I finally went on my first backpacking trip this weekend. I was a bit scared of spending my first night in the wild alone, so I decided to sign up to one of the guided backpacking trips organized by Outdoor Adventures.
Outdoor Adventures is a university outdoor program run by students. They organize backpacking trips and other activities, and also rent equipment at very low prices. I signed up for an “introduction to backpacking” trip for $52 and rented a backpack and a sleep bag for just $10.
It turned out that all the guides and participants were girls, except me and another guy who in the end did not show up. Initially I was indifferent about it, but I have to admit the situation made me feel a bit more awkward than I usually do, and of course, Mariana wasn’t too happy about it.
The pre-trip meeting was pretty useful, the guides were experienced and knowledgeable. They informed us about the trip plans, provided recommendations, made everybody feel comfortable, and gave us a check-list of items that we ought to bring with us.
We started the hike around 10:30 AM at the southernmost point of Loon Lake. The temperatures were fairly mild, slightly above 40º F. After 30 minutes we stopped for lunch on top of a huge granite slab with great views of the lake and the surrounding mountains. We continued the trail that follows the south shore of the lake until we arrived our destination: an established campground by the irregular shores of Pleasant Lake, under the shadows of an impressive granite ridge.
In the afternoon, after setting up our tents, and while the other participants relaxed and explored the area, I did a quick solo hike to cover a short section of the Rubicon trail and climb one of the smaller peaks nearby.
I didn’t know how quickly the sun would set, so I did a good portion of it almost running; I could feel the lack of oxygen when climbing the granite slabs. The views from the 7000 feet peak were amazing. I could see a good portion of the Rubicon Valley and, in the horizon, the mountains of the Tahoe rim covered in snow.
The trail to the peak was only marked with piles of stones over the granite surface and running on the way down I lost the track and ended up doing a quick detour around one of the mud lakes. I arrived to the camp right in time to watch the sunset from the shores of the lake.
At my arrival, one of the guides explained that one of the participants was suffering altitude sickness and had spent good part of the afternoon vomiting. So, we planned to wake up early and head back first thing in the morning.
Before the sunset we scouted out a tree for a bear hang. Embarrassingly, the guides could not hang it in any of the nearby trees and ended up hiding the food under a pile of stones. They argued that bear hangs are not very useful anyway, since bears are very good climbers, and that in practice we should have brought canisters.
I tried to scavenge some dry wood for a campfire, but it was hard to find enough pieces nearby and most of the ones I found were too wet to start a fire. Instead, I helped the girls refill our bottles with filtered water.
The dinner was probably the worst I’ve had in months, but everyone else seemed very pleased, I wonder if that’s the way American students generally eat. In any case I’m not sure I would have been able to do any better given the circumstances, and it actually felt pretty good to eat something warm while the temperatures started to go down. Heck, I even drank the warm water from boiling the pasta.
As the night closed in, the temperatures dropped very quickly and the cold settled down upon us reaching nearly 25º F.
The sky was clear, so when the moon set the sky exploded with stars, so bright as I hadn’t seen in a long time. It’s beautiful to watch the stars in the back country, away from all light sources polluting the atmosphere. However, it was getting extremely cold, so we retired to the comfort of our sleeping bags around 7 PM.
I didn’t sleep very well and woke up multiple times during the night. First, I was too hot; I removed some layers of clothes, but then woke up again feeling cold. My face was freezing and I could barely feel my nose. I also felt some discomfort in my bad shoulder. I finally woke up in the morning and waited for the sunrise.
At 6 AM the sky started to brighten and I decided to adventure out of the tent. I wandered around to warm myself up and to enjoy the silence and the solitude of the morning. The grass was covered in frost, water streams and small puddles over the granite surface were frozen, I looked around thinking that in a few weeks all this will be covered in snow.
I came back after and hour while the rest of the group started to wake up. We broke down the camp, and traced our steps back to the parking lot. We arrived to our cars at 10 AM. On the way down we stopped at Apple Hill to have some warm breakfast, although I got a portion of apple pie with vanilla ice cream and a cold glass of milk. We made it back to Davis by 1:00 PM.
While this wasn’t the most exciting of my trips, it was nevertheless an interesting experience. Outdoor Adventures makes it very easy to head out into the wild, and I think I’ll probably repeat before doing it by myself. This winter I’ll definitely try some of the cross county skiing and snowshoe tours.
Even though I generally prefer hiking alone, it’s good to meet other people sometimes. On the other side, I walk pretty fast and have very good resistance. Having to stay with the pace of the group was sometimes annoying. Ideally, I’d like to find a hiking partner that keeps up with me.