Corridor 9

The night was long and colder than expected at East Collins Campground. I faired rather well in my 15F Big Agnes bag, but dad didn’t do so hot. He was using my 37 F Montbell Super Stretch Down Hugger and said that every time he rolled over the bag sucked in cold air and made him shiver. I have yet to use this bag, so I can’t say I’ve experienced this but it would seem to make sense. If you increase the interior volume of the bag air must come from somewhere to fill that volume.

Around 4 am I finally woke up for a few minutes. This is highly unusual for me as I’m usually up at least a couple times during the night. I was finally starting to feel better, but still needed that extra few hours of sleep to feel fully rested.

As the sun was breaking through the clouds, I could hear Coy and Dad already up talking and preparing breakfast. I knew there was no way that I would be able to eat anything still, so I decided to lay in the tent for a bit longer before braving the cold. It wasn’t freezing or anything but if I remember correctly, the temps did drop down into the 40’s F.

I found out exactly how well the Big Agnes Dual Core pad worked too. As I was packing everything up, I had to sit on the ground and purge the air out of the mattress. Within 2 minutes my legs were already hurting from the hard ground. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to thin pads.

It was shortly after 8 when we all got packed and started out again. I did end up eating a fruit cup, though most definitely not one of those crappy mandarin orange cups! We knew it was going to be a long hard trek back to the vehicles even though we were on the plateau trail and didn’t have to cross the valley. The going started off rather well. I was able to make the lead pace and get out in front of the others by a few hundred yards to begin with.

About 2 hours into the day, we had already covered nearly 4 miles when we met up with a Boy Scout Troop from Huntsville, AL. They were preparing for a section hike on the AT and figured that the trail they were taking through Savage Gulf would be comparable in difficulty. I decided it was wise to keep my mouth shut about the ease of travel their trail had taken versus the degree of difficulty we’d experienced yesterday.

As we pushed on, we made relatively good time, but it was easily apparent that I had begun to drag along again. When we stopped near the scouts Coy was a good 30 minutes behind us, but that didn’t last long. As we were about a mile away from our last rest session, Coy pushed on past me and dad. I simply didn’t have the energy to keep going. I had pushed myself so hard the day before and made myself so queasy that I was simply ready to get my butt home.

Within the last 1.5 miles is a beautiful waterfall that we decided to stop at for a rest. I had been there on my last trip to the Gulf, but I knew dad wanted pictures. Throughout the whole day he had stuck rather close and didn’t get a chance to go on any of the side trails to get pictures from the cliff edge. I felt bad, so I decided that this would be a good time to let him get a good deal of pictures; that and the fact that I was simply exhausted. We dropped pack on top of a flat rock overlooking the waterfall and went down tot he waters edge. it wasn’t long before I left him there to go back to the rock and rest on my pack for a while.

The last 1.5 miles was definitely the easiest, and I almost cried when I saw the vehicles.

I forgot to mention in the first day’s post that Dad lost his brand new OR Sombrero within the first 5 minutes of the trip. He thought he’d be slick and attach it to his pack with a slipknot so he could put it on if he needed without having to de-pack. Next time I’ll bet he uses a carabiner and just asks for help. Anyway, he stopped in at the ranger station and was able to retrieve it. Someone had been nice enough to pin it to the pegboard outside the ranger station the night before. This was definitely a blessing. The usual trail rule is if you find it, it’s yours. Most of this logic has to do with weight; if I pack out the extra weight, I get to keep the gear. It’s often been a thought of mine to throw my hiking partners off cliffs for their gear, but then I realize that I wouldn’t be able to use said gear in jail anyway; not to mention my fear of Bubba.

We packed up and headed home… our first stop McDonalds!