We Can Backpack by Ourselves

Ever since a year ago when we went backpacking into Havasupai, Robyn and I have been working to become better backpackers.  We've been acquiring the equipment, and we've been on a few different trips.

We even have a trip planned this summer to go backpacking in Oregon.  But while we've been planning our upcoming Oregon trip, we realized that there is a small problem with it:  We won't have Jared.

Jared is a backpacking guru, and my BFF.  He's taken us on various adventures, and he knows how to make sure we are safe and comfortable.  Those are good things, unless you want to be able to do a trip without him.

Thus, we decided that we needed to take a Jared free backpacking trip, to prove that we could survive.  Spoiler Alert.  We totally survived the Jared free trip.

This past weekend was that very trip, and we had a great time.  (Although, we realized it clearly would have been better with Jared guiding us as we pulled out the topographical map a billion times to make sure we were going where we wanted to go.)

All in all, it was a great trip.  Here are a few of the highlights.

We got off a little later than planned, so we had our picnic dinner at the trailhead.

It's important to pose with an apple.

I can never remember where I put the keys when we get back to the car, so I took a picture of which pocket they were in.

I made Robyn get a picture of her looking happy next to snow.

There were lots of really pretty ponds and lakes along the way.

We had to climb over a mountain over into the adjacent valley.  Here I am at the summit.

It's important to take selfies with pretty lakes.

This was my view the whole way, the back of a pretty girl surrounded by trees and nature.

Our destination was island lake.  This sign lied.  One mile from this sign is another sign that says "Island Lake .5"

Because of the confusion about how far island lake was, and because we got off a little late, we didn't make it there until after dark.  But it was fine, we set up camp in the dark and went right to sleep.

In the morning when I woke up before Robyn, it was important to take a selfie with her sleeping.

This is what island lake looked like when I got out of the tent.

Robyn made us a gourmet breakfast of oatmeal and sausage.

This deer wandered into our camp and just stood about 15 feet away from me and stared at me for several minutes before prancing off into the wilderness.

Robyn enjoyed the breeze on the hike back.

It wasn't the most hardcore backpacking trip.  It was about 9 miles round trip.  Real backpackers probably aren't impressed, but we feel we have proven we can survive on our own in the wilderness.

Hopefully we'll also survive backpacking in Oregon.  I'll keep you posted.

Red Pine Lake

I recently wrote about our newly acquired backpacking gear.  Eager to use it in the real world, we asked around for good places to go backpacking.  We got lots of good ideas from friends and family that we will be using in the future.  My BFF Jared volunteered to go with us to one of his favorite places, which meant that the first place we officially went backpacking was Red Pine Lake.

It's a beautiful lake, and the trail head is up Little Cottonwood Canyon, so it's less than 45 minutes from our house which works perfectly for a Friday night hike after work.

The hike is about 3.5 miles and climbs a little over 2000 feet.  I have a few little stories and adventures to share so I've broken them into headings.  (Don't you just feel more comfortable knowing that all of the information falls into an organized structure?)

Cute Little Hikers
The hike starts out fairly easy.  It's not very steep at first.  This is the part where we looked vibrant, cute and precious, because we hadn't got all sweaty yet.

Look at those three precious hikers

Sometimes we pose with a mountain.

So much preciousness!

Sunset
As we hiked further the sun began to set.  (It turns out it does that every evening, who knew?)  We stopped to snap some pics of the sunset looking down on the valley.

Regretting Squats
As we got further along on the hike, it started to get steeper.  This hike gets progressively steeper until you arrive at the lake where it flattens out.  As the hike got steeper, I began to regret that earlier that day had been leg day at the gym.  I was particularly regretting that I had done squats, so my legs were already sore and tired.  I'm not gonna lie.  I was a sad boy on the last half mile.

"Why is it always my bum?"
By the time we reached the lake, it was pretty late.  The sun had been down for a couple hours, so it was dark and cold.  We cooked our dinner and ate it looking out over the lake with its beautiful reflection of the moon.  (Alas, the iphone camera is pretty good, but it can't capture things like that.)  After dinner we got in our tent and went to bed pretty quickly.  We hadn't been laying in bed very long when suddenly Robyn yelled, "WHY IS IT ALWAYS MY BUM?!?!?".

I actually wasn't aware that it was always about her bum.  Despite that, I actually knew what she was talking about.  Her bum is always the first thing to get cold.  She was warm and snug in her sleeping bag, but her bum was still somehow managing to feel cold.  Naturally, that question became the theme for the rest of the trip.

Walking around the lake
The next morning I woke up early and both Robyn and Jared were still sleeping and looking precious.  I decided to do a little exploring and see what I could see.  I ended up walking all the way around the lake.  I loved how beautiful it was, and how it was such a perfect reflecting pool.

Hanging with the Pika
While I was walking around the lake, I came upon a pika.  I didn't actually know what a pika was before this trip, but I googled the animal I had seen when I got home and was able to figure it out.  They make a really loud chirping noise and they build huge nests with leaves.  I sat and watched this little guy scurry into the bushes and then come back with a branch or a leaf in his mouth, only to deposit it on his mound and repeat the process.  I watched him do this 3 or 4 times before continuing on my way.

Here he is on his mighty mound of leaves.

Fearless Chipmunk
When I got back to camp, we made breakfast and hung out for a while.  There was a chipmunk who must have smelled our food because he kept sneaking up and trying to check out everything.  He tried to crawl into my backpack, then he tried to crawl into my tent.  He also tried to crawl on Jared's face while he was laying in his sleeping bag.  (We don't actually know if he was going for the face.  But he got about 3 inches away before Jared yelled at it, "Hey chipmunk!  I'm right here!")  I didn't get a picture of the chipmunk because I was too busy trying to convince it that I'm so scary that it shouldn't chew through all of my new gear in search of food.

Chilling at a beautiful lake
After breakfast we spent a few hours just enjoying the beautiful nature all around us.

Just a couple of BFFs in nature.

And this is what we look like from the front.

Going home and walking like an old man
Finally it came time to go home.  We took a few precious pics on the way back.

I told her to pose with the changing leaves.

Just hanging out with the trees and the valley.

Once I got home and sat down for a bit, my body realized that I just carried a big backpack up and down a mountain.  My thighs, my calves and my hips all suddenly decided to be sore.  I'm pretty sure I'll be walking like an old man for a few days, but I guess that just means we need to do this more often so that I can handle it better.

New Backpackers in Town

Robyn and I have always loved nature.  (Though Robyn doesn't always like nature to touch her.)  We've loved nature but we've primarily only experienced nature that could be reached in a car.  The main reason for this was that we were much too fat to carry ourselves very far into the wilderness, not to mention carrying the gear and food we would need to survive.

Our attempts to be more active and healthy have included such things as biking, hiking and even scuba diving.  With our recent trip to Havasupai, we added backpacking to that list.  We had a great experience on that trip and wanted to do much more backpacking.  My BFF Jared W loaned us all the gear we needed so that we could have a great backpacking adventure.  Unfortunately, Jared is like 15 feet tall and I am like a third of that.  That means that a backpack frame that fits Jared fits me terribly.   Clearly we decided we needed to get our own.  (Not to mention that, while Jared is always willing to loan us his stuff, it's much easier to use it more often if we have our own.)

This past weekend, REI was having a Labor Day sale on all sorts of gear.  Clearly that meant we went shopping.  Let me reiterate, I WENT SHOPPING!  You know that if I was willing to go shopping, I must be excited.  We were shopping for approximately 500 years.  We were trying on backpacks and walking around the store.  I've used up my ability to shop for the next century or so, but it was totally worth it.

Look at that cutie with her cute new backpack.

Robyn was very concerned that she wouldn't be able to buy a backpack that was properly cute.  I honestly didn't know that backpacks could be cute.  But she tells me that hers is, so I'm happy for her.

Neither my backpack nor its wearer are anywhere near as cute.  But I'm excited about my purchase as well.

We selected the backpacks we wanted, and then noticed the tents were on sale as well.  We debated that we might be spending too much money, but we figured that we were going to buy a good backpacking tent at some point anyway, so we may as well get it while it's on sale.

When we got home, it became important to setup the tent in our front room.  Robyn assured me that having a tent in the front room was fun.  I wasn't entirely convinced, but despite my skepticism, this cute girl in a tent in the front room did turn out to be pretty fun.

Tents are like blanket forts, with the added benefit that they don't fall apart.

So now that we have all this gear, we need to go on a backpacking trip before it gets too cold to use our gear.  If you have any good suggestions for places to go let us know.

Havasupai

This past weekend we had the opportunity to go backpacking into Havasupai.  It was our first real backpacking trip (I say it was real.  I was informed by one of the hardcore backpackers on the trip that hiking ten miles and staying somewhere for several days is not actually real backpacking.  Real backpacking entails ten or more miles per day.  Nevertheless, it was real enough for me.)

If you're unfamiliar with Havasupai, it's a beautiful area located in Havasu canyon which is a subsidiary to the Grand Canyon.  It's located inside a native american reservation, and is maintained by the natives.  To get there you have to hike in 10 miles, but once you are there, there is a campground with waterfalls, a freshwater spring, a beautiful river, plenty of hiking and swimming opportunities, and just general awesomeness.  I'll share a few of the most memorable experiences from the trip, in chronological order.

Hiking In
We arrived at the parking lot about 9:00 at night.  One thing you do not want to do is make this hike during the day, because the heat will kill you.  It took us 20-30 minutes or so to get all the backpacks out, get changed into hiking clothing, and get ourselves ready for the hike, so we started hiking around 9:30 in the evening.

The campground is about ten miles from the parking lot.  It's 8 miles to the village of Supai, and an additional 2 to the campground itself.  Hiking in is primarily downhill, but between hiking in the dark and hiking through sand, I was having a hard time of it.  I was so tired, I was pretty sure I would die.  (I suppose it also didn't help that we were making the long trek after a long day of driving.)  Despite being exhausted, look what a cute hiker I was.

The ten miles get way longer when you get caught in a repeating gif image.

Sleeping in The horse's bathroom
You aren't supposed to camp on the trail.  You're only supposed to camp in the campground.  So we're not going to call it camping.  Let's just say that we stopped to take a nap after about 7 miles.  The place where we stopped had an abundance of horse droppings.  We didn't think much of it.  We each just made sure that we weren't laying on top of any of the droppings.  In the middle of the night, several wild horses wandered into our little napping space (not a camp).  They neighed at us in a very cranky manner.  We should have realized that we were in their bathroom.  I would be cranky too if I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and there were 12 people sleeping there.

The bats
The bats were one of my favorite things on this trip.  I've never seen them in such numbers.  At night you could catch a glimpse of one or two, and you could definitely hear their little chirps, but first thing in the morning you could lay and look at the sky and see dozens of them flying around catching bugs.  I figure as long as they don't turn into vampires, and they eat the bugs that eat me, I will always be friends with the bats.  Especially since they're so cool to watch.

My first view of the river
I'd been told that the water in Havasupai is beautiful, but nothing could have prepared me for how beautiful it actually was.  The water has a deep turquoise color.  It honestly looks like ocean water.  The word on the street is that it's caused by the high limestone content.  All I know is that my first glimpse of the river took my breath away.

Picnics in the river
I ate as many meals as I possibly could in the river.  Why would you eat (or do anything) in the heat of the area known as "not the river" when you could be doing things in the river.

This is the proper way to have a picnic.

Havasu Falls
As we were hiking into the campground, I had several views of the river and of waterfalls.  But that didn't stop Havasu Falls from taking my breath away.  It's absolutely stunning, and pictures don't do it justice.

The Ladder of Death
One of the prettiest waterfalls is called Mooney Falls.  (Apparently, it's named for a guy named Mooney who tried to climb down it and died, kind of like Clayton ravine from Back to the Future.)  To get down to it, they have built a descending stair of death.  It involves ladders, going through caves, and mostly just trying to avoid death as you descend a couple hundred feet almost vertically.

The sign warns you beforehand that you might die.

You go through tunnels where it's likely you'll be eaten by Shelob.

Some areas have chains you need to hold onto.

This is looking up at the bottom third of it, which is the most treacherous part.

Mooney Falls

Once we got down to Mooney Falls we spent the whole day there, because I was not going up and down the ladder of death twice.

Look how precious we were.

It's important to lay in the water and take pictures of my feet.

Rope swing

From Mooney falls we headed down the river, to see what we could see.  The first thing we encountered was a rope swing.

Robyn grabs the rope

And she releases it gracefully

My dismount was less graceful.

Trekking Down the River

From there we just hiked down the river.  We jumped off cascades when we encountered them.  We waded through shallow parts.  We swam through deep parts.  It was super fun.

Look at my adventurous wife!

The Shower

We found a little outcropping that totally functioned like a shower.

I told Dave to do a Maybelline pose.  He should be a model.

But Robyn is still cuter, even without the Maybelline pose.

Jumping off the falls

Robyn and I both jumped off of lower Navajo Falls.  It took me a while to get the courage but I did it.

Here's me.

Here's Robyn

How cute is it that she screamed on the way down and then screamed when she came up because she wasn't done screaming?

Upper Navajo Falls

I had tons of fun playing in the upper falls.  When we first walked up to it, I figured it was too hardcore to play in.  It turned out that it was one of my favorites.  We swam under a little ourcropping that made a little cave.  We showered in it, we swam against the current.  It was great.

About to head into the mayhem.

Sometimes I hide from waterfalls with the safety of rock

I was important to do a He Man pose in the maelstrom.

Erin and Robyn making the waterfall cuter.

Robyn had to make the waterfall more precious than you can possibly imagine.

All in all, it was a fabulous trip. There were a few negatives. One girl spilled boiling water on herself and burned herself super bad. Some squirrels got into the same girl's food, ate some of it and pooped on what they didn't eat. One girl said she didn't like bacon. (It broke my heart. I told her I would turn the car around and end her precious trip real soon.) But other than that, I'd say it was amazing.

There are way too many cool pictures for a blog post, so watch Facebook for the rest of them.  (I'll get them posted soon.  Don't rush me.)  And if you're really lucky, I might even blog about how we got out of the canyon.  (You think we walked?  Who would do that?)