Simply Being | Simple Being

Overnight hike…

This weekend saw Pinch and I going for an overnight hike with the rest of the ORGT folks to a camp site in Vogel State Park. The length of the entire trail was nearly 12 miles, I think. The idea was to cover 6 miles each day. Started on the trail at 11 am Saturday morning. The first part was uphill, no two ways about it. Plus I had on this backpack, the first time in my life that I was hiking with one. It weighed about 30 pounds i.e. just short of 15 kgs, I think. Took some time getting used to it. The straps of the bag dug deeply into the skin on my shoulders and within no time, I had reddish welts running downward from my shoulders…:-(

The trail wound deeply upward and more upward and finally about 3:30 pm, we reached the camp site. Pitched the tents, found a stream which was surprisingly cold(!) and filled our bottles. The troupe leader had a certain apparatus which we used to filer the stream water and make it potable. Quite a neat thingy…:-)

A campfire was made soon, water heated and everyone had dinner. It was rather soon but we had to get that done before the daylight faded. The rest of the evening passed in chatting, tips on how to handle black bears which wander up once in a while and scary stories about ‘snipes’ who nip people’s noses when they’re asleep(purely fictitious animal!). Laid out our sleeping bags soon enough and off to bed thereafter except that I slept rather fitfully. Kept waking up in bursts….

The morning dawned soon enough and post-breakfast, we started the walk home. Strangely, this also involved some steep uphill walking. Pinch developed a muscle pull in his right calf and slowed down considerably. He found a sturdy stick which helped him make the trip. Phew! That was tiring and I was more-than-happy when we reached the base and clambered into the van back home.

Will post the pics later…. Inshaallah, more trips shalt follow!