Overnight Camping Trip: Foothills Trail

Things every neophyte camper/hiker should know:

1. Invest in a decent hiking backpack
2. Know your route
3. Figure out exactly how much water you will need
4. Sleeping in the woods can be scary


Okay, now we got that taken care of, to the real story of the week. Since our last hiking trip to Forty Acre rock (which I did not blog about, SORRY!) we decided it was time for an over night trip!!!!!
After checking out some stuff online Joe and I decided on Foothills Trail, the trail itself is about 80 miles long and it runs both in North and South Carolina. It covers the highest mountain in South Carolina (about 3500ft!). Not too shabby!

So it is the night before our big trip. Joe, Lawrence and I go to Inakaya (a Japanese restaurant) to iron out details. I would write out our packing list, but it is too long. Here are some key items: map, wet wipes, food, whistle, first aid kid (which came in handy), sleeping bags, tent..among other things! Oh yea, Iodine tablets. Once we got home from dinner Joe and I realize that we cannot pursue our original hiking plans to go from Points access 8 (Whitewater Falls) to access 11 (King's Creek Waterfall) because there were no camping grounds along the way. I am sure all of the experienced hikers are probably laughing as they read this, since it took at more than an hour to realize that primitive camping does not require specific designations. I know...silly right! But we were awake until 1am because of the minor detail. It was quiet the experience, but now I know a whole lot more about the foothills trail and its access points! I even know the Boat access point in 5A (Laurells something)!

Saturday Morning, 9am everyone meets up at our place. Where we all ate pao de queijo (cheesy bread) that I had frozen earlier in the week and baked that morning. It was gluten-free so Erin could eat it!!! =) Yay!!
We were all packed and ready to hit the road! Joe and I were carrying traditional backpacks, I attached my sleeping back and cooler to my backpack. Which sounded like a splendid idea at home until we reached the trail and i was dying from carrying so much weigh.
After all, I think ultra light backpacking might be the way to go!
Magically we get to our hiking location all right. Tom tom and Garmit got us there in one piece and good timing! We parked the car and took pictures of the beautiful Whiterwater Falls.

I think the first 1.5 hours were the worst. My shoulders were killing me, I was out of breath. I felt like I was out of shape. When really, I have been steadily working out, but I am just going to blame the weighted! Lawrence was nice enough to take the cooler off my back (he had a real hiking backpack!) and a Erin took the sleeping bag, that was great because it was not centered on my back and it kept making lose my balance. Which is clearly a bad idea, when you are hiking a mountain!!!!!!

About 2.5 miles in we find a great, perfect condition campsite. Ohhh were we tempted to stay there. But, Joe and Lawrence pushed us to keep going. Erin and I were ready to give in and change our hiking plans. We decided to speed up the pace because it was close to sundown and we needed to have our campsite ready and some food cooked before dark!

Close to six o'clock we get to our checkpoint. Only to find some hikers that well, scared me a little bit. There first question when they saw us was, "where are yall sleeping tonight?"-- what kind of question is that???? HELLO?? CREPPPYYYY
Anyway, we figured out where to go next on a picnic table and of course it menacing to rain. Thanks to Zeus, it was ephemeral. Did I mention these were three guys that said that to us, so it was Erin, Joe, Lawrence and I. When we get to our trail, we see them setting up, I was freaked out. I know, I am paranoid!!! Do not blame me okay? I am a city girl. Safety is my priority.

We hike a few more minutes and find a great site. It was used before, so we had a fire camp already set-up and plenty of room for our tents. Boys in one, girls in the other! Joe and Lawrence found a dead tree nearby that really helped us out with our fire!!!! Erin is the master of fire. She worked that fire like nobody's business. The menu for dinner was, chicken with veggies (Lawrence), corn on the cob (Erin), Roasted potatoes (G &J), and hot dogs (G&J)! And for desert, ::drum rolls:: SMORES!!!!
Dinner was delicious!!!
Lights out, 9pm! Erin and I pretty much fed each others fear that we were going to be attacked by the creepy guys. It was not bad, but when you start to over analyze things....you know what happens!

We got up the next day 7am to the sound of rain. Great huh??? When the woods was really well sheltered by the trees so we had no problem getting going!! We packed up, had breakfast (protein bar) and headed out to finish our 7 miles! It was beautiful and easy compared to the day before. Loved every minute of it. We told each other jokes, talked about the possibility of a bear driving an ATV, tapped Erin's ankle, cross over two state lines, really nothing extraordinary.

Okay, so turns out Erin is prone to rolling her ankle and of course she cursed herself, but mentioning that fact to Lawrence 10 minutes prior to rolling it. Lucky for us, Joe had insisted on buying sports tape at wal-mart two nights earlier. When I opposed. Fortunately, he was an athletic trainer in HS and taping ankles was one of his responsibilities! Overall it was a great camping trip. We talked a lot, saw plenty of beautiful waterfalls along the way and certainly heard a ton of birds.

*Erin walked about a mile on a bad ankle. Kudos to Erin!

On our way back home we stopped to eat at a Ruby Tuesday's and I felt compelled to apologize to our server, because we smelled so bad. Really, how do people camp out for a week?a month? 5 months? NO SHOWER????? NOPE, can't do.

- I will post pictures later!!!

Peace

Ps- GO GATORS
62-3