Winter in the Mountains...Like a Boss

Garrett will say that this entire weekend is my fault. I'm sure it makes him feel better about the aches and pains and freezing temperatures, and really, the second night of near hypothermia was my fault, but I digress.

We woke up at 6am (seriously) on Saturday morning to head up to the trail head at the Elkmont parking area in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We were loaded up with 25lb packs and ready to tackle the wilderness. It's worth mentioning that this was only the second time we'd gone hiking with these packs and we were about to set out on a 3-day hiking excursion in the back country. On our test hike the weekend before, I accidentally spilled our ramen, so Garrett was convinced if we were going to die this weekend, it would be my fault.

The first sight we spotted along the trail head as we made our way up a slow incline of a hill was a grouping of dilapidated cabins being reclaimed by the forest around us. The kids thought it was amazing, but G and I were still getting adjusted to the fact that we were about to haul these packs 8 miles into the back country. We were counting the miles to the nearest city, the nearest hospital, and the nearest Mellow Mushroom and Starbucks (Pigeon Forge by the way). We continued along the Goshen Prong trail, excitement building as the sun warmed the trail ahead of us. The 8 mile trek was rough with the packs, but the payoff at the end would be a campfire and a lot of relaxing.

We made it to camp around 5pm and spent about a half hour looking for the perfect place to set up our new ultralight tents. We were the only people in this part of mountains and we would later learn there was a good reason why. Garrett set about getting the tents together while Dante, Julien, and I went on the hunt for firewood, rocks, and began to build a campfire area. After that, we headed down to the river to filter 4 liters of water to last us the night. By the way, Mountain water is cold. Ice cold.  The kids and I headed back to camp where Julien quickly learned how to work the bear cables and had his pack raincovered, and hung in no time. In fact, he had to teach me how to use the rigging system. I mentioned before we were looking forward to relaxing? Well we quickly learned there is no relaxing in the back country. When you have to carry everything in on your back, walk to water, filter your own water, make sure there is not a single crumb of food on you or in your tent, hang your bags, food, and toiletries and then spend an hour getting a good fire going then hunting for enough wood to keep it going, there is absolutely zero relaxing at a back country campsite. Cooking takes on a whole new art with a single burner, a fire, and a few lightweight metal bowls and spoons. If you spill, you start over. If you have leftover food, you have to bury it, then you have to carefully wash your bowls. If you are not hungry, you have to force yourself to eat or you're going to hate yourself in the morning. The most humorous part was convincing the kids to poop in a hole and then use a trowel to cover it up. For the bears? they asked. No. So we don't step in it.

Things were going well as the sun began to set and the moon and stars came out. The temperatures were dropping but they were manageable. We were so exhausted that everyone was falling asleep in front of the fire by 8pm. Julien decided to go to the tent early and read a book. He was snoring half an hour later. By 8:45pm, we all decided to turn in, too tired to think and knowing we had a 7 mile hike the next day to the next camp site. Things were going well until 12:30am. The air turned so bitterly cold that we all woke up, shocked. Garrett came to check on Julien and I as I got up to put more layers on Julien and zipped him back up into his bag then hugged him next to me. For the next 4 hours, Garrett and I sat up completely unable to sleep and seriously contemplating starting a fire in the middle of the night to stay warm. Legit, laying by the fire cowboy style and we came very, very close to doing it. For hours we waited for the sun to make its appearance as the kids slept completely unfazed and somehow not freezing in their bags. I don't even think I slept 2 hours that night.

Once the sun finally made its appearance, we were so exhausted and frigid that it took over an hour to get a fire started. My fingers were like rocks and I just walked around numb, collecting firewood. An eternity later we had a roaring fire and forced ourselves to eat, figuring the calories might warm us up. The kids of course were bounding around the campsite, drinking hot chocolate, and acting like this was the best time they'd had in their lives. Garrett and I kept joking about how we were idiots for doing this in March and suddenly realizing why no one else was on this mountain.

By the time we broke camp, the sun was rising in the sky and the temperatures were fast on the rise. We made our way back down the trail to head toward our second campsite though Garrett and I kept talking on the trail about the weather and that if the weather was as bad as the night before, we probably needed to just head home. As we got halfway to our next destination, we passed a group of back country hikers who believed the weather for the night would be better than the night before, and in their defense, it was a lot warmer that day than it had been the day before. The deciding factor was a blister forming on my foot and the realization that the next campsite was only 1 mile from where we were currently and the car was 6 miles away. We made the decision to risk it, and go set up camp. In retrospect that was a bad decision and Garrett is not going to let me forget it.

After another exhausting day of hiking in the mountains with 25lbs on our backs (no we never do anything easy), we finally reached another back country campsite and began to set up camp. We were cautiously optimistic and fought with getting a fire started and were pleasantly surprised we got it going faster than the night before. Everyone pitched in and began collecting wood, setting up tents, drying clothes, and making food. We were super careful about crumbs, trash, and food as we had heard a bear on the way in a few hours earlier. We hung our packs on the bear cables (Julien was super excited about that again, though when the cable snagged, Dante had to put Julien on his shoulders in order to un-snag it) and began to settle in next to the fire, exhausted. By 8pm we could feel the air getting cooler but it wasn't as cold as the night before so we were pretty excited about that. The excitement was short lived however because even though we fell asleep around 9:30pm, warm and snug in our tents, the wind picked up and by 2am the air was filled with a bitter, wet cold. I piled every layer I had on Julien and shoved him into my bag with me then covered him with his bag as well. I spent the night freezing while hugging him next to me, checking his skin to make sure it was warm to the touch throughout the night. By 4am I gave in to sleep and slept surprisingly better than the night before though I'm pretty sure it was exhaustion and not comfort that took me into dreamland.

As the sun rose, I heard the bear cables and looked out to make sure it was Garrett and not a bear fighting with our packs. The headlamp gave away the fact that a human was across the clearing and not a bear, so I threw on some jeans and a t-shirt (Julien had every other bit of my clothes on, along with his) and found my jacket buried under him to put on. I started collecting firewood and boiling hot water as Garrett started building the most difficult fire of his life. To his credit, he didn't complain about the fact that I'd made him spend another night in the frigid mountains...in the winter. I have never been so thankful for boy-scouts as I was this morning and I'm dead serious. Garrett is a phenomenal woodsman. He ties knots and all sorts of useful shit. That man could start a fire in 30 below zero in a driving wind and let me tell you, as independent as I am, that was downright sexy as hell. The feminist in me cried a little.

I'd like to mention here that my firstborn son complained the most about going into the wilderness, mainly because we made him hike uphill with a 25lb pack on. Actually it was closer to 26, but told him it was 25. Once we got started, that kid was like a freaking machine. He hikes faster than all of us and slept through two frigid nights without once getting up to go pee and without a single complaint. He slept more than the rest of us combined and was more than happy to go collecting firewood or whatever. He even helped me pump water, which let me tell you is probably the worst job of any.

So, Garrett had the fire started and Dante and I returned with water when a family of deer snuck into our camp, the youngest of which was obsessed with Julien. This thing followed him around the camp. This was actually Julien's first real experience with wildlife in the back country. I say first real experience because we failed to mention the bear the day before. We had been walking along the trail and heard rustling in the woods next to us and very clearly, and I do mean VERY clearly, heard a bear making its presence known. When Julien asked what the sound was, I lied and told him a plane was somewhere overhead. "Oh it's the engine!" he exclaimed. Exactly Julien, an engine.

Around 10am we broke camp to head back to the car. In fact it was exactly 10am, though Gman argued it was later. I told him based on the sun in the sky it was most certainly 10am and he laughed at me thinking I was being ridiculous. I made a bet with him that not only was it 10am but that we would make it back to the car around 1pm. By the way, the reason we were guessing the time? Not a single one of our cell phones had power, not that it mattered because there was no signal, and none of us had a watch. We were legit telling time by the sun all weekend.

Everyone placed their bets on what time we would reach the car, with Julien and Dante choosing times somewhat close to mine while Garrett chose the incredibly unrealistic 4pm. I still think that in his mind he figured if we reached it at 1pm, somehow that gave him extra amazing hours to play with. We began hiking the 6 miles to the car, elated that our 25lb packs were more like 22lbs at this point. It may not seem like much but after several days in the wilderness, 3lbs lighter was a godsend. It took everything in me not to just ditch things on the trail to lighten the load. Garrett and I walked for miles, the blister on my foot getting worse as Julien and Dante bounded down the trail like energizer bunnies. While I limped half the distance, Garrett went on and on about how I had tried to kill us all.

After living in Los Angeles, we don't deal so well with cold so certainly going back country camping in March was...shall I say, ambitious. When we saw the dilapidated cabins we knew we were closing in on the parking area and began to see day hikers who looked at us like we were absolutely nuts. We were trudging out way down the trail singing a mixture of the Banana Boat song and Country Roads. I'm fairly certain they thought we were certifiable. At one point just before we reached the parking lot, a family stood in the middle of the trail taking selfies. Garrett leaned into me. "I will cut a bitch..." and I was right there with him. I did not just walk 20 miles to get blocked by some day hikers out there for a half mile excursion. Plus, I couldn't let Garrett win. Any delay in time would mean I wouldn't win the bet. Julien began counting every footstep at this point, announcing how many steps left to the car. Minutes later we collapsed against our SUV, threw our packs on the ground, and nearly fell to the earth ready to kiss it. Mark, my amazing step dad who had put up with us for three days, announced the time. 1:10pm. I had won.

20 miles, probably 21,000 calories burned and I'm not sure what a pop-tart and 2 slices of pizza add up to but I'm too tired to eat anything else tonight. While we probably won't do this again until late April or early May, I will say that this was the best birthday week I've ever had. All of these adventures we have? It's what life is all about. We all have to work, we all have to pay bills, go to school, go through the motions of life but this weekend? This weekend was about going back to our roots and realizing that at the end of the day, it's family. It's family and knowing that hard work, perseverance and teamwork means that no one gets there alone.