Backpacking – Ray of Sunshine Travel

Colorado Rocky Mountain High

September 21, 2021Sheraya SmithLeave a comment

Hello all! Excited to share about this adventure – it was a good one!

Colorado is a state that is – if not near, at least – dear to me. I fell in love with its mountains on a ski trip a couple of years ago, and I was considering moving out there before COVID hit. I decided in March to check off the National Parks there, and I was lucky enough to score some pretty awesome backcountry permits in RMNP and campsite reservations in the three other parks.

Despite my early bookings, things didn’t really come together until the week of the trip, in typical Sheraya fashion. I was really hoping to share the trip with someone (and avoid paying for a $750 rental car!), and I found an amazing travel partner and friend in Stephanie! Long story short, I know her mom, and she offered Stephanie up as a potential companion.

I flew into Denver on Friday, and we stayed in a hotel there before heading out to RMNP on Saturday.

The original plan had us backpacking up to Boulderfield Saturday, and we would summit Long’s Peak, the highest point in the park, Sunday morning. Unfortunately, the weather looked downright nasty, so we decided to forgo the summit and backpack to a much lower elevation campsite, Goblin’s Forest. Since the hike in to the site was just over a mile and we couldn’t get into the main park area until 3:00, we killed time by running errands, including, of course, stopping at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Once the park opened, we procrastinated on hiking in the rainy, cold weather by driving around.

We decided to drive the somewhat treacherous Old Fall River Road, a 11-mile, one-way gravel road. Unfortunately, clouds made it difficult to see much, but we still encountered some deer and a pretty waterfall.

By the time we reached the end of the road and drove back down, we decided it was probably time we hit the trail. Somewhat reluctantly, we packed up our stuff and left the dry warmth of the car for the cool, drizzly outdoors.

As we climbed up to the campsite, we quickly became grateful that it was only a mile in. Colorado’s elevation is no joke!

We ended up having Goblin’s Forest all to ourselves, so we had our choice of sites and picked the closest one to the stream. It was really pretty, despite being overcast.

Thankfully, the rain stopped shortly after we got there, so we were able to set up camp without getting too wet. We chatted a bit and made plans for the next day, then turned in.

Sunday we whipped up some oatmeal, then packed a daybag and began the 3 mile hike up to Chasm Lake. And man, those views were killer, especially once we got above treeline.

And that doesn’t even include the actual destination: Chasm Lake!

Stephanie and I agreed that we liked the views on the way just as much as Chasm Lake, though it was all beautiful. We ate a snack by the lake, then started the hike back before afternoon storms rolled in.

We got back to the campsite early afternoon, and Stephanie decided to hike back to the car for a phone charger, while I stayed behind and sat on the banks of the stream and read Lord of the Rings (still working on Fellowship of the Ring!).

It looked for a while like we were going to have the whole place to ourselves again, but a hiker Stephanie met on the trail ended up dropping by and decided to stay for the night. We had a great time with him and were happy to share our dinner with him, especially since he volunteered to sleep under the stars and be bear bait!

We couldn’t stay up too late chatting, however, as we had an early Monday morning coming. Since we didn’t have timed entry passes to the Bear Lake section of the park, we had to enter before 5 am, which meant waking up at 3, packing up, hiking the mile back to the car and driving a half hour to that side of the park. We might have been crazy, but we made it!

We crashed in the car for about an hour before we roused again and began the hike to Sky Pond. Unlike the image below, we hiked over by Nymph Lake and Dream Lake so we could make a bit of a loop. In retrospect, we thought this was the best way to hike it, as it added some beautiful views without too much more mileage.

It was so pretty.

The terrain never got old, especially because there were so many lakes to stop at and several little side hikes you could do.

After a couple of hours, and some decent switchbacks, we made it to the base of Sky Pond. What we didn’t realize is the final climb to Sky Pond was actually a climb, up through a small waterfall no less!

I decided to go on ahead while Stephanie stayed back and recuperated a little bit. I was pretty glad when I got up and saw Sky Pond pretty much immediately!

….or so I thought. I overheard a family talking and realized that this was in fact Lake of Glass, and that Sky Pond was a little further. So I got back up and followed them the rest of the way there.

I liked them both about equally, but it was nice to say I made it to Sky Pond. Really, the whole area up there was beautiful.

After a little while enjoying the views, I scrambled back down to where Stephanie was waiting, and we got a picture by the waterfall before descending.

Thankfully, the way back was almost entirely downhill. There were some pretty spots, though less scenic than the way we came in.

After we got back to the trailhead, we headed for Glacier Basin Campground to see if they had any last-minute openings, as we were pretty pooped at the thought of backpacking to a site that night. We were in luck!

We set up camp and ate a late lunch, then drove into town for some supplies. We walked out with what I’d call some high quality dinner…

It was raining by the time we got back, so we holed up in our tents and fell asleep to a soft pitter-patter. It would have been nice, except that we also woke up to a soft pitter-patter. We quickly broke camp, stuffed the sopping tents in the back of the car, and headed out for Great Sand Dunes NP.

We made a stop for a couple hours at a Panera in Colorado Springs so Stephanie could knock out a test, and I got to try a bread bowl for the first time. Yummy.

We had some really good conversations on the way to GSD, ranging from silly to serious. We were pretty slaphappy by the end of it, and got really giggly when we saw this sign:

Like, okay, lots of things could exist on the road, right? We giggled even more when we saw this sign:

So water may exist on the road, along with a host of other things, but you know there definitely won’t be snowplows between 7-5.

Much to our amusement, a few miles later, there really was water “existing” on the road!

There had been so much rain that the road had flooded! Thankfully, within about 15 minutes, it had receded enough for us to drive on. We were still pretty tickled though. For the rest of the trip, we made it a point to look for silly signs, and we weren’t disappointed:

We finally got to the park, and though the weather looked awfully ominous, we got some awesome rainbows!

And we caught our first glimpse of the dunes!

We drove straight to the campground so we could dry out our sopping tents, and low and behold we found at our site…

The conversation went something like this:

Me, the first one to see it: “Uh, Stephanie? You might want to see this…”
Stephanie, walking up to see it: “Oh no…”
Me, trying to find some positive in the situation: “Well, at least…”
Stephanie: “At least what??!”
Both: Dissolve into giggles

Thankfully there was enough space for us to pitch our tents around it.

We made dinner, which we also giggled about because it was chili and it had beans in it (can you tell we were pretty slaphappy?).

At sunset, we walked down towards the dunes to get a better glimpse. This picture really doesn’t do it justice.

There we met a women named Glenn. We quickly hit it off, and spent several minutes chatting before we took her back to our campsite to see our “built in pool”. To our chagrin, it had soaked into the ground, but we had something else to giggle about now.

Wednesday thankfully broke warm and sunny. We packed a day bag and headed for the dunes.

The whole time we were at this park, Stephanie and I just couldn’t fathom how all this sand got here. It’s literally these massive dunes (the tallest in the country!) that just show up randomly in the middle of the mountains.

Our goal was to get to the top of High Dune, the second tallest dune in the park. After an hour or so, we made it up, and the views were incredible!

To our great surprise, Glenn was also at the top of High Dune!

We decided to hike back together. As it turns out, Glenn was not a huge fan of going down the ridgelines, so we ended up taking a much more circuitous route than we would have otherwise. It definitely gave us time for good convos, more sights of the dunes, and lots of laughs!

We parted ways when we got back, as Stephanie and I had to go pack up the campsite. For our second night there, I had heard about camping on the dunes and really wanted to do that, so we headed to the visitor’s center and sorted out permits. We were pretty tuckered out from the morning hike, so we decided to eat, rest up, and then head out for the dunes closer to sunset so we wouldn’t need to take as much with us.

We got another really good laugh when we discovered that the two inches of skin between my socks and leggings (which I’ll admit, Stephanie had told me earlier to apply sunscreen to) were a bright fiery red from that morning. Hiker chic, amirite?

Hiking back up in the evening was a bit more challenging, as the wind was blowing pretty strongly. It was just as beautiful though.

The rules said only one group was allowed per dune hollow/pit, so it took us a while to find an unoccupied spot. We pitched our tents, put our packs inside them to keep them from flying away, and climbed the nearest dune to watch sunset.

We left the rain flies off our tents that night so we could see the stars. Unfortunately, my phone can’t take night pictures worth anything, but it was the kind of night where you couldn’t pick out constellations because there were so many stars. I counted five shooting stars. It was absolutely magical.

Thursday we got up in time to watch the sunrise, which was also beautiful.

We enjoyed watching various sand bugs for a bit, then packed up and started heading back.

We ended up on top of High Dune again, which had some nice early morning views.

There we met Ashton, another dunes backpacker. We hit it off and ended up walking down the dunes together. Ironically enough, he was supposed to have camped at Goblins’ Forest in RMNP one of the nights we were there, but his flight got delayed.

We parted ways at the parking lot, and Stephanie and I headed out for the next park: Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Stephanie had actually been to this park earlier in the year but didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time there, so she was really excited to go back.

If you’re adventurous, one of the biggest draws of Black Canyon is getting to hike down into the canyon. The fact that less than 30 people per day are issued permits to hike down in only makes it more covetous. We got to the park about about 2:30 and immediately went to the visitor’s center to claim our permit for the next day. Within the half hour, all 15 permits allowed for the Gunnison Route, the “easiest” route down, had been taken!

The route down is actually part of a designated wilderness area, meaning that there is no signage or trail markers. This isn’t much of a big deal on the way down, but it makes it more of a challenge going back up. Partly for this reason, we were required to attend a ranger-led orientation on going down.

After the orientation, we drove to the campsite and pitched camp, then drove around to catch all the canyon overlook views. Not going to lie, it was pretty stunning.

While driving between overlooks, we met two guys our age and hit it off with them. They were testing which overlook had the best echo, and we happily joined in.

Sunset, of course, was gorgeous, if a bit smoky.

We finally pulled ourselves away from the views, drove back to the campsite, and made dinner before turning in.

Unfortunately, some animal tormented Stephanie in her tent for hours that night, while I managed to sleep through the whole thing. Looking back, we think maybe it was a deer, but it was hard to tell in the moment.

Friday we packed up in the dark so we could get an early start down. Within 20 minutes or so, we had passed into the wilderness area!

The way down was a little treacherous at times, mainly because of the steepness and the amount of loose scree on the trail. The only man-made object from the top down to the bottom was an 80 foot chain on a particularly steep section.

In a little over two hours, we reached the bottom. Oh, it was so worth it!

We had a good time walking along the riverbank and exploring. If you’re wondering, the river is much too cold to do anything besides stick a hand in, though some people fish in it. After we’d gotten our fill of exploring, we sat down at the campsite to rest and refuel. Our friend Ashton from the dunes had mentioned backpacking down here on an even harder route and spending the night, and we just couldn’t fathom lugging a pack up and down that steep trail.

We finally decided to start heading back up, though not before grabbing a few more pictures.

Even though we had been careful to turn around frequently on the way down and look where we were coming from, we still managed to get off-route on the way back up. Thankfully, we spotted a landmark after a few minutes and were able to get back on track. Even with that mishap, it took us less time to get back up than it did to go down!

We refilled our water, then set out for our final park, Mesa Verde, the famous home of the Cliff Dwellings. This is the only national park in the US that’s primary purpose is to preserve Native Americans homes and communities; thus, we were disappointed to find out that several of the sites were closed due to construction, renovation, or COVID. I also hadn’t purchased tickets to tour one of the larger houses, and they were all sold out by the time we got there.

Nonetheless, we made the most of it. After picking out our campsite, we drove to High Point, where we got some awesome views of the park.

Next, we drove out to Chapin Mesa and explored the Mesa Top Loop. Apparently, the people were in the area for hundreds of years and started out in smaller, underground dwellings called pithouses.

There were two more stages of housing, each bigger and more communal than the next, before the people began to construct the cliff dwellings. Stephanie and I were amazed at how skilled, creative and resourceful they were.

A few other items of note:

I didn’t realize that the cliff dwellings often are literally on the side of the cliff not near the valley floor. Wow, these people had guts! Lots of times they would farm on top of the mesa and use ladders or handholds to climb up and down.
It amazed me how much archeologists had deduced about this group, and yet still had no idea about some aspects of their life.
Natives throughout the region were part of an extensive trade network that stretched hundreds of miles, and they traded not only goods but ideas.
People would often leave their homes, only to come back a few generations later and build on top of them.

As it started getting dark, we decided to try and enjoy our last camping dinner up at High Point while watching the sunset, but a fussy ranger crushed our plan. So we rebelled and drove to the next closest overlook and enjoyed our dinner there instead. Not quite as good of a view, but we still enjoyed it!

One of the best perks of the park was SHOWERS! Stephanie decided to take one that night, while I held out until the next day – I couldn’t get past the though of crawling back into my stinky sleeping bag after being all clean.

While we were driving back to the campground, we had a bit of a surprise: I spotted a mountain lion sitting on the side of the road. We turned around to get a better look at it, and it ran off. Towards the campground, of course. Gulp. We didn’t spot it again, thank goodness, but it was a little nerve-wracking.

Saturday morning we awoke to smoke. There was a fire just outside the park, though as far as we could tell, we were safe. There have actually been several fires at the park within the last 30 years, and it was amazing how long it took foliage to grow back.

Another thing we were surprised at was the amount of wildlife we saw here. On top of the mountain lion, we encountered deer, wild horses, a turkey family, and a coyote. The most we saw at other parks was deer.

We packed up our site…

…then headed out to Wetherill Mesa, specifically to see Step House, a self-guided cliff dwelling. It was neat, but we were bummed that part of it was closed off. Oh well.

We also walked around the Badger House Community, which was pretty neat, though not cliff dwellings.

At this point, our brains were about full of information, and we had a long drive to Denver ahead of us, so we decided I would grab a shower and then we would hit the road. I can’t tell you how nice it was to be clean…

Thus, we began the seven hour drive back to Denver. It was a long one, but we made it! And even better, Stephanie’s mom Lisa had decided to fly in and join us for the evening.

We checked into our hostel, which was absolutely gorgeous…

…then set out to find a place to eat. We found a good burger place a few blocks away, and I got a breakfast burger because it reminded me of NZ. We were all pretty tired, so we went back to the hostel after dinner. I hung out in the common room for a little while because I missed being in a hostel, but there weren’t many people, so I went to bed before long. And oh how good those beds felt! It was like sleeping on a cloud.

Sunday we drug ourselves out of bed to get breakfast at a cute little place called Jelly. We got a fun little donut sampler, and I really enjoyed the vintage cereal boxes on the walls.

Our last stop in Denver was a letterbox grab at a local cemetery. It was an awesome carving of John Denver, which I thought was pretty fitting considering I’d had “Rocky Mountain High” playing in my head the whole trip.

Stephanie and Lisa dropped me off at the airport after saying goodbye, as they had a 10 hour drive ahead of them back home. I had planned to check my bags and then go back out to explore Denver a little more, but I found that Southwest doesn’t allow you to check your bags more than 4 hours ahead of a flight. So I ended up spending the day at the airport, but I got to meet some cool people that way!

All in all, it was a pretty amazing trip. I was so so glad to have found Stephanie to go with me: I really don’t think we could have hit it off any better! Hoping we might be able to plan some future trips together.

Thanks for riding out another really long post! Not sure where the next trip will be – trying to decide between Florida, the Virgin Islands, Mexico, or SoCal – what would you choose? Until next time!

An Eastern Escape

June 15, 2021Sheraya SmithLeave a comment

Happy summer all! It’s so nice to have warmer temperatures again – perfect time for a national parks road trip!

On this trip, I hit four parks: the Great Smoky Mountains, Congaree, Shenandoah, and the country’s newest park, New River Gorge! After a wonderful semester volunteering with student ministry on top of my job, this solo trip was a much needed retreat.

I left after work on Friday and made the seven-hour drive to Cosby Campground in the northern Smokies, where I basically pitched my tent and crashed for the night. My original plan had me ending the trip in the Smokies, but then I realized that being in the nation’s most visited park on Memorial Day weekend was probably not going to be very relaxing, so I flipped the trip around.

Say hello to Agnes! My little tent sheltered me every night except one on this trip. If you’re interested in specs, it’s a Big Agnes TigerWall UL1. Packaged weight is a whole 2 lb. 3 oz., so it’s perfect for backpacking! It’s semi-freestanding, which for me is probably the biggest downside, since I have to stake it down to get the full amount of room. It performed beautifully on this trip though. It’s definitely on the pricier side, so I may invest in a cheaper tent for car camping in the future, just to save some wear and tear on this one.

Saturday morning, I made oatmeal for breakfast and packed up decently early so I could hit the trails before traffic got bad. I passed through Gatlinburg on my way to the Paradise entrance. Good grief, I knew it was touristy, but just driving down the main street was a whole other level of tourism.

I stopped to get a picture of the sign…

…and then stopped at the Paradise Visitor’s Center to grab a quick letterbox.

My next item on the agenda was the Chimney Tops Trail, which I’d heard had amazing views. It was about a four mile round trip hike and had about a 2500′ elevation gain, so it was no joke! Be aware that if you do this hike the last quarter mile is closed due to a 2016 fire. The views from the lookout are still beautiful though.

Once I got back to my car, I took off for the Deep Creek trailhead. The road took me through Newfound Gap, and the views were really pretty.

At the Smokies, backcountry campers reserve designated campsites and pay a small fee per night. I had reserved campsite 55 (see map below) and was originally planning on taking the Noland Divide Trail up and over, but it was kind of late by the time I got to the trailhead, and I was (sadly) kind of worn out from the Chimney Tops hike already. I decided instead to take the Deep Creek trail straight back.

Near the trailhead, they had tubes available for rent, and there were quite a few people taking advantage of them on this toasty Saturday afternoon.

It was a pretty hike back, as it followed Deep Creek most of the way. The mountain laurel was in bloom too!

After a couple hours, I reached campsite 55. Because I had booked it a few months in advance, I had forgotten that it was a stock camp! Even better, there were horses and riders there. I’m learning to really appreciate horseback riders – they don’t have to worry as much about the weight they carry, and so they frequently have “luxury” items that backpackers can’t afford to carry. Just look at that campsite setup!

Even better, both this group and the guys I met in Washington were incredibly generous in sharing their food. This was by far and away the best I’ve ever eaten on a backpacking trip. Peep the fried fish, fresh hot cornbread, potatoes with ramps (a local onion relative), and bear meat stew – yep, you read that right! They even gave me a beer to wash it down with!

Our campsite was pretty busy, as there were five guys on horseback, four other backpackers, and myself. We had a good time trading wilderness stories and feasting before we turned in for the night.

Sunday morning, I hung around for a bit after packing up, as they had promised me breakfast the night before. While they got up and got going, I took a quick walk to the old swimming hole in Deep Creek and had a little devotion time.

I didn’t get a picture of breakfast, but it was just as good – canned biscuits with homemade sausage, gravy, leftover potatoes… I was a happy camper!

I bid everyone goodbye and headed out. I had considered trying to do Noland Divide that morning on the way out, but ultimately decided to sleep in a little and enjoy breakfast. To get a change of scenery, I hiked out on Sunkota Ridge rather than going back out Deep Creek. I was a little disappointed in the scenery – I’m sure it would have been beautiful, but there just weren’t many gaps through the trees.

I had my first of three major wildlife encounters that day on the Sunkota Trail. I’m 95% sure it was a rattlesnake: it moved very quickly, hissed, and made a rattling noise. I ended up waiting for two guys I knew were behind me to catch up, and we were able to pass it without any incident. Of course, it didn’t make any noise for them, so I don’t think they believed me, but at least we made it out safe.

Here’s Indian Creek Falls! Very pretty.

My next destination was the Twentymile trailhead, about an hour west of Deep Creek. This mini-trip was a two-nighter: I booked site 13 near the top of Gregory Bald for the first night, and 93 for the second night.

The hike up to the bald was no joke – about 7 miles with 2500 feet elevation gain. I was very tempted to stop at site 95 and stay the night but ultimately decided to push myself to get as far as I could.

A few miles in, I heard a noise that sounded too big to be a deer, so I looked around and spotted a young black bear about a hundred feet off the trail! It wasn’t really scary – I just made a lot of noise and attempted to make myself look as big as I could. It just kind of looked at me as I walked by. I didn’t get any pictures of it, as I decided I didn’t want to be the idiot who stopped to get pictures of a bear and got mauled!

My third major wildlife encounter that day occurred as I was walking along Parson’s Bald, close to the campsite. I didn’t get a good look because they ran off as soon as they heard me, but I’m pretty sure they were two large feral hogs. They didn’t seem to move like deer or bears, and they made a loud grunting noise.

After about 4.5 hours of hiking, I finally rolled into camp. I definitely didn’t win any awards for speed, but I made it! I set up camp as the sun was setting, then walked over to the neighboring campsite to fix dinner and join in some conversation with two very sweet older guys. We chatted for a while about previous adventures while I tried to finish my fajita chicken and rice, until it got late and they turned in.

I had a new experience that night! Whenever you’re in bear country, you have to take extra precaution with making sure bears can’t access your food and “smellable” items, both for your and their safety. Usually that means hanging your food bag in trees, but in the Smokies, you’re spoiled with pack hanging cables at every campsite! They were pretty easy to use, and I didn’t have to worry about finding the perfect tree to hang my food from.

I woke up decently early Monday morning, as I was hoping to catch a little bit of sunrise and eat breakfast on top of the bald.

I packed up, got a picture of and said goodbye to my new friends, then hiked the 15 minutes to the top of the bald.

It was beautiful, especially in that early morning light! I picked a spot to plop and just enjoyed the views before eventually pulling out my stove and fixing a bowl of oatmeal.

After breakfast, I walked around and explored the bald a little. I was excited to find wild blueberries, though it would be several months before they’d be edible.

I enjoyed the view a little longer, then continued on the Gregory Bald Trail. I had the option of hopping on the Long Hungry Ridge Trail and taking it straight to my campsite, but I decided to hike a little further on the GB trail to the Appalachian Trail.

The Appalachian Trail is something I’ve been considering through-hiking for a while now, so I was really excited to get to see it in person. After being on it a few minutes though, my excitement kinda died down, as it seemed a lot like the trail I was just on. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I kinda overhyped it. In hindsight, though, I’m glad I did it and got to see the famous white blazes marking the trail!

I hiked about three miles to the turnoff for my campsite and debated just heading straight there, but I had heard about a firetower about a quarter mile further on the AT that was supposed to have decent views. After talking with another hiker, I was sold. And oh my goodness, I’m so glad I went for it.

The firetower is called Shuckstack; you can get to it via an unmarked but well-worn side trail from the AT. If you don’t like heights, it may be a challenge for you, but I still encourage you to try it: it had the best views I saw in the park. I think you can make it into a pretty decent day hike from Fontana Dam.

I had the pleasure of meeting a through-hiker who was taking his lunch break up there, and he was really encouraging me to pursue through-hiking the trail. Super neat guy.

After spending probably a good hour there soaking in the views, I started meandering down to my campsite. Today was a downhill day, and it felt so good after the climb yesterday.

I rolled into camp a few hours later and was pleasantly surprised to have it all to myself. I saw on the map that it was right next to a stream, and I was so excited to take my boots and socks off and soak my feet. It was even better than I imagined: there was a swimming hole very close to the campsite, surrounded by beautiful rhododendron bushes, with the perfect spot to sit and read for a while. And after grabbing a snack, that is exactly what I did for the next several hours. I was so happy…

I finally dragged myself away and set up camp for the night. My appetite had returned with a vengeance, and I was hungry for salt, so I ditched my chicken couscous for beef ramen. That was some of the best ramen I’ve ever had!

I hung my pack, then climbed in my tent and read for a bit before turning in early. Tuesday morning, I was up early and grabbed a honey bun for breakfast so I could hit the trail quickly. I did stop at the beautiful Twentymile Creek falls for a little while and did a devotion there.

Before I knew it, I was back to the car. I did a quick baby-wipe shower, dunked my hair in the water to get some of the oil out (it didn’t work), then hit the road for Congaree National Park!

I was almost reluctant to leave the Smokies, but I was also excited to see one of the lesser known National Parks. Congaree is twenty minutes outside of Columbia, South Carolina, and it’s composed mainly of floodplain forest. It’s on the newer and smaller side, so I only budgeted 1.5 days/1 night to see it, and I think that was about right. It’s a cool park, but unless you are a total tree fanatic, you can see all the park highlights within this time frame.

One of the biggest draws of the park is seasonal: the last few weeks of May, a species of rare fireflies that flash in synchrony appears in pockets of the park. Pre-COVID, 18,000 people showed up one year to see the fireflies, but because of COVID, this year they had a lottery system and were closing the park early to all but people with tickets. I just happened to schedule my trip during this time, but I was super excited to see the fireflies.

I got there about 2:00 and decided to hike the 2.5 mile boardwalk trail. They offer a self-guided tour so you can pick out some cool sights. One of the coolest parts for me was seeing the bald cypress trees, whose roots send up these strange little nubbins. Scientists speculate they help provide support for the tree, but they’re not sure.

I was originally supposed to do some backpacking that evening near the southern entrance, but when I heard that there might not be fireflies over there, I hopped online to see if there were any last minute campground cancellations, and there were! I was absolutely thrilled.

As it turns out, the campground I booked at, Bluff Campground, was about a mile hike away from the parking lot. This didn’t daunt me since I had my backpack, but if you camp here, plan to be carrying your stuff for a while! There’s also no bathrooms or water at the campground, so plan to hike a mile to the Visitor’s Center for these things.

It was a beautiful hike/campsite, though, and there was only one other couple there!

I set up my tent and fixed dinner. I was really tempted to leave off the rain fly since it was so hot, but I ultimately put it on, and I’m glad I did! A popup shower hit right after I was done cooking dinner, so I ate my mashed potatoes and spam (delicious!) from the comfort of my tent.

About 8:30 or so, I hiked over to a spot on the boardwalk where I had heard there were a lot of fireflies. The next two hours or so were just magical: the rain, which had cooled things off, was dripping from the trees, the crickets were chirping, and the fireflies were illuminating the woods like Christmas tree lights, blinking a softer and bluer light than the ones I was used to. It actually takes them a while to synchronize, but once they do, it’s near perfect.

I was also geeking out because I ran into a computer science researcher from the University of Colorado who was studying the fireflies. We talked for a few minutes about the projects he was conducting and how we both enjoyed travel and hiking/climbing. I also bumped into some cool people I had met earlier.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any good pictures or video from the fireflies, but I highly encourage you to look them on Youtube!

Wednesday morning, I got up and hiked my stuff back to the car, then drove to the Visitor’s Center. I wanted to do the River Trail, a 10 mile lollipop trail that was the only trail to offer views of the Congaree River. If you only have a day in Congaree, I would not recommend this hike: it’s long, is pretty narrow and windy, and has several trees down across the trail, and there’s only one or two spots where you can even see the river. That said, it was kinda nice to log ten miles in this park, and if you’re a real tree fanatic, there’s some big trees along the way.

I hiked out to the Sandbar, and ate lunch, then hoofed it back so I could start the 7 hour drive to Shenandoah.

The park is known for mosquitoes, and there’s even a funny sign indicating how bad they are currently, but I lucked out and hardly saw any.

I refilled on water, took a picture by the sign, and hit the road!

The drive to Shenandoah was pretty long, but I broke it up with a stop at Bojangles for dinner. They’re a popular southern chain and are apparently known for their chicken biscuits, so I decided to try it. I thought the chicken was just okay, but the biscuit and potato rounds tasted heavenly (fair warning: food tastes much better when you’ve just come off a backpacking trip, so I’m probably biased!).

Like the Smokies, Shenandoah is mountainous and contains a good section of the AT, but that’s about where the similarities end. Shenandoah encompasses part of the Blue Ridge mountains and is very long and skinny; the famous Skyline Drive, which is over 100 miles long and takes three hours to drive, runs the length of the park and offers over 75 lookouts. Most of the trails spur off of Skyline, which means you often hike down then hike up on the way back. Definitely not like the Smokies, where you had to work for your views! Also, backcountry camping at Shenandoah means finding a spot that fits the rules and camping there, unlike the reservable backcountry sites at the Smokies.

I had a reservation at Loft Campground, the southernmost and largest in the park. I got there late, set up my tent and crashed.

Thursday morning I took a baby wipe shower, packed up, checked weather, and drove back down to the entrance so I could see the parts of Skyline I had missed in the dark.

I had a backpacking route planned, but I realized it probably wouldn’t take me all day, so I spontaneously hiked to the Jones Run Falls. The falls were super neat, and I also stumbled across a beautiful moth!

Back on Skyline, I stopped at some more beautiful overlooks…

…then headed for the Rocky Mount trail. I picked this one because there was supposed to be a singular campsite with incredible views. There was no parking lot at the trailhead, which made it a little tricky to find; I just parked at the nearest overlook and hiked a short distance to the trailhead.

Most people just make a dayhike of the route shown in blue above, but I decided to backpack the whole loop counterclockwise. It was very isolated – I didn’t see another soul the whole trip – but surprisingly well maintained.

There was a mile or two of downhill along the lollipop “stick”, and I got some decent views.

The Gap Run section was pretty flat and went by quickly. Though there weren’t vistas, there were some neat plants I hadn’t seen before!

Another interesting aspect of Shenandoah is that trail markers are concrete posts with metal bands that are stamped with trail information. You can see the one below for the turn off for Rocky Mount.

After turning onto Rocky Mount, things quickly got steeper. It was a good, challenging hike up to the summit. The problem was, I couldn’t find the summit. I stopped a few times before I kept hiking and finally stumbled across the summit.

The views really were pretty awesome.

However, I was worried about camping there, partly because it was so close to the trail and partly because it was exposed and it looked like rain might be coming in. I crawled through the bushes for a few minutes and stumbled on this awesome little clearing that was just steps from the trail but still hidden.

Reassured that I had a safe place to sleep, I went back to the summit and made dinner with that awesome view. I amused myself by calling my little setup Ray’s Cafe, with a different location every night.

Unfortunately, Ray’s Cafe that night had a great location, but pretty so-so food. My stuffing with chicken was a great idea, but execution was another matter. I’ll have to play with that one a little.

After dinner, I hurried back to my site and set up my tent before dark. I had a new experience that night: hanging a bear bag. I didn’t follow the exact rules of hanging it on a branch so far out from a tree, so please don’t use my photo as an example, but I felt a huge sense of accomplishment just getting it up in the tree.

Friday morning was bright and sunny when I woke up. I retrieved my bearbag, grabbed a small breakfast and packed up. I spent a few more minutes at the summit enjoying the views, then hiked down and stumbled across the actual campsite advertised online. It did have some pretty amazing views, but I was pretty happy and felt safe with the little clearing I had found.

It was largely downhill until I got to the lollipop stick, and then it was uphill back to Skyline. Overall, it was a pretty good hike, but if I did it again, I would probably skip Gap Run trail and just hike up to Rocky Mount. If you can’t get a spot at Rocky Mount, though, there are a few sites along Gap Run, as well as access to water – water was scarce to nonexistent on the Rocky Mount section.

Ta-da! Done.

I kept driving north on Skyline and stopped at Hawksbill Mountain. This is the highest point in the park, but it’s only a two-mile RT hike from the trailhead. Unfortunately, the clouds moved in while I was up there, but it still had some pretty sick views.

I also hiked to the White Oak Canyon Upper Falls, which was about 4.6 miles round trip. It was much taller than Jones Run, but you couldn’t get up close to it; you could only really see it from the lookout. I much preferred Jones Run, but it was still pretty.

Back on Skyline, I got some good but cloudy views from a few lookouts. I also grabbed another neat letterbox!

My final stop for the night was the Old Rag trailhead. Old Rag is probably the most popular trail in the park and also happens to be one of the few trails not really accessed via Skyline. You have to drive outside of the park, then back in from the side to reach the two Old Rag trailheads. The whole trail is about 10 miles, and there’s a couple ways you can hike to the summit: 1) Park at the Old Rag TH and hike the entire loop, which includes a 1+ mile rock scramble; 2) park at the Old Rag TH and take the old fire road in to the summit and then back out; 3) park at the Berry Hollow TH and take the fire road in to the summit. Despite a ranger cautioning against doing the scramble while wet, I decided to do option 1.

I technically had backpacking permits for the area, but I was tired, and it was raining, so I parked at the trailhead and decided to sleep in my car.

Saturday, I woke up early, grabbed a quick breakfast and hit the trail before too many Memorial Day vacationers got there.

And boy oh boy, what a fun trail it was! The rock scramble section was slippery, and the normally beautiful views were completely obscured by clouds, but it was still a blast. If you have the option though, I would definitely do it on a dry sunny day with someone else. It was kinda easy to get turned around, and I learned later that someone had broken their ankle on the trail the day before and it had taken 10 hours to rescue them (and that was considered a short rescue!).

This was the only picture I got on the rock scramble because I was often using three or four limbs to climb over rocks. If I remember right, it was one of the sketchiest sections of the hike: you had to climb down from the left side, with just a little foothold to grab onto. Shew!

I finally made it up to the summit, where I met a group of three other women who were breaking for lunch. I asked if I could join them, and they gave an enthusiastic yes. We didn’t break for long because it was cold and barely 60 degrees – a far cry from the 90+ degrees I had a few days ago in Congaree! They took my picture by the summit, and I ended up hanging out with them the rest of the hike. We cracked jokes about how great certain lookouts would be if we could actually see anything, and how reviewers had labeled the downhill section of the trail as boring. (“Nope, not boring yet!”) It was a great time.

After about six hours of hiking, we made it back to the parking lot, tired and wet but happy. We parted ways, and I took a babywipe shower and changed into dry clothes before hitting the road again. Even though it was really cloudy, I decided I wanted to finish out the rest of Skyline Drive, so I headed that way.

On my way back, though, I stopped in the adorable town of Sperryville and walked around for a little while. There was the Corner Store, from which I grabbed some strawberry white chocolate cookies…

…and a coffee/gelato/wine place called Before & After for a hot honeysuckle latte. It was pretty wonderful!

Nearly all the lookouts at Skyline were unfortunately whited out from the clouds. It wasn’t until elevation started dropping that I could see anything.

Finally I reached the northern entrance! I drove all 100 miles. Maybe someday I’ll come back and hike all 100 miles of the AT that runs alongside it.

Next destination: New River Gorge NP in West Virginia! The drive was only supposed to be about 3.5 hours, but I got stuck in accident traffic for an hour and a half and didn’t get there until about 11:00. Normal campsites at New River are supposed to be free and first come first serve; I accidentally picked a group campsite (Burnwood), which is apparently not free and is supposed to be reserved. Luckily for me, the group staying there was super nice and let me pitch my tent near them.

It drizzled most of the night, so I was reluctant to get out of my warm dry sleeping bag the next morning. I finally got to use my hot chocolate though! After hanging out with the group for a bit, I drove across the road to the Visitor’s Center, where I picked up some maps and got a picture with the sign.

The park is so new that most of the signs still say National River; the main entrance sign just had a canvas wrapped around it.

I also did a little hike to see the New River Gorge Arch Bridge. This bridge was super important to the community, as it reduced a 45 minute, winding drive down the gorge to a 2 minute straightshot across. It’s the third-longest arch bridge in the world; plus it makes for great photos!

Next up, I decided to hike the Endless Wall Trail to Diamond Point, which was an easy two miles RT. It was pretty neat, especially since I was going to be rafting that section of the river the next day!

My plan was to head to the tiny town of Thurmond after that, but I hit a hiccup when I got a flat tire. I was okay, and was actually really fortunate it happened in civilization rather than on a windy deserted country road. About three hours later, I was back on the road with a new tire, thanks to Walmart!

I still ended up going to Thurmond, and it was pretty neat! It’s an old railroad town that thrived off of mining traffic. There’s no shops open there today, but there’s a seasonal visitors center set up in the old depot. The tracks are still active, and it was pretty cool to have a train come through.

After that, I made the unfortunate decision of taking the scenic route (McKendree Road) to my next destination rather than going back out to the highway. The road quickly turned into a four wheel drive road with no cell service, a top speed of 12 mph, and no houses. I was utterly terrified, but my poor Honda Civic pulled through! I’ve never been so glad to see a paved road…

I learned after the fact that there actually used to be a hospital in the blip-on-the-map town McKendree. If you’re intrigued, it’s an interesting story!

Unfortunately, that little sojourn cut my daylight significantly, and I decided I didn’t want to test my nerves any further by trying to finish a hike before dark, so I sought out a campsite for the night at Grandview Sandbar. My camera ran out of room, so I wasn’t able to get a picture of my site, but it was decent!

I treated myself to a can of soup for dinner, then read for a little while and fell asleep. Monday morning I packed up early and headed for the ACE Adventure Resort for a 14 mile whitewater rafting trip! I was paired with a mom and four teenagers on my raft, and while there was a little drama, we made it through okay. My guide was really knowledgeable of the area, and we bonded over experiences in New Zealand.

The river was pretty flat the first half of the trip, but it soon picked up after lunch (included!). We hit multiple fun rapids, surfed, and even swam a little bit. It was a great day, and a lot warmer and sunnier than the previous few days! A good way to end the trip.

I had been hoping to do one last hike before heading out, but we got back pretty late, so I made the adult decision and drove the seven hours back home. After 11 days, 70+ miles hiking/backpacking, 2000+ miles driven, 5 pounds lost, 4 parks and 14 miles paddling, my shower and bed had never felt so good!

Well, that’s all for this one folks! Kudos if you made it this far. Next trip will be to Colorado, so stay tuned for that!

A Uniquely Utahan Undertaking

January 27, 2021June 15, 2021Sheraya Smith1 Comment

Happy New Year all! Tears, jeers and cheers to a year that was very challenging in some ways but also very fruitful and lifegiving in many other ways. Thanking God He brought me through it all.

So last post, I teased a trip to Florida’s National Parks over Christmas… Psych! As it turns out, Christmas is a very popular time to go to Florida, and the ferry to Dry Tortugas NP was completely sold out that entire week, meaning my options were either rent a seaplane to get there or skip it. I figured it would be kind of silly to go all the way there without visiting all of the parks, so I started looking at other options.

As it turns out, a friend I met in some previous travels (I’ll refer to him as Jake to protect his privacy) was from Utah, and when I mentioned my dilemma to him, he proposed a trip to Utah’s National Parks and offered to be my host/travel partner. I was initially pretty hesitant, what with the cooler temperatures and shorter daylight hours, but I was soon won over by the prospect of not having to deal with a rental car, the chance of visiting five parks, and getting to spend more time with my friend.

I ended up flying out to Las Vegas on Christmas Day (Friday) because flights were super cheap (and how cool to say you spent Christmas in Vegas!). After a nice Christmas morning with family, Mom drove me to the airport and saw me off. I was pretty amused that this was my first sight after deplaning. Good ol’ Vegas.

Jake picked me up from the airport, and we brainstormed ways to kill time before the show I had booked for that evening. We ended up deciding on The Mob Museum – I had seen ads for it in the airport, and to my surprise they were open on Christmas Day!

It was pretty neat to get some quick Vegas history. Highlights included displays on Vegas in the ’50s, Al Capone’s revolver, and tapes from when the FBI bugged some local mob bosses. Would recommend, though not for kids or for the very sensitive.

Next up, we had tickets to The Rat Pack is Back, a tribute show to the Rat Pack featuring look-a-likes/sound-a-likes for Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Sammy Davis, Jr. I’m a pretty big Sinatra fan, so I had a great time.

This is a lousy picture, but all three of them are on stage here.

Afterwards, we decided to walk along the Strip. Not every day you get to see the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower!

We also meandered in and out of buildings, but they mostly just had gambling. Unfortunately, due to COVID, we couldn’t stand and watch at any of the tables, but it was still interesting.

We had been planning on walking to the famous sign, but quickly abandoned that idea when we saw how far it was and drove instead.

It was getting late at this point, so we headed for St. George, Utah, our base for the trip. Despite a tire blowout, we made it there safely.

And then we were up early Saturday morning to pack for Zion! Our original schedule had us spending the day around St. George and heading out for all the parks the next day, but due to impending weather and the tire blowout we shifted plans and decided to go to Zion first.

We hit the road, took a shuttle, and hit the West Rim Trail. Note that if you’re planning to visit Zion during the busy season, you won’t be allowed to drive your car back into the canyon. Your only options to get to the trailhead are to reserve shuttle tickets or walk several miles along the road – would not recommend the latter.

Here’s a map to follow along if you’d like!

Temperatures were in the low 30s when we started, so we were pretty bundled up! The sun was shining, though, so it wasn’t long before we shed some layers. The views were certainly gorgeous.

We took our time going up – it had been a long time since I had backpacked, and it had been a short night.

Not gonna lie, those inclines were pretty steep! These were called Walter’s Wiggles.

We stopped for a snack at a good view of Angel’s Landing. This is the most famous hike in the park for good reason, and I was really excited about checking it off. We still had quite a ways to go before our campsite, though, so we saved that for the way back down.

As we kept going up and further into the canyon, it was interesting how the rock changed from red to white. Still really pretty, and much fewer crowds to boot!

We finally made it up to the top of the rim and to our campsite, #1. Our plan was to quickly set up camp, refill water, pack up supplies for dinner, and hike around the rim to campsite #4 and watch the sunset and eat dinner. We hit a bit of a hiccup when we discovered our water source was more akin to a mudhole than a spring, and our filter clogged. It’s amazing how much you take clean water for granted until you’re faced with tantalizing puddles like these!

We rushed to pack up and get over to the other side of the rim, but I made it probably a few hundred feet before I realized that I was too tired to make the trek. Jake was extremely gracious and settled for dinner at the campsite. I’d say we still had a pretty great view!

After making a delicious dinner, we hit the hay early and slept in a bit on Sunday. Feeling more rested, we decided to reattempt our hike to campsite #4 and have breakfast there. It was a pretty great view – though we could have done without the wind. Brrrr.

After we had nearly frozen our butts off, we hiked back, packed up camp, and attempted to filter water once more before descending. No luck, so we resorted to boiling snow.

And we were off! We had a freaky moment while descending: Jake was a ways behind me when all of a sudden I heard him yell. I looked up to see a deer come barreling down the side of the mountain towards me. Thank goodness it stopped! We stood off for a minute or so, then it ran past me on the trail. A minute later, a second one came bounding by. Kind of a close call! This was the best picture I got.

The rest of the way to Angel’s Landing was relatively uneventful. I was super glad that Jake had brought crampons – they made a huge difference on icy patches.

When we got to Angel’s Landing, we stowed our packs away and set out to climb. We were rushing because we had gotten down later than anticipated: the last shuttle back to the parking lot left at 5:15, and we were not about to walk back on the road if we could help it.

It was absolutely beautiful.

Note: if you are terrified of heights, this is not the hike for you. I felt pretty safe the whole time, especially with the chain to grab hold of, but this was definitely not a walk in the park. For most of the hike I looked more like the below picture than the above pictures.

Can’t beat that 360 view from the top though!

We couldn’t spend too much time reveling in the view, however, for fear of missing our shuttle, so we scrambled back down, grabbed our packs and hit the trail again.

We made it, thank goodness!

And we got the classic sign picture on the way out. I may have been just a little cold.

After that, we had the trip back to St. George and a well-deserved stop at In-N-Out for a burger, animal fries, and shake. I didn’t realize they had In-N-Outs that far outside of Cali, so I was stoked!

Later that night, Jake and I did some trip planning. We had originally planned on working our way out to the National Parks and then driving back, but due to weather we decided to go to the furthest park first (Canyonlands) and work our way back instead. There was snow coming in the next day, and we weren’t sure how clear I-70 was going to be, so we decided to go further south into Arizona, which would add a couple hours to the drive but hopefully insure we didn’t get stuck in the snow.

Monday morning, we went mountain biking right outside of St. George. I think it’s safe to say that I’m too cautious to fully enjoy it, particularly the downhill. I’ll try nearly anything once, though, and I’m glad I did!

Afterwards, we hit the road for Canyonlands about mid-afternoon and settled in for a long drive.

Unfortunately we still hit snow, which turned an 8 hour drive into a 10+ hour drive. Thankfully we made it there safely, even if it we did roll in at 3 in the morning!

On the upside, when it wasn’t snowing, the moon was really bright, and Jake got some really neat long-exposure shots around Monument Valley. If you look closely, you can see the star trails.

Canyonlands is massive and is split into three districts: the Needles, the Island in the Sky, and the Maze. That first night, we set up camp in the Squaw Flats Campground in the Needles District and zonked out. Squaw Flats was really a neat campground – the sites were super spread out and tucked back in along the rocks.

We slept in a good bit Tuesday morning, then decided to try to make it to Druid Arch. The problem is, it was about 14 miles round trip on rocky terrain, and we were getting a late start. It wasn’t long before we realized we wouldn’t make it without having to hike back hours in the dark. I was not a huge fan of that, so we decided to just hike as long as we wanted and enjoy ourselves before turning around.

The “trails” here were very different than anything I was used to. For the most part, we were climbing over rocks with rarely any well-worn path in sight. I was really confused for the first half hour just how Jake knew where to go. When I finally asked, he pointed out the cairns, or stacks of rocks, marking the way. I felt pretty silly.

Things started off cloudy, but then the sun came out, and it got really nice.

Overall, it was just a really good day. We almost made it to Chesler Park, but decided that between the fading daylight and the final ascent to get there, it just wasn’t worth it. So after taking a snack break, we just meandered back the same way we came.

And I was so glad we headed back when we did, because we stumbled on a gorgeous sunset.

Everything was just so pink and beautiful… We sat there for probably half an hour, just soaking it in and taking pictures.

But oh, it got better: the moon came up.

Jake was gracious enough to let me play with his camera for a bit, so I got these… I was so happy with how they turned out!

And then we stayed until dark, and Jake got this one. That’s the moon, believe it or not. That boy is talented with a camera.

Thankfully it wasn’t too much further back to the campsite. We cooked up a nice dinner, then curled up in our sleeping bags and read a few National Park Rangers stories before hitting the hay.

Wednesday morning, both of us woke up and realized that we were having trouble breathing. Jake quickly deduced that the moisture in our breath had condensed and frozen over the vents in the tent, restricting air flow. We threw open the tent door and gulped in the cold morning air. Can’t say I’ve had that one happen before!

Oh, but the frost that morning was so beautiful. It probably stood 3/4 inch high on top of the car…

…and it totally covered some of the plants.

We packed up camp and headed out for the Island in the Sky District.

To get there, though, we had to go through Moab, so we stopped and got lunch at a Mexican place. I got to try deep fried ice cream for the first time!

After that, we continued on to the Island in the Sky District, or iSky.

Definitely a different – and more crowded – vibe, but still really pretty. All of the hikes we did were super short – I think the longest was a mile round-trip. Below are views from near the visitor center, Mesa Arch, and the hike to Grand View Point.

We definitely spent the most time at Grand View Point, where we caught a great sunset, even though we had to share it with a few more people than the one the day before.

We didn’t dally too long, though, because we were absolutely freezing. Thankfully, we had decided to get a hotel in Moab that night – we figured it would give us the chance to warm up, get good sleep, get clean, and hopefully dry out our gear so we could get back to camping the next night. (Of course, we didn’t camp for the rest of the trip… We should have known it would be too hard to go back to a tent and sleeping bag after a warm, dry bed!)

On Thursday, we headed out for Arches National Park, which was very close to Moab. Arches was considerably smaller than Canyonlands and Zion, but still incredibly scenic.

We first hiked to Delicate Arch, the most famous arch in the park. It was about 3 miles round-trip, and pretty icy, but so worth it.

We hung out here for a good while, just soaking in the views. I even had enough cell service to video call some friends, which was pretty neat.

Next we drove out to the Broken Arch/Sand Dune Arch trailhead and hiked to both arches. We were in a pretty goofy/giddy mood, just enjoying the beautiful scenery and having fun.

Our next adventure was driving over to Double Arch. We took our time, though, just enjoying the view.

And here it is!

Of course, we had to stay for sunset, and it did not disappoint! Jake got this stunner just down the road from Double Arch.

After it was finally too dark to see much of anything, we headed out of the park, though not before a sign picture.

We headed back to Moab, grabbed a letterbox, got McDonald’s for a New Year’s Eve feast, then started towards Capitol Reef. We decided it would be easiest (and most comfortable) to just grab a motel room again, so we got one in the tiny town of Bicknell, about half an hour away from Capital Reef.

We did stay up to see the new year in, but otherwise it was a pretty uneventful New Year’s Eve. We were okay with that, though – I don’t think our bodies could have handled too much excitement!

Friday, New Year’s Day, we packed up and drove to Capitol Reef.

Capital Reef was massive and beautiful, though lightly trafficked compared to the other parks. It had a cute historic town called Fruita, which had some small orchards that you can apparently pick from for free during the season.

Capitol Reef actually reminded me a good bit of North Cascades out in Washington – I think it was the small-historic-town-surrounded-by-towering-rock vibe.

Unfortunately, the locally famous pie shop was closed for the season, so we resorted to yogurt for breakfast instead. Unfortunately, my yogurt “just happened” to be pointed towards Jake when I opened it, and it kind of exploded on him… Hehe, whoops. In my defense, he opened his on me first!

After we were done goofing off, we started our hike to Navajo Knobs, about a ten-miler RT. The number of people we encountered was a fraction of the people at Arches the day before, and the views were spectacular nearly the whole time. It’s hard to say just how long it took because we really took our time, but we probably got to the end in about three hours or so.

The top of this knob was our vantage point…

…from which we got these views.

It was absolutely stunning.

We sat up there for probably 45 minutes, soaking in the views and sunshine. I was a pretty happy hiker.

We finally dragged ourselves down, as it was getting kinda late, and put the crampons on to help us go faster on the ice patches.

We ran into these guys on the way down, which was cool! I had never seen a bighorn in the wild.

We made it probably halfway back before we lost daylight and had to break out the headlamp. We trudged on a little more before stopping for a break to look at the stars. I don’t have a picture, but geesh, they were incredible! It was to the point that I couldn’t pick out the classic constellations anymore, there were so many stars. One of the best stargazing sessions I’ve ever had.

Despite my efforts to tough it out, the cold got to me, so we begrudgingly turned on the headlamp again and continued down. We made it back to the trailhead and drove across the park (it’s really thin!) to find some letterboxes.

At this point, we were both pretty hungry, so we headed back to Bicknell to grab a late supper. Bicknell is known for its curry pizza place – apparently it was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives – and Jake is a huge fan. We got half honey curry and half butter chicken on the pizza. The butter chicken was alright, but the honey curry was pretty darn good, especially after a long day of hiking.

After we couldn’t eat anymore, we made tracks for Bryce Canyon, the last of the five parks. We rolled in late but safe to our motel in Bryce Canyon. It was just a really good day – a great way to start off the new year!

Of the three hotels/motels we stayed in, this one, Ruby’s Inn, was the nicest. We even got a complimentary breakfast the next morning!

After we packed up, I got a picture by the sign…

…we found a final letterbox…

…and then we were off!

Bryce is definitely a smaller park, more comparable to Arches. It’s well known for its hoodoos, or thin rock spires. We spent most of the day in the Amphitheater area, which has some of the most popular hikes and viewpoints of the park.

We parked close to Sunset Point and enjoyed the view from the rim…

…and then hiked down into the canyon on the Navajo loop trail.

The combination of the red/orange rock, deep blue sky, white snow, and bright sunshine was just magnificent. Gotta love those hoodoos!

We still had a few hours of daylight by the time we had hiked to Sunrise Point on the Queens Garden trail, so we decided to hike over to Tower Bridge on the Fairyland Loop Trail, about four miles RT. It was way less crowded over here, which was nice.

After that, we hiked back up to the Rim to catch the sunset, and it didn’t disappoint. Credit for this one goes to Jake!

We also enjoyed the little snowman family someone had made.

Before we knew it, we were headed back for St. George. It was a pretty uneventful evening, filled with mostly resting and unpacking/repacking.

Sunday was my final day in Utah, so I packed up, and we headed back for Vegas. Of course, we squeezed in one more adventure activity before I left: rappelling!

Despite a bit of a nervewracking mishap my first go-around, it was still pretty fun, enough to do a second round. It was a good final adventure.

After that, Jake drove me the rest of the way to Vegas and dropped me off at the airport, and I flew back to Indiana.

Some final thoughts before I close:

Some of you may be wondering about Jake! We’re just friends – Utah is quite a ways from Indiana after all. I’m very grateful, though, that he was willing to show me around Utah for ten days! We shared many good laughs, moments, and sunsets. I know I wouldn’t have seen nearly as much (or probably enjoyed it as much) as I did if he hadn’t been with me. It’s also really nice to have someone who can take photos of you, someone to split the driving with, someone to provide extra body heat in the tent, etc.

That said, I still definitely think there is beauty to solo travel (namely meeting other people!), so I’ll probably try to do a little bit this upcoming year.

Finally, I would highly recommend seeing Utah’s National Parks in winter. I’m sure they’re beautiful all times of the year, but the snow just really made them pop. It would have been ideal if it had been just a little warmer out so we could have camped a little more, but at least during the day, as long as you layer up, you should be fine! Also would recommend bringing along a pair of crampons or micro-spikes to navigate the ice – this was the first time I’ve ever used them, but there were several times I was really glad I had them.

Alright y’all, that’s it! I have no idea where the next trip will be, but I have lots of ideas… Until then, happy trails!

Big Adventures in the Big South Fork

October 18, 2020June 15, 2021Sheraya SmithLeave a comment

Hello all! What a crazy, crazy year it’s been. At the same time, though, I feel so, so blessed, not the least because I’ve been able to get out of the house and still have a few adventures.

This adventure took place late May of 2020 in the Big South Fork National Recreation Area in Kentucky and Tennesee. This was really my first time out of the house after I was sent home from college in mid-March, and it was a nice reward for graduating and a pre-work/adult-life trip!

We got to brainstorming when we found out Braden (my younger brother) had an ideal finals schedule for taking a trip. We were initially thinking of going to Boundary Waters, but it was a long drive for a short trip. I suggested the Big South Fork, since it was closer and I had never been there. I also wanted to go backpacking, and there were a decent number of trails there. That quickly got the wheels turning, and before long we were decided!

We met Braden in Indy on Friday and began the long drive down. We took our truck, which we hauled the kayaks in, and a car in order to do shuttles. We stayed at the Sheltowee Trace Adventure Resort a little ways outside of the BSFNRA to break up the drive a little. They had covered tent platforms, which were really nice because we didn’t have to pack up dewy tents the next morning. Overall, we had a very good experience there – nice showers, and even wi-fi! Normally I would scoff at wi-fi at a campground, but it was really nice for planning purposes.

Dad had been keeping a close eye on water levels the past few days; we had hoped to do a section (I think it was the North White Oak Creek?) but we determined Saturday morning that it was just too low. We decided to split the trip into two smaller sections: Peters Bridge to Burnt Mill Bridge for the first 1.5 days on the Clear Fork, then Leatherwood Ford to Blue Heron on the Big South Fork in . Below is a map of the first part. And yes – the BSF and tributaries run from south to north! It confused me too. On the map below you can see the first part of our trip.

It was a good little drive to Burnt Mill from Sheltowee Trace – some of those back roads are wild! We dropped off the car and took the truck with all the gear to Peters Bridge. Since it was about 1:00, we took a lunch break before finally putting on the water.

This first section of water started off at a decent pace. The banks were decently high along here, and there were some nice exposed cliff faces – Dad hopped out and took some pictures of some of them.

We did hit a massive log jam at one bridge, but there was a small path through it, thankfully.

Things really seemed to pick up later on that afternoon. All rapids on this stretch were designated a Class II or lower, but we felt they were definitely a high Class II!

Braden was the first of us to dump – somehow I made it through this rapid! He made the most of the opportunity, though, and climbed up on some rocks to get some pictures.

My luck ran out, though, a little further downstream, and I got caught on a rock and tipped. Braden managed to ferry me over to the bank while Dad did a “rescue” on my kayak. It was about 6:30 at this point, and after not having done a kayak trip in a while, I was worn out and not too anxious to get back in the kayak now that I was all wet. While I waited for the boys, I started exploring with the hopes of making camp for the night, and was delighted to find an amazing camping spot tucked away among some rocks and plants.

As we figured out, I just so happened to dump right next to the Gentleman’s Swimming Hole, a long established favorite with the locals. I was absolutely enthralled and quickly convinced the boys that we should break camp here.

There was the perfect stump to put our lifejackets on, a boulder that we could hang our water filter from, a fire pit… I loved it.

We spent a little time exploring, then got to setting up camp. We made dinner, and Dad built a small fire, but we were pretty tired and didn’t stay up too late.

Sunday morning was a bit cloudy as we packed up and put on the water. That didn’t dampen the trip any though – this next section of water was an absolute hoot, with plenty of tricky rapids. Though I got pretty stuck at one point, I managed not to dump, which I was pretty happy about! I learned pretty quickly to let Dad take the lead and find the best way through, though I did gain more confidence by the end of the trip.

This section of water was also the first time I used a kayak skirt. I found it really tricky to put on the first time, but I got better at it over time, and it was really nice not having to empty out the boats whenever a little water got in them.

When we weren’t navigating rapids, we enjoyed the scenery, like this pretty little waterfall tucked back in a cove.

I wish I had some good pictures of the rapids here – they were really a lot of fun and seemed to come one after the other. We all decided that if we had had an extra half day, we would have come back and done that stretch again.

About noon or so, we came up on Burnt Mill Bridge, our take out point. I was sad it was over but also excited to start the next section.

Once we were off the water, Braden and I began the shuttling process while Dad got things unpacked. This took quite a while; it was fun driving those curvy back roads, but they definitely didn’t make things any shorter.

Technically we could have kept going downstream, as the Clear Fork would merge into the Big South Fork; however, several of the rapids there were Class IV, and we didn’t have the right equipment nor the skill for that extreme of kayaking. This is a very popular stretch of water for highly skilled whitewater kayakers, however, and they come from all around and will often run it multiple times in a day.

We debated for a while over where to start our next section of the trip. We narrowed it down to Pine Creek and Leatherwood Ford, the latter of which was further downstream. There were apparently really fun rapids downstream of Pine Creek, but it would add on extra mileage, and we would have had to carry the kayaks a half mile between the end of the road and the water. Ultimately we decided to put in at Leatherwood Ford, mainly because of time constraints. The take-out point was decided – the old mining community of Blue Heron – so we began the long process of shuttling vehicles.

If you look at the map below, you can see Leatherwood Ford to the south and Blue Heron at the north.

We also stopped along the way somewhere in there to get a picture of the BSF sign! What a bunch of river rats…

By the time we put on at Leatherwood Ford, it was probably about 5:00. Our goal was to try to spend the night at Station Camp, but we had a good ways before we got there and the water was moving pretty slowly. The Big South Fork was significantly wider than the Clear Fork, and seemed to have less of the pretty foliage, but the scenery was still neat.

It wasn’t long before we came up on Angel Falls. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you’re planning on paddling this section of the BSF, you HAVE to portage the falls. There’s several boulders around the falls, and some of them are dangerously undercut. Also, there are no signs indicating that you’re coming up on Angel Falls!! So it’s really important that you’re paying attention and carrying a map around here.

If you’re not familiar with what ‘undercut’ means, it’s when water has eroded away a section of rock right at the surface or below the surface of the water (see the diagram below!). If the water is moving fast enough and in the right direction, it can push a kayaker into the rock, which would tip the boat, and then trap the kayaker under the water. Pretty scary stuff.

The falls were really pretty though! The portage, on the other hand… pshew.

We got the boats loaded back up and put on the water again pretty quickly, trying to make as much headway as we could before dark.

Unfortunately, things went a little south at the last rapid we did that night. We all made it through the rapid okay, but Dad and I ended up on one side of the creek and Braden the other. Dad wanted us to meet Braden at the other side of the creek – I think maybe we had decided we weren’t going to make it to Station Camp, and Dad remembered a nice camping spot there from his last trip. He decided to try to teach me an upstream ferry so we could get to the other side. I was pretty worn out, however, and I didn’t get positioned quite right, so the current soon overpowered me. I was going downstream backwards in a decently fast section – not a great situation.

I was trying to turn myself around when I hit a strainer. For those of you unfamiliar, a strainer is a downed tree extending out into the water. Strainers can be extremely dangerous, as they will capsize you, and the current can suck you under them, where you can get pinned by branches. Really scary stuff. Here’s an example of one.

Thankfully, the one I hit was much smaller, though it did capsize me and hang me up for a few seconds- it ripped a small hole in my pants. I was able to break free and grab onto my boat, and the water was shallow enough that I could stand up and dig in. Normally, you should really just grab hold of your boat and float downstream feet first until someone can rescue you, but Dad was really still hoping to grab that campsite. Unfortunately, the current was too strong, and I couldn’t stay in one place and hold onto the boat, so I ended up having to float downstream until Dad and Braden could come rescue me.

Thankfully, there were no real gear losses, and I was okay, just pretty shaken up. While I changed into dry clothes and let off a little emotion, Dad and Braden found a passable campsite. We set up camp and cooked dinner, and I went to bed right after.

Monday I woke up in better spirits, and good thing, because we had a guest!

This is a bona fide Copperhead. It was actually the only one we saw the whole trip – I was okay with that though! It didn’t bother us or even really move the whole time we were there.

For breakfast, Dad fried up some spam – my first time! I thought it was pretty good.

We packed up and were back on the water about 10:00. Here’s an early morning river view for ya.

This next section of water was very slow, almost lakelike. After yesterday’s action, though, that was okay with me!

We broke for a pretty early lunch at Station Camp. I quickly determined that trying to cross the Big South Fork here while backpacking was not going to be feasible.

Back on the water, we began keeping our eye out for a campsite Dad had read about online. The only thing we knew was that it was close to a large mushroom-shaped rock. About 3:00 or so, we spotted it!

It felt pretty strange stopping so early for the day, especially when we’d gone pretty much until dark the last two days. I was really glad we did stop here, though – what a beautiful site, even if it was a climb to get up to it!

We unloaded the kayaks and lugged everything up the hill, then went back down to explore a little bit.

It was absolutely gorgeous. Braden and I spent some time laying out on this massive boulder, and Dad took a kayak out and paddled around a bit. It was just so relaxing.

After a couple of hours, however, it started sprinkling, so we headed back up to camp. Thankfully, the boys had set up the tents already, so we just crawled in and rode out the storm with a nap.

By the time we roused ourselves, it was nearly dark. We whipped up our last trail dinner as a family, chili mac with pepperoni – so good!

Since we hadn’t done much that day and had already gotten a good nap in, we stayed up a bit later around the fire just talking.

Tuesday morning, our final morning on the water, we packed up and put on the water again. The water picked up not too far after the campsite, and we had a good bit of fun after such a long flat stretch the day before.

Before we knew it, we were at Devil’s Jump, the last big rapid before our take out point. We were really hoping to run it, so we pulled over and scouted it out. Unfortunately, Dad decided water levels weren’t quite right and that it would probably be too dangerous since we weren’t in white water kayaks. It was still neat to see though.

Of course, that meant portaging all the gear and boats… Oh well.

Once we were back on the water, Braden decided to try a little surfing (putting the nose of the kayak upstream in a crevice). Of course, he tipped, so the trip ended with me towing him and his boat to the takeout point. He also had decided not to tie down his spray skirt since we were just going around the bend, so we lost that to the waters of the BSF. Silly boy.

Once we got the kayaks out of the water, Braden and I went to go get the truck from Leatherwood Ford. Once we got back, Dad packed up, which allowed me to run around and explore Blue Heron.

Blue Heron was really interesting. It’s an old abandoned mining town that’s been turned into an outdoor museum. It still had the tipple (building/machine that sorts coal) and a couple other buildings, though most are now just foundations. The mine ended up being not very successful, but the tipple was pretty heavily used until coal in the area dried up and the mine was closed in 1962. The history nut in me was very excited.

After we got packed up, we decided to drive to a lookout we had seen while we were down on the water. The views did not disappoint! This is the aerial view of Devils Jump, the rapid we had just portaged.

Also, I finally got to get up close to these pretty little flowers we had been seeing along the river bank! Apparently they’re called mountain laurel.

Eventually, we hit the road for Sheltowee Trace again. We got showers – oh how glorious not to be just wet but also clean and warm! – and then went out for Mexican to celebrate a successful trip before turning in for the night.

Pshew. This is going to be a long post. If you want to take a break, now is probably a good spot!

Wednesday, we packed up and parted ways. Braden had to get back for a final and Dad back to work, but I still had a few days to play. I hadn’t been backpacking since I got back from New Zealand, and I had been itching to go. This was my chance!

I packed up, reserved my backcountry camping permit, checked the weather one last time, and hit the road. I stopped to take this picture of a river (not sure which one, but I was glad we hadn’t been trying to paddle it!).

The plan was for me to spend Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning backpacking in the Big South Fork. I was going to start at the Twin Arches trailhead, then hike counterclockwise to the Slave Falls to Charit Creek trail and then over to Sawmill then take the Fork Ridge Road/Trail to the Laurel Fork Creek Trail, then the Station Camp Creek Trail back to the Arches loop. There’s a map below if you want to try to follow along with any of that; basically it was an approximately 20-mile loop trail.

I put on the trail about 1:00 or so. There was some rain in the forecast, but I decided to go for it anyway and hoped that it would miss me. Here’s a pre-trip selfie!

I got a little confused to start off with – I knew that the Twin Arches, which are a decently popular area attraction, were along the hike I was doing, but my map made it look like I could do the first section without seeing them and save them for the end. It took me some time, but I eventually figured out that the trail actually went right underneath one of them. Oh well – this meant I got to see them twice!

Unfortunately, I didn’t get great pictures of them, but they were pretty neat. Even better, you could walk on top of them, and there was a great view from the end!

After I figured out where I was going, I started down the Twin Arches loop trail. There were a lot of neat rock formations and miniature waterfalls, especially close to the arches.

A historic “Jake’s Place’ appeared on the map right where I was supposed to hop off onto another trail, but unfortunately there wasn’t much signage, so I didn’t learn what made it historic. Nice little campsite there, though pretty soggy at the time.

The next section of trail led me right by Slave Falls, so I decided to take the little spur trail and go see it. It was a pretty little falls!

I also got the chance to refill on water here. That was one nice thing about this hike: I had several chances to refill on water. This was actually the first backpacking trip where I had had to treat/filter water – the trips I had done in New Zealand were kind of “cush”, as there was often treated water available.

There’s really two methods of making “wild” water potable – chemical treatment or filtering. There’s pros and cons to each. Filters remove everything from the water and leave it tasting normal, but they’re significantly heavier/bulkier (an ever present concern when backpacking!), take a little more work and time, and they can clog up. Chemical treatment is arguably easier, as you just have to drop a tablet in water and wait half an hour; however, the tablet does nothing to remove garbage in the water, so if your source water is full of gunk, you’re kind of stuck drinking gunky water. We had used a filter on the water portion of the trip because we weren’t worried about weight, but I decided to use the tablets here, specifically iodine. Overall, I thought the taste was pretty good! It was just a tiny bit chemical. It definitely helped that I used pH rectifying tablets alongside the iodine tablets – most of the time nowadays it seems like they are sold together.

I took two liters of water on this trip, which is the recommended amount, but I found this wasn’t quite enough for me. Even though I had several opportunities to fill up on water and felt like I was staying on top of it, I still ended up almost running out the second day. Remember, this is water is not only for drinking, but cooking and cleaning, so it can go pretty quick. A third liter just gives you a nice safety net.

Sorry to talk so much about water, but it’s really important on trips like these! I always realize when I come back how much we take clean water for granted.

The next little sight on the trail was the Needle Arch. Quite smaller than the Twin Arches, but still neat.

The clouds started looking pretty ominous, and I began looking for a place to spend the night, preferably one with shelter. I was hoping to make it over to the Sawmill trailhead, where I hoped there would be an established campsite, but I was looking elsewhere just in case.

Sure enough, it started raining soon after, and I started booking it. I got to Sawmill, only to find out that there was no camping allowed at the trailhead, and the closest campsite that would keep me somewhat dry was a few miles back. Already pretty wet, I decided I might as well go down this other little loop trail and look for a campsite. I had also seen a sign for an Indian Rockhouse and thought that sounded interesting.

To my wonderful surprise, the Indian Rockhouse turned out to be the perfect place to spend the night! It was a massive cutout in a rock shelf, and I was thrilled to find the ground underneath it was DRY!

It was absolutely massive. Here’s my tent for scale.

I quickly set up camp and laid some things out to dry, then it was ramen for dinner!

This was my first time backpacking solo, and I found I really liked several aspects of it: being able to move at my own pace, the quiet solitude, feeling independent, etc. At the same time, once I had set up camp and fixed dinner, I found there really wasn’t much to do. I wasn’t terribly lonely, but I could see how I might be if I hiked solo for longer. I ended up going to bed pretty early.

The next morning, I fixed my oatmeal, packed up and headed out by about 9:00. It was so nice to wake up dry… What a godsend that rockhouse was!

I finished out the loop the rockhouse was on and went back to the Fork Ridge Road and Trail. I was kind of disappointed to find that it was very roadlike, but it went by rather quick. Once I turned off onto the Black House Branch, things got more interesting, and even more so once it intersected with the Laurel Fork Creek Trail. There were three creek crossings pretty close together in this area; I planned my steps really carefully on the first one and was able to make it across dry, only to realize there was no way to escape getting wet on the next crossing. Oh well. At least it was pretty!

There were also two really nice campsites right around the crossings! Too early to stop though.

The section along Laurel Creek was probably my favorite along the whole loop. The creek was just so pretty, and the trail was nice and wind-y without being too challenging. I stopped about 1:00 for lunch at another nice little campsite.

Most of the trail was wooded, though I came across this swampy clearing at the very end of the Laurel Fork trail.

Next up, I turned onto the Station Camp Creek Trail. The trail at this point was quite a bit wider, as it was also a horse trail. Definitely pretty muddy at points. I hadn’t expected to make it this far in one day, but I was feeling pretty good and still had a lot of daylight left, so I kept going, looking for campsites along the way. I ended up going all the way to Charit Creek Lodge without finding an established site.

Unfortunately, the lodge was closed to all but employees due to COVID, but it was a neat area.

I talked briefly with a staff person, and she recommended some camping sites close by, but I was unable to find them. I was actually only a mile or so from the arches, so I decided to hike back up and camp close to there. It was quite the hike – several switchbacks, but I made it back up. I called Dad from the top of the arches to check in and get updated weather – he was quite surprised at the progress I had made.

I was really tempted to try camping on top of the arches, but a sign made me a little wary. I definitely enjoyed another look at the view though. Of course, it started to rain some while I was up there, causing me to book it back to a more sheltered spot.

Of course, it didn’t last long, and when I turned around, there was a rainbow! Pretty neat way to end a 13+ mile day.

I then hiked another mile or so back to the trailhead and was really fortunate to find a campsite close by. The trip definitely went quicker than I was expecting, but it was nice to know that I had been underestimating myself.

The next morning, I made my oatmeal and packed up, excited for my travels that day. I had picked out a few letterboxes nearby, so I first set out for one at an area called Colditz Cove. It was absolutely beautiful – I felt like I was in another country, what with all the falls and wild rhodendron!

Unfortunately, I was unable to find the box, but it was still so worth it.

Next up, I decided to go to Rugby, which was close to where we had put in on our first trip. It was so interesting! I’ll spare you all the details, but it was this little English, very Victorian colony among the hills of Tennessee. It was essentially started as a place for second-born English gentlemen who were left little of their family’s inheritance to learn trades such as farming, etc. Overall, it wasn’t really a success – they were criticized for having a swimming hole (where we stayed at the first night!) before a working water system – and though a few people stayed on, today it is mainly a historic site. Definitely recommend stopping by here.

I also enjoyed stopping by a little country general store nearby and splurging on a hot lunch.

At this point, I only had really one more thing on my list: another letterbox was planted close to Burnt Mill Bridge, where we had taken out on our first river trip. It required about a 1.5 mile hike in to get to it, but there were several neat waterfalls and campsites all around.

And the best part was, the box was there! I was very happy.

After that, I hiked back out and hit the road for Indiana!

Overall, it was a really good trip, and it was really good to get out of the house and back outdoors. I was also really grateful to get to spend time with Dad and Braden and improve my kayaking skills.

Next adventure takes place in the Pacific Northwest, so stay tuned! Until then!

Road Trippin’, Vol. 2, Part 1 – Weeks 15 and 16

July 30, 2019September 21, 2021Sheraya SmithLeave a comment

Here it is: the post you’ve been waiting for! (Or at least the first half). I know, the last was such a cliffhanger. (Except you already know I got home safely.)

The week after returning from Milford was a decently busy one. It was the last week of classes, so thankfully classwork was finally slowing down. I made it to my final flax weaving class and cranked out two more placemats for a total of four. I had quite a bit to carry on my way home from class and had to get a bit creative; Jessica found it pretty entertaining and snapped a picture. And yes, I got quite a few strange looks. Oh well; if it works, it works!

Outside of that, my time was largely spent planning what to do with my time in between end of classes and finals and studying for my early exam in New Zealand history. After the test was finished Thursday afternoon, ISA met up for our final get-together of the semester at the famous (in New Zealand) Speight’s Brewing Company in downtown Dunedin. We got a tour of the whole place and lots of information about its history and beer-making process, unfortunately far more than my brain could ever remember.

And of course, one of the best parts was the tasting at the end.

Believe it or not, it was my first ever beer. Definitely seems to be an acquired taste, but I did thoroughly enjoy their cider!

And things just kept going up when we got free dinner and a free drink after the tour! Steak dinner with cheesecake for dessert, no less! Plus, good company to top it all off. This girl was pretty much in heaven.

It was so hard to believe that this was the last time everyone from ISA would be together in one room. Lots of laughter, reminiscing, and toasts that night: a great way to send things off. I already miss you all bunches and can’t wait to see many of you again! Cheers!

After getting home that night, it was go time again: I was leaving bright and early the next morning on a road trip with my flatmate Autumn and had a lot of packing to do!

After a very short night, we were on the road headed for Bluff, probably the southernmost town on the South Island. Our main destination, however, was even further south: Stewart Island. We had to take a ferry to get there, which was about an hour long trip. Thankfully I don’t get seasick easily!

Stewart Island, though decently sizeable (half the acreage of Rhode Island), has just one tiny town, Oban. The island is most known for its history in timber and saw milling and the Rakiura Track, one of NZ’s nine Great Walks. If you’ve followed my other posts, you can probably guess what the main draw was for me…

After a brief stop at the DOC center to get some information on the track, we were off! Of course we had to take a picture with the kiwi (sign) we saw. Stewart Island is known as one of the best places to see a wild kiwi.

The trail was beautiful. It was a lot of ferns and greenery and had relatively few jaw-dropping vistas compared to the other Great Walks I had done, which I was initially kind of disappointed about. The track really grew on me the longer we kept going, however.

Somewhere along the stretch, we reached the point that was probably the furthest south I would ever be! Much further and I would be too cold.

After about 3 and a half hours, we reached the North Arm Hut, our home for the night. We had pretty good luck in terms of weather; just after we arrived, it started pouring. Thankfully it didn’t last too long, so we could go out and explore a bit.

Sharing the hut with us was Dan from Christchurch, Tim and Janet from Wanaka, and Janet’s dad Doug, who was from Australia. We bonded pretty quickly while trying to light a fire with very few dry materials handy. After we finally got it going and ate dinner, I spent a good while chatting with Dan and Tim about all the adventures I had been on that semester and comparing which hikes we had done.

The next day Autumn and I set out early, as we had about an eight hour hike in front of us. The landscape was pretty similar to the day before, though with a little more elevation.

To give a fully accurate representation of the track, though, I really have to show you these pictures. It was so MUDDY. No matter how careful we were, we were sometimes up to our ankles in mud… My boots were quite well camouflaged; see if you can spot them below!

Also rounding out the track were a couple of historical sites. I think I mentioned how Stewart Island was once a big timber and saw milling site, and luckily some old equipment was left behind. While the track was really beautiful, I think the history really made it for me. (I know, my nerdiness is showing)…

We definitely got more coastal views as we got towards the end of the track… So gorgeous! We even found a Paua shell! (An abalone only found in New Zealand)

After a long day of hiking (about 7 hours), nearly all of which we had perfect weather for, we made it to the end! Another Great Walk down!

Fortunately, we were able to call a taxi to take us the couple of miles back into town (especially since I soaked my socks taking that last picture… worth it!).

We got settled into our cozy hostel, then set out to find Dan, Janet, Tim and Doug, who all happened to be staying at our hostel! (To be fair, it wasn’t that big of a coincidence… Oban is pretty teeny!)

Our North Arm Hut reunion started with a short walk to an area of town nearby where there had been several kiwi spottings the last couple nights. We had no such luck, but it was a pretty walk with a good view of Oban.

We then went out to dinner at the hotel nearby, where we got some really big portions for a pretty good rate. Even after having backpacked the last two days, I still had leftovers of my loaded potato wedges!

After dinner, we headed out one more time to try to find the ever-illusive wild kiwi. This time we searched a rugby field quietly and diligently with our red flashlights (kiwi can’t see red light). It wasn’t too long before we all got impatient and cold, and one of us got the bright idea of shining their super bright headlamp all across the field. Still no luck. I think my favorite quotes from the trip occurred then: “That’s how we’ll get to see them, we’ll just blind the little buggers!” and “If we can’t see them, nobody can!” What a riot. I was really glad to meet these incredible people, and even more glad we could reunite with them. What a great bunch!

The next morning, it was up early again to catch the ferry back across. After reaching the mainland we headed back north again towards Te Anau, stopping briefly in the scenic town of Invercargill along the way. It’s home to possibly the fanciest water tower I will ever see.

Our primary destination at Te Anau was the glowworm caves. If you haven’t heard of these, they’re these teeny little worms that live only in New Zealand caves and put off a blueish greenish light. This had been on my bucket list for a good while, and Te Anau was supposed to be one of the best places to see them.

To reach the cave, we had to take a cruise across Lake Te Anau. Once we arrived we were split up into groups to go inside the cave. After walking a ways through the cave, we were ushered into a little boat, and the lights were turned completely out. After bumping around in complete darkness for a minute or two, our eyes adjusted and we were able to see clouds of little blue pinpricks floating in the black. Of course, I couldn’t take any pictures, but it was pretty cool. Guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.

After we emerged, we were taken to the Cavern House, where we got to learn a little more about the history of the place and about glowworms. I won’t share the gory details here, but glowworms are really sort of primal creatures (I don’t think that’s quite the right word, but I couldn’t come up with it…). Feel free to Google them if interested, but make sure to at least look at pictures!

To be honest, I enjoyed the ride back across the lake almost as much as the glow worms! It was a gorgeous night.

To top it off, we got to find a letterbox just outside of town! It was my first one in New Zealand, so I was pretty psyched. For those of you unfamiliar, it’s basically like a treasure hunt where you’re looking for little boxes with a stamp (usually hand-carved) and a logbook inside. If you find one, you take a print of the stamp and leave a print of your personal stamp inside. It’s pretty similar to geocaching if you’ve heard of that.

After finding the box, we headed off to Queenstown to spend the night. While most hostels I stayed at just had a bunkbed layout, this one was really unique: each person had a totally encapsulated pod to themselves within a larger room. I found the personal space and noise barrier really nice, especially since it’s hard for me to sleep when people are snoring…

The next morning it was off for another round of Queenstown adventures. The first item on the itinerary? Paragliding!

We rode the famous Queenstown gondola up to the top where we met our instructors/pilots. They got us saddled up and the parachutes all straightened out, then gave us a couple of instructions and off we went!

Essentially, once my pilot got the parachute up in the air, he just told me to start walking and then running on his cue. So basically, we just ran off the side of the hill: not really scary at all! It really felt like flying, or at least what I imagine flying would be like.

Unfortunately, the winds were a little too strong for us to travel too far out from the mountain, but the views were still gorgeous, and he took me on a bit of a roller coaster ride as we neared the bottom. Overall a cool experience!

Afterwards, we took the gondola back up the mountain and enjoyed exploring the chalet at the top for a bit. They apparently had a thing for jelly beans; in addition to a Jelly Belly store, they had replicas of some famous artwork made from jelly beans!

We also enjoyed some really yummy hot chocolate…

…and some classic Queenstown views.

Next up we tried luging. The best way I can explain luging is probably real-life Mario Kart; you basically have a cross between a scooter and a wagon and ride it on a track. I really wasn’t expecting much, but Autumn talked me into it, and I’m so glad she did! It was a blast!

Afterwards, we went on a bit of a hike, where we caught some killer views of Ben Lomond (a nearby mountain) and some other paragliders. What a stunning day.

After many hours atop the mountain, we finally took the gondola back down and headed out to nearby Arrowtown, which I also had stopped at on my first trip to Queenstown. I was really hungry for another one of ABC’s pies, and it did not disappoint! (The “M” is for mince, in case you were wondering.)

I also wanted to spend more time exploring the town since my last visit here had been short. Arrowtown was once a mining town and had a large population of Chinese miners, who were asked to come fill the vacuum of Kiwi miners who left after the large chunks of gold ran out. We learned in my history class that the miners faced a lot of obstacles, including ridiculously high poll taxes, and were treated poorly, yet were so hard-working. It was pretty humbling to see how they survived in such itty-bitty homes.

We then retraced our steps to Queenstown, where we were hoping to see Luma, Queenstown’s annual winter lights festival. Though it was pretty chilly, there were enough really neat displays to make it worthwhile.

Although I couldn’t figure out how it was related, one of my favorite parts was a garden gnome decorating exhibit. From what I could piece together, it sounds like several artists were given blank gnomes and free reign to decorate them however they wanted. The results were quite creative!

I think Autumn could have stayed for ages (she loved it!), but I was pretty cold, so we eventually headed out. Our hostel that night was in Wanaka, so it was on the road again.

Tuesday morning, we woke up to snowy mountains in Wanaka.

After sleeping in a bit (what a luxury!), we had to head out for the Rob Roy track pretty quickly. What we didn’t realize was how quickly the road would deteriorate from pavement. We may or may not have had to ford a couple pretty deep streams… Thankfully, we didn’t get stuck, and no bill from the rental car company yet! Despite road conditions, the scenery was as usual magnificent.

The track had a decently steady but not too steep incline. It followed a river for part of the way, which was a gorgeous Listerine blue (not Gatorade blue, as Autumn corrected me!).

The endpoint was the Rob Roy glacier. It was kind of hard to spot and was covered in snow, but still really pretty.

We made it back to the car in about 3.5-4 hours and rushed back through the fords to try and make it to our next destination before it closed. Of course, this just happened to line up with a quintessential New Zealand experience:

We probably spent a good five minutes creeping along behind those sheep. The poor things were so confused: first they were going away from us, then towards us, then away again! They’re not lying when they say sheep aren’t the brightest creatures. Thankfully the farmer wasn’t far behind us to tell us to just drive through them and they would move out of the way.

We rolled into Puzzling World with about an hour until closing time and raced inside. We quickly worked out a plan: explore the indoor portion of the museum, which was filled with puzzles and illusions, then head outdoors to complete the giant maze. Below are some of my favorite illusions and puzzles from the indoor portion. (If I didn’t include Towers of Hanoi, would I really be a computer science major?)

We made it outside into the maze just before closing time and were left to our own devices. (Don’t worry, there were emergency exit doors! But that’s cheating.) We were tasked with making it to each of the four corners of the maze, which all had a tower, and then finding our way to the exit. Making things even more challenging was the fact that we quickly ran out of daylight. We made it out in a little less than an hour, though!

After a decent hike plus a couple more steps in the Maze, we were pretty ready for dinner, so we hit up a taco stand in celebration of our last night together. Tasty…

Wednesday morning we were on the road again, this time before it was even light. I nearly missed seeing the famous Cardrona Hotel on the side of the road, but I caught it just in time to pull over and snap a picture.

Sadly, our adventures together were coming to an end. Autumn had to be back in Dunedin to perform at a concert, so we planned for her to take a bus back from Queenstown that morning. I still had a couple of days before I had to get back and get serious about finals, so I was going to travel for a bit more. Cheers to the first half of my travels and a good travel mate!

Shew! This post is already ginormous and there’s still a lot to cover, so I think I’m going to split this trip up and leave you hanging a little bit longer. Hold tight, almost there!

A Rugged Routeburn Rendezvous- Week 11

May 9, 2019March 30, 2022Sheraya SmithLeave a comment

Hello all! I know I’m a bit behind on blog posts; to clarify, this one will cover the time frame April 29-May 5.

It’s official: We are now in the second half of the semester and ramping up! I have to admit, it’s been pretty strange watching some friends back home start summer break, especially when I’ve still got a month and a half to go here. Thankfully, the last three weeks are reserved for finals, so I only have a couple weeks of classes left. I got pretty lucky with my final schedule, as all three are in the last week, meaning I have about two weeks to study and travel.

I tried something new this week: flax weaving! Flax is a plant that grows here (you may have heard of flax seed as a health food), and it’s historically very important to Maori, who used it to create clothing, mats and ropes. Now it’s considered more of an art. We made putiputi (flowers) as our first project.

Other highlights of the week included a final $2 churro from Night’n’Day, helping orchestrate a surprise birthday party for Megan’s twentieth, and finally watching Avengers: Endgame.

The best part of the week, however, was getting to tackle the Routeburn Track, my third Great Walk and second official backpacking trip, with some more great ISA people. I hadn’t spent a ton of time with this group (Sawyer, Maddie S., Molly, Emma P., and Shayna) before, so it was really fun to get to know them better!

Our plans were pretty uncertain up until the day before we left; we just knew we wanted to do some kind of hiking. We decided, however, to take a risk and knock out the whole Routeburn Track in two days, despite a high chance of rain on the second day. Thankfully this was only 30-some kilometers instead of 60 like Kepler!

We headed out towards Te Anau early Friday morning. It was a gorgeous day, hardly a cloud in sight.

We made one stop at the Department of Conservation office to purchase a hut ticket, then a quick stop at the Mirror Lakes in Fiordland. So pretty…

By 12:30, we were on the track, and it didn’t take long before we were getting some amazing views.

Aside from doing a small side track to the Key Summit, we stuck to the main track and made pretty good time, which means we got to the hut in daylight.

And I’m so glad we did, because Lake Mackenzie, right nearby, was stunning.

I honestly thought this lake was more deserving of the name “Mirror” than the lakes we saw before!

We spent the rest of the time before dark taking in the views and settling into the hut. Since it’s now off-season for the track and first-come-first-serve for the hut, we were a little worried about availability, but there ended up being plenty of room. Hiking off-season also meant that we weren’t provided with gas stoves or flush toilets but also only had to pay $15 rather than $130 for the hut. (Besides, it’s backpacking; who needs flush toilets?)

After a nice warm dinner, we went out to look at stars.

Oh my word. They were incredible.

I wish I could have taken a decent picture of them; I seriously don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stars before.

We set out about dawn the next morning as we were a bit worried about finishing before dark. The weather had turned a bit sour and it had started raining, making everything a bit slippier. Between my clumsiness, the rain, and the wind, I slipped off an edge at one point, which got the heart pumping, but thankfully I fell at a decent spot and caught myself very quickly.

The rain did add a very mysterious element to the mountains, though it obscured them a bit. Still gorgeous.

Despite our valiant efforts with raingear, we were all pretty soaked though before long. Yay for looking like a handful of drowned rats!

Thankfully, there was a hut at the perfect spot to break for lunch, and it had a wood stove, which we quickly swarmed.

We stepped away from it as little as possible because this created a draft and made everyone colder. This worked out pretty well; we were able to make oatmeal and grilled cheese just by setting it on top of the stove!

After getting ourselves a bit warmer and drier, we reluctantly pried ourselves away to get back on the trail. Thankfully, the rain had basically stopped!

The rest of the track we closely followed a river and got to see a number of waterfalls. The water was such an icy blue – just beautiful!

Finally, we reached the end – a lot earlier than expected!

So early, in fact, that the person shuttling our car from the other end hadn’t arrived yet. It worked out really well, though, because as soon as we got to shelter, it started pouring. The car showed up not too much longer, thankfully, and it was off to Queenstown!

We made a quick stop first, however, in Glenorchy. Cause, ya know. Gotta have the classic Glenorchy shed picture.

It really was pretty, though.

Next up was Queenstown. If I didn’t love Queenstown already, I would have no excuse not to love it in the fall. It’s simply gorgeous.

We went on a bit of a drive up part of the Remarkables, and we got nearly 360 degree views. Stunning. (I’m running out of adjectives to describe New Zealand…)

There just happened to be a couple taking wedding photos while we were up there. I really couldn’t resist snapping a quick picture…

Afterwards, we went to find a place to crash for the night and came across the Hippo Lodge. After unloading, we headed out for dinner.

I swear, pizza is one of the best post-backpacking meals out there.

We weren’t out on the town long, as we were pretty eager for showers and bed. We didn’t stick around too much longer the next morning, either, though we did take advantage of McDonald’s $1 hot chocolate again. And as always, great views on the way home.

And that concludes our backpacking trip! As for the rest of Sunday, I mostly spent it at church and then celebrating Megan’s actual birthday, which was a great time.

That pretty much wraps things up for this week! We’ve got our final ISA-wide trip this upcoming weekend, so stay tuned for that! Love you all!

A Track Tramping Triumph – Week 7

April 8, 2019October 18, 2020Sheraya Smith1 Comment

Kia ora! (I’m running out of ways to start my blogs… Is it showing?)

Last swing dancing class this week! I’m sorry to see it go, though I hope to go to a couple dances. Maybe I’ll surprise myself and sign up for another class!

We (our class, or what was left of us at the end of five weeks) took a selfie to commemorate the great times had by all as we tripped over each other’s feet, blanked on where we were supposed to step next, and laughed as our dancing completely fell apart. I also discovered my selfie camera is kinda awful. (Tells you how many selfies I take.)

Low quality picture, high quality people. (I know, cliche.)

Also, it was a Tuesday. And on Tuesdays, a mini-mart chain called Night’n’Day has deals.

This month, it was $2 churros.

So your girl got a churro.

They say Kiwis don’t do Mexican/Latin food very well, but if this churro was any indication, I don’t really believe them. (Not that I know what authentic churros taste like! This just tasted really good.)

I think fall might be coming; it’s getting a bit chillier out, and we just ended Daylight Saving Time (which makes calculating time differences even more fun…yippee). But it does mean the leaves are turning!

Not too much homework this week, which is always nice, but honestly a really good thing this week.

Because we went backpacking (“tramping,” in Kiwi lingo) on the Kepler Track, one of New Zealand’s Great Walks.

For 3 1/2 days.

Because, you know, when the four of you have never backpacked in your life, starting off with a 3.5-day 30+ mile trip with 1000m elevation gain is a great idea, right? What could go wrong?

*Ahem* (freezing temps, rain, previous injuries acting up, asthma attacks, blisters, sandflies, cheeky alpine parrots stalking our tent, etc.)

Don’t worry, it was a great time. I won’t sit/walk/stand normally for probably a week, but it was well worth it.

Looking back, we were so lucky. There were so many ways it could have gone wrong. For starters, since it was a loop trail, parking at the wrong parking lot and almost going the wrong way, which would have meant completely missing the other two girls who had already started…. (In my defense, it was dark.)

Anyways, despite the mixup, slight drizzle, and darkness, Margaret and I made it to the first campsite okay, where Megan and Jessica were at. We were a bit surprised at the view from our tent the next morning, though!

We knew we were close to the lake, but not how close. This is Lake Te Anau, apparently the largest body of fresh water in New Zealand.

Here we are just having packed up and ready for the first real day of hiking. This is the freshest we’ll look, by the way, so brace yourself!

This was the day with the most elevation gain, but honestly, it wasn’t all that bad. Lots of switchbacks, and very green! Moss seemed to just cover the ground in some places, and if it wasn’t moss, it was ferns. So pretty.

We eventually got above tree line, and that was pretty too. It took Marg and I less than 3 hours to reach the Luxmore Hut, our first destination, which was quicker than we thought it would be! The hut was still a welcome sight, though.

The hut was really nice; no electricity, but it had gas stoves, sinks, toilets, a wood stove and shelter from the wind, which sounded pretty good to us when the low was 36 degrees outside. And those views were to die for.

The hut had a common area, with tables and a food prep area. This was the warmest room, so we spent a lot of time here. It just so happens there was another group of Otago exchange students hiking, so that was fun to meet them!

The divider wall between the kitchen and common tables had some origami figures, which I was happy to contribute a frog to. I was also really amused/impressed by the tin foil backpacker.

There were also two bunkrooms, which were basically two tiers of mattresses laid out across the room real cozy-like; you just picked a mattress and set your stuff down by it. The mattresses are piled up here, but you can see what it was like.

We went exploring nearby the hut to kill time; there was a cave nearby which we explored, which was kinda cool. (Don’t mind me looking like a dork with my head lamp.)

My favorite thing we discovered, however, was this little grove. Everything was covered in moss, but a different, more stringy moss than what we’d seen before. So cool!

We cooked up some cheesy instant mashed potatoes for dinner, got some awesome sunset shots (below), listened to the ranger give a talk, then headed to bed.

So for reference, here’s what the valley looked like an hour before we went to bed. Beautiful, right?

Oh, but it got even better.

I woke up the next morning to people talking about a cloud. I was a bit confused, until I went outside to this.

Definitely one of the trip highlights! Except for flying, I don’t think I’ve ever been above the clouds before. It was even still there when we left for the day.

The second day of hiking was definitely harder, due to fatigue from the first day and the terrain. There were a lot of ups and downs, which made things really pretty but also a lot trickier.

We were up above the treeline for most of the day and then descended down into a valley near the end. Definitely pretty below the treeline; photo credits below to Jessica!

After how quickly we’d finished the hike the day before, we were hoping we’d be way ahead of schedule again, but this wasn’t exactly the case; we took right about five hours to get to the Iris Burn campsite. We were really happy to get our packs and boots off.

This campsite was also really pretty (who am I kidding? The whole track was gorgeous).

We had a warm dinner thanks to our little camper stove, then curled up quickly in our tents once it got dark. After over 12 hours of sleep the night before, we unfortunately had a bit of trouble getting to sleep that night, but at least we stayed decently warm!

We awoke the next morning to some bold visitors investigating our tent. These were kea, the world’s only alpine parrots. They’re certainly cheeky little buggers; they love shiny things, and they went inside someone else’s tent and pecked through their shiny mat. This is a really poor picture, but you can kinda make out three of them messing with the shiny poles on someone else’s tent.

Also, the stars that morning were AMAZING! I swear I could see the Milky Way, it was so clear. I also spotted a shooting star, one of the clearest I’ve ever seen.

Megan and Jessica set out pretty early, then Margaret and I followed not too long afterwards. This was by far our flattest day, but also our longest: 13 miles from the campsite to the parking lot.

Again, beautiful terrain, despite being mostly flat. Lots of ferns and moss again; photo cred this time to Megan. Surreal, isn’t it?

We really powered through, as we wanted to get back decently early. Lake Te Anau was a welcome sight, as we knew we were getting closer.

After 5 1/2 hours, Margaret and I finally saw the bridge we had crossed over on accident that first night. Such a sweet, sweet sight!

WE MADE IT!!

Success has never tasted sweeter (or saltier, I guess if we’re being literal). And my bed has rarely felt more comfortable or my shower so soothing.

It’s the little things.

Until next week y’all!