13 Insights Learned From Our First Backpacking Trip
By admin
I wasn’t supposed to have a post for today. I wasn’t supposed to have time to sit down at the computer to share our experience until tomorrow, since the plan was to arrive home last night.
Yet, here I am… on Saturday, the 4th of July, putting together my thoughts from our first backpacking trip.
Oh and did I mention, I’m sitting in the comfort of my home? Sipping coffee on my couch?
Yup. That’s right, we called our trip short. And we are filled with a plethora of emotions… mostly disappointment.
Let’s back up…
As you guys know, Dan and I are planning a 2 week backpacking trip on the John Muir Trail (JMT). Except that we’ve never actually backpacked. Or camped.
We so the 4th of July weekend as the perfect opportunity to test out our skills and make sure that:
A. Camping was something we actually enjoyed.
B. We could use our equipment and handle ourselves in the middle of nature.
Thursday, we packed up the car and headed up to our favorite trailhead at Black Mountain Campground, Mount Mitchell.
Because it was our first adventure, I wanted to make sure someone knew we were up on the trails.
Lucky for us, we’ve made friends over the past few trips, so Van and his wife Debbie, who own Albert’s Inn (the closest inn to the trails), allowed us to park at their place.
We arrived around 4:30, and Van promptly volunteered to drive us the 3 miles to the trailhead. With no time to hesitate, we tossed our gear in the back of his car and headed off.
At 5:00, we were ready to hit the trails. Our goal was to get to a campsite about 4 miles up the mountain. With clouds lurking overhead, we began our ascent…
With a 40 lb pack on.
Oh, and did I mention that I didn’t practice AT ALL wearing my pack? In fact, the first time even loading it up was Wednesday when I packed. ← Lesson learned (see below).
Because it was already so late in the evening, we felt the pressure to really hightail it up. I was both amazed at our stamina and in pain. My Osprey Aura Backpack is a serious piece of gear, and 40 pounds makes uphill climbing HARD.
But after just 2.5 hours of hiking, we arrived at our destination.
The wind was picking up, the clouds dark and we rushed to set up tent. With temperature in the low 50s, we were very happy we packed long sleeves (at the last minute).
Our North Face Tadpole 2 Tent was easy to set and within 10 minutes I was cooking dinner!
Lasagna? Yes, please!
In case you’re wondering… yes that stuff is actually delicious!
With ominous clouds flying overhead, we didn’t waste time getting into the tent for the night.
If you’ve never camped before, trying to sleep is quite the experience. The stillness of the night is eerie, as is the random howling of the wind. At 4:30, Dan woke me up due to the sudden increase of wind.
He was sure that a storm was coming and began wondering if we should pack up. His sleeping bag was also experiencing wetness and he wasn’t sure what to do. I convinced him to go back to sleep. Lol.
At 6am, the sound of rain woke us up.
The clouds were thick, the rain steady and we began to think about our next move. Should we suck it up and continue on? Or should we call it a trip, and admit that it just wasn’t our weekend (it was supposed to rain off and on ALL day).
I finally told Dan, being miserable wasn’t what the trip was about.
His sleeping bag was soaked, as was the tent floor, and without sunshine, there would be no way to dry it out.
So we called it a day.
Though with the canopy of trees over most of our descent, we were able to move a little slower and enjoy the experience, stopping from time to time for pictures.
After 8 miles, we arrived back at Albert’s Inn.
We walked up like dogs with tails tucked between our legs. We let the mountain win. We felt like losers, felt like newbies, felt the sting of disappointment.
Van and Debbie talked with us for about an hour, providing insight and tips. Going over what we did right and what we did wrong. And offered each of us the best cup of hot espresso ever.
We finally came to accept… we are newbies.
We’re allowed to mess up, and this wasn’t about “camping” as much as it was about learning how to camp. And we definitely learned a lot.
Here’s the biggest take aways, or… insights we learned from our 18 hours on Mount Mitchell.
14 Insights Learned From Our First Backpacking Trip
- Set your tent up under tree cover. Mistake #1 was choosing the campsite that was completely exposed. We had plenty of options for covered sites, but choose for a wide open spot instead. Had we popped the tent under tree cover, the tent would have been spared a lot of rain fall, and we likely would not have had so much moisture build up inside.
- Have a catch tarp and ground tarp. This was a lesson Van taught us. We should have hung a tarp (via the trees) above us to allow water to runoff and not hit us. Additionally, we should have had a footprint tarp (a tarp under the tent) as a barrier, again to avoid moisture from the ground from coming in. Great lesson!
- Turn the tent so your head is up higher. I’m not sure why we didn’t think of this at the time, but once we were inside, we realized our heads were lower than our feet. Any moisture rolled down to our heads, but also we would have been more comfortable had we turned the other way. Stupid beginner’s mistake.
- Practice with your backpack before – with weight! It seems obvious, but somehow we both neglected this. Carrying 40+ pounds was a rude awakening. And my backpack wasn’t sized quite right. After an hour on the trails, my shoulders began to pinch and became extremely uncomfortable. Had I practiced before hand, with and without weight, I would have had the pack perfectly sized and more comfortable. In fact, my shoulder pain probably would have slowed us down had we kept the trip going.
- Practice your tent (and gear). Again seems obvious. We did set up our tent in our living room before heading out, but only once. We agreed immediately, as we were setting up the tent at the site, we should have done it more. It slowed us down as we looked at one another and asked… “do you remember which is next?”.Luckily, our tent is really easy to put together.Otherwise, we would have been in trouble! The same goes for all the other equipment. Practice rolling and compressing sleeping bags and sleep pads (this we had done), practice turning on your cooking gear (we did not do… but it was easy to figure out, thankfully), and use anything else you’ll be using on the trip beforehand.
- Wear earplugs. This had been suggested to Dan by a client that camps, yet he forgot until we were trying to sleep. Nature is funny. One minute it’s too quiet, the next the wind is howling and strange noises can be heard around the site. Earplugs would have made it so much easier to get a more peaceful sleep.
- Don’t expect your current fitness to be enough. Just because you’re fit in one aspect, doesn’t make you fit in another. Dan and I love trail running and hiking, but adding a 40-50 pound backpack takes things to a whole new level! We both agreed, for JM Trail, we will practice more with a weighted pack to better prepare. Trail running didn’t prepare our bodies, and Saturday morning both of us woke up sore in places we didn’t expect. For me, it was my glutes and calves. For Dan, his shoulders and glutes.
- Bring a massage ball!. Mobility work is going to be so important. Carrying a heavy load isn’t natural and it adds a lot of strain to the muscles and joints. We could feel knots in our backs and shoulders and wished desperately that we had brought the Super Nova with us.Yes, it would have been even more weight, but we had the space, and it would have helped in the long run. Especially if we had stayed an extra night or two! No massage ball? Even spending 10 minutes stretching out after taking the pack off will help!
- Pack a sweater! Make sure to study the weather. If, like Mt Mitchell, it can be random… then pack an extra layer just in case. We were so happy that we had packed long sleeve shirts as the top of the mountain was very chilly (sorry for the blurry picture, but for some reason I love that picture). In fact, there had even been snow just a few weeks ago. Anticipate the most extremes.
- Take a good camera! Taking pictures is something extremely important to us (not just for the blog, but we love capturing these moments). After a lot of research, Dan splurged on the Pentax K50. It’s weatherproof and durable, making it perfect for camping. An iphone just isn’t going to cut it. Because of the tree canopy and the sunsets, there is no way we would have been able to capture the moments the way we wanted. #BestPurchaseEver. And for a DSLR, the Pentax K50 is an amazing deal!
- Pack a LifeStraw. A lifestraw was required for the 50K race, since we had it already, we packed it. Being able to drink from fresh, cold streams instead of using our water reserves was awesome. And there is nothing like cold mountain water. It’s so refreshing!
- Enjoy the challenge! While we were racing up to the campsite, it wasn’t fun. It was hard. I was disappointed that we arrived so late and had to rush up the trails. There was no time to stop and take in the views or even stop to smell the fir trees (the best smell ever). But once we finished (in record time), we felt pride and all of sudden the pain was pushed aside, and we were like, “that was fun! Let’s do it again!” Ha. It’s not always going to be fun, the fun is the feeling of success and pride you experience when you make it through. ← I constantly reminded myself of this as my legs were burning from the intense incline hike.
- Set realistic traveling goals! We’re fit, we can do anything. Bahaha, yea right. We realized we had set our goals a bit too high once we got moving. Originally when planning the JMT adventure, we planned to do the entire 211 miles in 2 weeks. That’s a huge goal and very rare… that would mean 16+ miles/day. After this weekend, we decided that was stupid. It’s not about the race but the experience. So instead, we’re going to do ½ the trail this year and the second ½ next year. That way we can actually experience the trail, take in the scenery, and enjoy the vacation without feeling so rushed. Set real goals for yourself!
- Don’t let one bad experience deter you! It might rain, things may not go as planned, but that doesn’t mean every trip will suck. This trip was a huge learning experience and we are more pumped than ever to go backpacking again. Being sweaty and smelly with my guy was an awesome experience, even if it wasn’t the experience we had hoped for. At the end of the day, nature is in control and you have to simply swallow what she dishes out!
Coming home early wasn’t what we had planned, but that’s what happens when you’re dealing with nature. Sometimes you have to swallow your pride.
We kept playing the “what if” game…
What if we had placed the tent under trees?
What if we had settled for a campsite lower down on the mountain (we passed several)?
What if we had sucked it up and hiked… would the weather have cleared?
We’ll never know the answers to these questions.
But we do know we have an itch that needs to be scratched. This is a lifestyle we wish to continue. Dan has already decided that when (and if) we have kids, they will experience backpacking from an early age, as it teaches us so much about ourselves, respect for the land, and life lessons!
Wow, that has become quite the long post! Thanks for hanging out with me a bit!