lancewig.com

We’ve been hearing the buzz about Max Patch ever since we bought our camping gear. This was the weekend we finally checked it out. Max Patch is a nice grassy bald along the Appalachian Trail a short way from Hot Springs, NC.

There were 2 vans full of people already at the parking area. However, once we started towards our final destination, we didn’t see any one else. We decided to head north to a place called “Hawk’s Roost”. I had no idea what this place was. On the map, it’s shown as a scenic place name and camping area.

This particular section of the trail goes down in elevation so the hike to the camp was dead easy. We traveled about 4 miles at which point Dawn said, “You mean that’s it?”. We did manage to blow right past the blue blazed trail to Hawk’s Roost. On the AT map, it looks like Hawk’s Roost is directly across from the entrance to the Rube Rock Trail. In actuality, the entrance is a blue blazed trail a couple minutes south.

Hawk’s Roost is a little camping area that overlooks a tract of land that has been reforested by Champion Paper. They’ve posted a huge sign there to explain what is going on in the valley below. Our view this July was not that great due to the foliage. I bet the view gets better in winter. The site was small, quiet and unoccupied which made us happy. We had a fairly quiet night. The owls that had Joy so scared last time were largely absent. It also helped to have Dawn along which put Joy at ease.

Turkey basted ziplock food preparation

Dawn was great at finding cheap and light food for us. She found some packaged couscous, instant oatmeal and dried fruit bars at the local Ingles store. Our budget is super tight these days, so we still haven’t purchased our JetBoil stove. We found one of those little pint sized mess kit pots at a yard sale a couple of weeks back. We came up with a plan to heat water in the pot and transfer it to the food in ziploc bags. Dawn read about this ziplock technique in a book called Lipspacking Backpacking. The book tells you to be sure and use “freezer bags” which can withstand the high temperature. The advantages to this technique are:

• Use one pot to heat water.
• Pot stays clean.
• Ziplock bags can be sealed to steep food.
• No extra plates to wash.

I put a spin on the ziplock technique with a turkey baster. I argued that trying to lift the tiny little pot of water and pour it into the bags would wind up spilling water. In addition, it would take the pot away from the heat. I wanted to try a turkey baster to pull boiling water from the pot over the fire and inject it into the ziplock bag. It worked fairly well, but there was one unexpected downside. Each time I pulled water into the baster and turned it up slightly, it would spurt some water out as the steam in the top raced to the bottom. This could be remedied by leaving the baster verticle. The only problem there was that some water dripped from the bottom. Even though there was a bit of water loss, I was happier about not trying to pour into a ziplock bag. The technique worked really well with our moring coffee. Dawn got these little “single serving” coffee packets that we dropped into our Naglene bottles. We then injected the hot water into the bottle and had pretty decent coffee.

Things we brought and things we wish we had brought.

I did a lot better this time by bringing things that had a good use. I still wound up carrying 27 pounds. Dawn was carrying around 20 pounds.Useful things we did bring were:

• My little green iPod which let me listen to my Chinese learning dialogs on those steep grades. It took my mind off the strain on my body.
• Sleeping pills. (even though I didn’t need them this time, I like to know they are there.)
• My Chinese learning flash cards. You can bring any kind of flash cards really. The idea to use your time to learn something.
• Our camera. ( note all the pictures in this post )
• Napkins inside a ziplock ( for all the messes)
• A small blanket for Joy to lay on inside the tent.
• A multitude of ziplock bags for things like matches, camera’s and packing out tin cans from other people who don’t understand that metal doesn’t burn.
• A nice rope to hang food up away from the bears.
• A small 1oz candle to set by the tent entry for light.

There are things that we would like to have next time like:

• A simple pair of gardener’s gloves to handle the firewood with. It keeps your hands cleaner.
• A little pocket for the front shoulder strap of my pack to put the iPod and map inside of.
• A bug net hat to keep out flying insects. (or perhaps bug-spray, but I don’t like bug-spray.)
• A JetBoil stove which will make a good healthy 20oz or so of hot coffee in an instant.
• A fire-starting stick for wet wood.

More photos of our trip have been posted to my Flickr account.