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.