2012 Trips
1
Castle Danger SHT Trip
11 miles of hiking • 0' elevation gain • 2 nights
I got to head up to my favorite place, the Superior Hiking Trail, recently with a couple other hammock forum members. We went for a quick weekend trip to the castle danger area. Got there around 7:30pm on Friday night and got in some good night hiking. CryOTheWild and BigFatSellOut both over dressed and soon had to strip some layers as the first mile or so is a lot of climbing... I think CryOTheWild went a little far with stripping down! It was about 32 or so when we arrived and the mercury quickly dropped to an overnight low of 23 When we got to the campsite there was a ground dweller already sleeping. so we went ahead and hung our hammocks and then chatted around the fire until midnight and ate some bablefish5's BBQ spaghetti before turning in. The next morning we slacked around the campsite. We got a chance to meet our neighbor who's name was mike, and his dog was Ozzy. They were super cool and ended up hiking and camping with us the rest of the weekend! This was for sure a slackpacking trip to say the least. We finally broke camp and started hiking around 10:30am. We stopped for lunch around noonish and hung the hammocks again and had some lunch....for me lunch was some more bablefish5 goodness... this time beef stew! We hung out for about an hour or so then hiked for about another mile until we got to our campsite for the day/night. That night we had a really really great fire and a lot of fun just sitting around the fire and chatting. Mike decided to stay up and chat with us... always fun to make a new friend! Anyways, The next morning I found out CryOTheWild and Myself had kept BigFatSellOut up until around 2am or so with our snoring... apparently we started up within minutes of getting in the hammocks LOL! Really it was an amazing time and I can't wait for the upcoming Iowa Hang to get together with these two great guys (and a bunch of others) again!
October 26 – October 28, 2012
Hike on the SHT
26.5 miles of hiking • 0' elevation gain • 2 nights
Hiked from Finland MN south to Beaver Bay with two buddies and had a blast. After the hike we biked about 20 miles back to our vehicles.
August 1 – August 3, 2012
3
Hammock Forums Spring Hang
23.5 miles of hiking • 0' elevation gain • 2 nights
I left my house around 1pm and drove through some beautiful farmland on my way to the trailhead. I arrived at the North Country Trail trailhead in Solon Springs, WI about two hours later. After about a mile of walking I realized that I had probably taken the wrong trail, so I called CryotheWild from the forums. After talking with him I decided that I indeed had taken the wrong trail, so I hiked back and found the right trail! Once I got on the right trail it was another short mile walk in to the area where everyone else was camping. We were allowed to camp off the trail a bit because Snipen got us all a dispersed camping permit. It was a hot and muggy evening, but we still had a small fire. I decided to turn in for the night around 11:30pm and when I got in and laid down in my hammock I looked up to see some HUGE spiders that had crawled inside my bug net (that I forgot to close!) After freaking out a bit and getting rid of the spiders I dosed off... woke up around 2am to answer the call of nature and saw Hilo and his girlfriend arrive.
The next morning we were all up pretty early and hit the trail around 7:30am and it was already starting to get hot! MT from the forums was out first, then it was Cryothewild and his buddy, Drew. I followed a bit after them. after about 30 minutes of hiking alone I caught up with Cryothewild and Drew and a few minutes we all caught up with MT. We spent the rest of the day hiking together. It was a fun group of guys to hike with! The plan was to meet up with everyone at the Highland Town Hall which was just before where we were planning to camp on day 2. So we all broke out our hammocks and enjoyed the breeze for about an hour before everyone else showed up. We all ate some lunch and got some water before heading to the campsite.
Day three was just as hot as the previous two days and we got a later start. This day's hike was to be about 6.5 miles or so, but in the heat it felt much longer! It didn't help that this section was dry and I ran out of water about half way through. One thing that I haven't mentioned yet is how bad the ticks were on the trail... it was a nonstop battle to keep them off yourself! I think it is safe to say that most of us had somewhere around 100-150 ticks each during this trip.
June 8 – June 10, 2012
SHT with brother
55 miles of hiking • 500' elevation gain • 2 nights
This was supposed to be a 3 night 4 day trip but we got ambitious when we got to our campsite on day two and decided to keep hiking. Ended up doing just over 21 miles that day and total we did 55 miles which included some biking.
May 13 – May 15, 2012
1
SHT with wife
22 miles of hiking • 250' elevation gain • 2 nights
Took my wife out for her first backpacking trip. We 22 miles over 2 nights and 3 days...although most of the miles were on the 2nd and 3rd days because we got to the trail late on day one and hiked in a mile to the campsite. Shared the campsites both nights and on night two met some really cool guys who were all marines. Great time and the wife had a lot of fun!
April 27 – April 29, 2012
SHT with Brandon, Ben, and Amber
7.5 miles of hiking • 250' elevation gain • 2 nights
Me and Brandon drove up to tettegouche state spark to meet up with Ben and Amber at the campsite. It was super windy and rainy that first night. Brandon and I hung our hammocks about 15 feet from the cliff looking over lake superior! The next day we hit the trail and it was slow going through the wet and slippery snow. When we stopped for lunch (got a late start) we all decided to call it a day. We just rolled with it and had a lot of fun anyways!
March 30 – April 1, 2012
