Thursday afternoon, after our final exams, we headed out to Franklin, North Carolina to the Standing Indian Campground. My friends and I were going to camp for the night before heading out for our backpacking trip. After a night of board games and a camp fire, we headed to bed in the tent. The first night was around 55 degrees at night and I was very warm in the Re-Meow the entire night, which allowed me to get a good night’s sleep before we headed out in early the next day.
The next morning, the weather was beautiful; blue skies and around 70 degrees. We started out on the Kimsey Creek Trail for around 3 miles or so until we met up with the Appalachian Trail. When we hit the Appalachian Trail, we stopped for lunch which consisted of a pack of tuna fish for me and some trail meals for my friends. We met some guys from Canada who were on their last day of a two week trip.
After lunch, we set out again to summit Standing Indian Mountain. The hike to the top was pretty tough. There was about a mile of switchbacks, but once again we made extremely good time. Our next part of the day would be spent trying to make it to Carter’s Gap, where we would camp for the night. With about 2.5 miles left, the clouds rolled in and it began to rain. We knew we were due for storms so we picked up the pace and tried to make it to the camp site. While we didn’t end up making it because the rain really picked up and we wanted to set up our hammocks before the storms came, we found that we were only about .2 miles from where we wanted to be.
We set up our hammocks and cooked dinner before heading to get some water from a nearby stream. By that time it was dark and we were exhausted, so we decided to go to sleep. I laid out the plastic bag under the Re Meow to keep the air from coming up through the hammock. I was wearing my Zephyrus pullover over a long sleeve shirt and a pair of track type pants. I stayed warm through the night, despite it being only 45 degrees. I actually had to shed a few layers during the night as the Re Meow really did a great job keeping me warm. The wind was extremely loud, and I didn’t get much sleep. In the morning I discovered that I was the only one that really got any sleep because everyone else was freezing all night. At 9:30 the next day, we headed out for the second day.
We realized that our three day backpacking trip really could be done in two days, so we set another fast pace and headed for the summit of Mount Albert. After hiking for a couple of hours in the rain, we reached a part of the trail that had an awesome view, and we thought that this was the summit. Unfortunately, after 3 or 4 more miles, we realized that we were truly about to summit Mount Albert. This was a little daunting as it was straight up for around ¾ of a mile, but we took it slow and made it to the top. The view was well worth the effort. Atop the summit was a fire tower that we could go up and get a 360 degree view. Another 2.5 miles and we were off the Appalachian Trail and on the Long Branch Trail back to the car. This second day we really set a fast pace and were even doing 3 MPH at some spots. We made it to the car at 5:00 and headed home.
While it was pretty cold Friday night, I stayed very warm and comfortable thanks to the Re Meow that I had demoed out. I was very impressed with how comfortable and warm the bag was. Even my friends on the trip were impressed and all wanted one. The vaulted foot box is a really nice feature and the hood came in handy for the cold, windy night. It was surprisingly light for a 20 degree bag, and it also compressed down nicely to fit in the bottom of my Terra 60. We had a great time and lucked out with the weather as most of North Carolina had gotten thunderstorms of some kind over the weekend. We did around 13 miles the first day and 11 the second day. It was a great weekend, and the perfect way to end the semester.
TNF Raleigh
Kara Buhr
Never Stop Exploring
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