Monday, April 14, 2014

Kayaks In!--James River SP 4/12/14--4/13/14 Kayak, Backpack, Hike

With daytime temps predicted to be in the high 70's to low 80's and overnights said to stay above 50, we were excited to head back out to James River this past weekend, especially since the water temperature was around 58 degrees--definitely over the 120 degree combined requirement to get on the water.

We packed up kayaks, dry bags, lunch cooler, and swimwear for the kayaking portion of the trip, our backpacks for meals and overnight gear, and a change of clothes, towel, and bath bags for the trip home. So much planning! But we really the hydration bags we use in the yaks and the little cooler for lunch, and thos certainly doesn't go in the "backpacking" category.

We set out fairly early on Saturday morning and were setting up camp around 10:00. We figured we'd put up the tent and leave our backpacks in it to claim our campsite. Good thing, too, because it was crowded this weekend. Then we were off to the boat landing for our first paddle of the season--the six mile stretch from Bent Creek to Canoe Landing.



Oh, glorious, glorious James! How I have missed you! We put in with much yelping about the cold water, which at 58 degrees does feel a bit chilly on the toes. As soon as we were settled into the yaks and headed downriver our blood pressure dropped, permagrin was engaged, and we both sighed out a long 'ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh'. It was quiet and gorgeous, a simply perfect day.







We immediately noticed that there was about a foot more water in the river than the last time we paddled it. It was a bit turbid, too, with visibility just a few inches. With that much water in the river, it moved along at quite a clip, and nearly all the rocks were covered. I didn't hit one the whole trip!

Very near the start, we heard the sound of rushing water. Expecting some rapids and some fun, we paddled into a section of serious waves but no rocks that could be seen. We remembered a shallow rocky section from years past in this area, so shallow that I got stuck and had to get out and carry my yak. I assume this was what that part was like with a little water in it. It was a lot of fun but those waves were COLD! In no time flat I had a lot of water in my yak with me, so much that I contemplated pulling out to dump in case we had more of the same farther down. Dave convinced me it would be ok, so I didn't. Luckily, he was right and that was the biggest chunk of excitement we had the whole trip except for wildlife. We saw a couple of blue herons, a pair of cormorants, some hawks, and there was a huge beaver on the riverbank. We also saw some ducks and a ton of geese.




We never even had a chance to have lunch--we made the 6 miles from Bent Creek to Canoe Landing in just 1 hour and 45 minutes. Before we knew it we were at the campground. Our campsite was on the end of the campground where the river bank was higher, but there were 4x4 steps up the side. We had the bright idea of getting out there and climbing up the sheer steps, pulling our kayaks. Getting out was the exciting part, as the water was VERY deep there and the only way to get out was to stand up in the yak and climb out onto the step! Needless to say I couldn't do it without Dave's help. He got out near the steps where there were some tree roots and some actual bottom to step on, but no steps, just a steep bank to climb up.



He came down the steps, held my kayak, and gave me a hand to pull up on. I managed eventually. Then we had to pull my yak up the steps, and he had to get his up the bank. He borrowed my Crocs so he'd have better traction. I offered to help him but he wouldn't let me because I was barefoot. It was an epic struggle.  But, finally, we were there. It was pretty cool to have the yaks in the campsite.



After collecting the truck, grabbing a de-mudding shower, and changing into camping clothes instead of wet swimwear, I put up a line and hung the towels and swimwear to dry. Then it was time to relax and read until fire and dinner time.

About 5:00 Dave collected some dried marsh grasses and I picked up sticks for tinder. We added some of our stash of dryer lint with a good squirt of Purell, and he started it with his magnesium fire starter. Boy, was he proud! We fed it some tinder until it was going well and then added a fire log. Once we had that going, I pulled out the mini stove and got water heating for dinner. I'd packed a Mountain House chili mac for Dave, and a lasagne for me. I also had apple crisp for dessert. After I used up a whole 32 ounce Nalgene for those, I carefully went back down the steps to the river and filled the bottle using the prefilter, then came back up and treated it with the Steri Pen. I felt sooooo coooooool. Dinner was delicious and easy to clean up, for sure! We even burned the foil pouches successfully in the fire.

After dinner we read and relaxed for awhile. Dave climbed in his bag to read, using his headlamp, and I sat out by the fire to read until I got sleepy. I remembered my Gabapentin this time!

My new North Face sleeping bag was a ton more comfortable than my Big Agnes was, and we had added closed cell pads under our self inflating pads so we were off the cold ground. Add that to an air temperature that was 20 degrees warmer, and you have a decent night's sleep! I only woke up once to go to the bathroom, and it was so bright out from the moonlight that I didn't even need my light.

I woke up about 6:00 a.m. with the sun making it too light to sleep. We had opened the window zippers hoping to cut down on the condensation inside the tent. Plus, I had to go to the bathroom in the worst way, since I'd only gotten up once in the night. I figured once I was out I may as well stay out, so I started coffee water. I quickly discovered that three pots of coffee, two freeze dried dinners, and one freeze dried dessert was all that small bottle of fuel had in it. Fortunately we'd bought the bigger spare bottle and brought it with us.

I made coffee (VIA is even better with Coffee Mate dried creamer, believe it or not) and started another pot for Dave's MH biscuits with gravy and my hot granola. Breakfast was good! I cleaned up, we organized supplies and packed lunch, and we got dressed for kayaking. The water was so cold that I decided NOT to put on swimwear, preferring to kayak in my hiking pants for the protection. We wanted to kayak the 8 mile run from Bent Creek to Dixon, so we had to drive up to Dixon first to drop off the car. Then we headed out to Bent Creek with the truck, and we were on the river by 9:30.





The water was just as cold as the day before, and the weather just as pretty. The forecast for Sunday was for highs in the 80's! I shipped a lot of water in the wavy section, so much that this time I knew I had to drain it before I could continue. I pulled over to a beachy section just past it and hopped out of my kayak....and immediately sank into silt up to my knee. Oh boy. I was stuck. Soooo stuck. Eventually, Dave floated over and by pushing on his kayak and mine I was able to slowly extricate myself and get my yak up on the beach to drain. It took FOREVER to drain that water out!

Back on the water, we saw the same cormorants and herons as on Saturday, but we also saw a Bald Eagle at one point...and a snake swimming in the water near Dave's yak. Thankfully, I was a good distance away.

We paddled past the campground and had a good laugh about getting out at the steps on Saturday.  Just past Canoe Landing, we could see horseback riders on the River Trail and farther down there were bicyclists. (I convinced Dave that it would be fun to ride Apache and Max along the river, so hopefully we will do that in the fall.)

In just the blink of an eye, we were passing the power lines that are the warning for Dixon's Landing. That two miles took maybe half an hour. The entire trip was a record. We dropped the yaks and went for the truck, then went back to the campground to eat our lunch. Both days we hauled lunch all the way down the river but ended up eating it in camp! After lunch we packed up camp, changed into hiking boots, and headed out to hike River Trail.





 


 It was well over 80 and I was not prepared for it, at all. I forgot how much I hate the heat. River Trail has about ten feet of shade in its entire 3.06 mile one-way length, and I was dying. Near the end Dave asked me if I was drinking enough water, or if I even had any left. No, I wasn't drinking--I was sucking air out of my hydration tube. Turns out I wasn't empty. The bite valve had unscrewed so much that I couldn't get any water. Once I fixed that and got some water down, I felt a little better. I was still pretty light headed, though. Stupid heat.

Once we had finished the hell...errr, hiking...portion of the day, it was off to the showers and a clean pair of clothes. THAT felt great! We headed home to unpack with another triumphant trip under our belts.

 

Monday, April 7, 2014

James River State Park "Backpacking"...Sort Of 4/5/14

We decided to take our journey into real honest-to-goodness backpacking in steps. After gathering most of our gear (Dave's sleeping bag hasn't come yet, nor has he chosen a backpacking pillow) we went for an overnight of primitive camping using mostly backpacking supplies. The idea of the trip was to figure out how to pitch the tent, try out our sleeping pads and other gear, and make sure we knew how to use the stove before we were out in the wilds helpless. Since this was "sort of" backpacking, we took along our camp chairs, real food in a cooler, and supplies to cook over a fire as well as try out our camp stove. We vacillated between James River and Bear Creek and finally decided on Bear Creek at the last minute.

We managed to stuff the tent in Dave's backpack and I got my sleeping bag, pad, cookware, and clothes in my pack. I could barely fit it in, and that wasn't including any food. I definitely need to figure out how to pack my clothes smaller--or take less of them. I think a compression bag would help with that. In the future I'm going to try stuffing the sleeping bag in the bottom without a stuff sack, too. After seeing that I could sort of fit it in, I grabbed my old backpack and used that for clothes.

We headed out to Bear Creek only to find out that ALL of their primitive sites were booked for the weekend. Wow! At least we had a backup plan. They called down to James River for us and luckily, JR had plenty of sites, so we got back on the road.

At James River we found only one of the river front sites occupied. We looked around at a couple and chose one kind of in the middle. It was really, really pretty there. We pitched the tent--simple enough to figure out, but the pole WOULD NOT go in the last pocket no matter what we did.



 
We put our gear in the tent and realized that this "three person tent" was about big enough for one person and their pack. We opened the valves on the self inflating pads and blew up the cheap Wal Mart pool floats that were recommended for a second pad layer. Then we organized the cooking supplies and had nothing left to do but relax and look at the river go by while reading. Ahhhhhhhhhh.

Unfortunately, it was about this time that the McLouds moved into the spot next to us. This group consisted of six early 20's folks and my class is quieter. After half an hour or so, we decided that we had to move. So we picked up the tent and carried it with all our stuff inside all the way down to the end away from everything.


I got sleepy after awhile so I went and laid down on Big Agnes. What an awful name for a brand of gear, at least if you're a woman! It was very comfortable to lie on top of the two pads and the sleeping bag.

Eventually it started getting toward dinner time, so we started a bag of charcoal. Yes, charcoal. I SAID we were cheating when it came to food, right? I had foil packs of italian sausage with onions and grilled potatoes that just needed to be put on the grill. I also had a surprise dessert for David: peach crisp! I had a can of nice peach filling and a small container of quick oats mixed with brown sugar. All I needed to do was open the peach filling, spoon half into another empty can that I'd brought, top with the oatmeal/sugar mix, add a dollop of butter, cover with foil, and place the cans on the grill. Except....I forgot the blasted can opener. Even after having David remind me, adding it to my list, and making a few hundred mental notes, somehow I never got it out of the camper. Never fear! I watched a video of some crazy Russian guy who opened a can using a hunk of cement. So we went up to the parking space and rubbed the can on the concrete barrier in front of my car until VIOLA! it was open. Sooooo cooooool! I put together the crisp and when everything was hot we ate dinner. David was suitably impressed with his surprise dessert and he said it was the best thing he'd ever eaten, anywhere, anytime. The poor man must have been hungry!


Everything was grand, until the sun started to set.

 
 After dinner we put logs on the fire ring and got it going high and warm. Good thing, too, because the temperature started dropping fast. I made some coffee using the backpacking stove--delicious! That Starbucks Via is really good. We read by the fire (and Dave occasionally checked the score on the Gator's Final Four game) until the fire was low and we were cold. Then we headed for the tent.

 
 
Let me share that getting in and out of that low, low door was not fun. I can barely put any weight on my knees and getting in and out and up and down required a good bit of it. I finally figured out the best way to do it, thankfully.

Oh, and my Big Agnes? She's a cow. I hated it. It's a mummy bag, to start with, and I can't sleep on my back, so that's a huge problem. And they're designed with NO FILL on the backs. They have a clever pocket to slip your insulated pad into that keeps you from sliding off--but guess what? My pad is NOT INSULATED. That meant that in literally five minutes the cold was seeping in from the ground and I was freezing! We had packed the heavy blankets that Mom made years ago, one each, in case our bags weren't warm enough, and I eventually discovered that if I folded it double and put it in the bottom of my sleeping bag and slept on top of it, the cold was bearable. The Wal Mart float was pretty useless and within an hour there was no air left in it anyway. The other issue was that I could only lie on my right side because of the shape of the bag and the zipper, so I had pressure on my worst knee all night long. And I had to get up TWICE during the night to go to the bathroom. At one point I came back from the pit toilet and just crawled back into the bag with my jacket still on. IT WAS COLD. Also, in the process of trying to roll around and get comfortable, I managed to land flat on my back for a few seconds and because I didn't have enough pillows I was hit by a wall of instant vertigo. Then I was cold, dizzy, and pukey for the rest of the night. Woot!

In the morning when we got up, we found ice on the car and frost on the tent. The inside of the tent was wet all over from condensation. Did I mention it was cold?



Mist on the lake

Yup, frost.


By 8:00 we had the fire going and the foil packs I'd brought were warming up. I had one of crumbled sausage and one of potatoes, onions, and red peppers, as well as a couple of tortillas that I wrapped and put on the side. When the foil back of potatoes was warm, I put the cast iron skillet in the middle and scrambled up some eggs, then added the sausage to them. I served eggs and sausage with the potatoes/onions/peppers with monterey jack cheese on top and a spoonful of Green Mountain salsa, rolled in warm tortillas. Yum!



After breakfast I wiped/rinsed the dishes, and we sat down with our coffee to plan our day. We were both really exhausted from not sleeping the nigh before, and I was still dizzy from the vertigo. We decided that we'd completed our mission of trying out our equipment, and we packed it up, grabbed a shower and changed clothes, and headed home.

Did I mention it was cold?

All in all: 
Tent was ok, a little hard to get the poles in the pockets
Sleeping pads were ok IF you had a completely insulated bag
Backpacking stove is fabulous
Starbucks Via is delicious
The Fozzils plates worked well, and the cutlery was fine, if a little easily bent
My sleeping bag is going back to REI and I'm getting a two sided, rectangular bag
The cheap Wal Mart floats were useless and we won't bother
My camping pillow was fine but I need clothes in a stuff sack underneath.