blown me off anyway, so I just made sure that they kept it small and I jealously returned to my side of the campground. I turned in early again, thoroughly checking for any sign of ticks everywhere. The neighbors were loud.
Morning came and the sky was dark and the plants were poised and ready for rain. I broke down camp, filtered water and headed on my way. I kept looking at the sky hoping for a cool rainfall. It didnt rain until I was back to the Jeep, which would have been best if I was in a survival situation but since I was only hiking I was disappointed that I didnt get a nice cool shower on the hike back.
At some point on the trail I came across a medium sized gecko that was really, really cool. It made me notice how similar the pine barrens really are to a desert. Hot days, cool nights and fine grain sand. It doesnt matter how much vegitation there is because when you are out there chugging along the Batona, water sources are far apart and if you dont carry enough, especially at this time of year, you will deeply regret it.
Despite all the hardships, the increase in price, the fire ban, the other campers, the ticks, gyspy moths and poison oak as well as the heat... it was an amazing trip. Amazing, though I would at least wait till blueberry season next time.
It suited them well enough.