Tag Archives: camping in the rain

Facing the Elements: Joshua Tree Backpacking in a Rain Storm

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Join me for 3 days of Backpacking, Hiking and Desert Camping in the Rain while  exploring California’s Joshua Tree National Park.

For this winter desert camping adventure, I decided to do a solo backpacking trip in Southern California’s Joshua Tree National Park.  I chose the Maze zone as my primary area of exploration, with the added possibility of hiking along the storied Boy Scout Trail as well.

Due to backcountry camping permit regulations, I chose to obtain a permit for camping within the Maze Zone, with the possibility of hiking into and exploring the Boy Scout Zone by day.  This was mostly due to the fact that the Boy Scout Zone is the only JNP zone that requires you to specifically get a permit for 1 of 8 specific campsites, and I wanted to have some more flexibility to choose my campsites on the fly.

Getting a permit for the Maze zone allowed me to camp anywhere I wanted as long as I was at least 1 mile from an official trailhead, one half mile from any road, and 200 feet from any trail.  Prefect – that sounded like exactly the solitude I was looking for.

Being February in the Mojave Desert, my expected temperature range would be from roughly 40 to 75 degrees or so.  What about rain, you ask?  Well, 336 days out of the year, the answer would be a solid – “No need for rain gear over here!”.  I apparently arrived on one of those 29 other days.  No worries though. I think it provided a pretty unique opportunity to see the Mojave Desert during one of it’s most vital times for survival of plants and animals in this arid environment – a desert rain storm curtesy of El Niño.

For sleep and shelter, I packed in my Outdoor Vitals Fortius trekking pole tent, a 3-season sleeping pad and my Hammock Gear 40° down quilt.  Reliable drinking water is pretty much non-existent in Joshua Tree National Park regardless of the season, so I was tasked with packing in all of my drinking water for the entire 3 day trip.  For this reason, I decided to skip the usual dehydrated backpacking meal choices in favor of some cheap and easy ready to eat food options.

I also opted to ditch the stove and just go the no-cook backpacking food route, because why not?   Honestly, my pack was jammed to the hilt with water, and I just wasn’t in the mood to carry more fuel and cooking supplies.

Route Overview – Smoky Mountains Little River Gorge Backpacking Loop – Sintax77

A permit is required for backcountry camping in Joshua Tree National Park.  You can reserve them on the Joshua Tree National Park website here.

Full GPS track data, including campsites, water sources, etc, for this trip and many others can be downloaded on my Trip Data Page.

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Backpacking the Smoky Mountains – Wind, Rain & Solo Camping

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Join me for 3 days of Winter Camping, Backpacking & Hiking in the Smoky Mountains. 

For this winter camping adventure, I decided to do a solo backpacking loop along the Little River Gorge in Tennessee’s western region of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  The Little River is flanked to the south by Meigs Mountain and to the north by Sugarland Mountain.  By hiking trails along the ridges of both these mountains, I was able to create a 25 mile loop with 6,000 feet of gross elevation gain.

On the first night, I chose to camp on top of Meigs Mountain at campsite 19, Upper Henderson.  On day two I planned to descend into the gorge to camp along the Little River at campsite 21. On the third day, I would hike up Sugarland Mountain towards Laurel Falls and ultimately, Little Brier Gap to complete the loop.

For sleep and shelter, I packed in my Outdoor Vitals Fortius trekking pole tent, a 3-season sleeping pad and my Hammock Gear 20° down quilt.  Despite it being the middle winter, my temp range was relatively mild with lows in the 40’s and highs touching the mid 60’s.  This allowed me to leave my extra cold weather clothing layers at home, so I was still able to use my ultralight backpack instead of the larger pack that I typically use for winter.  Days 2 and 3 had a forecast of rain and high winds, so I played it safe and packed in full set rain gear as well.

Route Overview – Smoky Mountains Little River Gorge Backpacking Loop – Sintax77

A backcountry permit is required for all campsites in this area. You can reserve them for $8 per night on the Smoky Mountains National Park website here.

Full GPS track data, including campsites, water sources, etc, for this trip and many others can be downloaded on my Trip Data Page.

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Beginner Backpacking – Campfire Cooking & Abandoned Hotels on Echo Lake

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3 Days of Camping and Backpacking on Echo Lake in the Catskill Mountains.

FTC Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission for purchases made through some of my links.

For this backpacking trip, we headed up to New York’s Catskill Mountains for 3 days of campfire cooking, mountaintop abandoned hotel exploration and lakeside camping with crew consisting of a wide range of experience levels – all the way from 10 years to a very first backpacking trip.

Our Late Fall temperature range for this trip was between 35° and 70° without a chance of rain until the latter half of the trip.  With the possibility of rain on our last day hike out, and the addition of some fun comfort items like a stool, firewood saw and some other surprise goodies, my base weight was a little over my typical sub-10lb base weight for this particular trip.

Mike and I went with hammock camping setups for this backpacking trip, while Mike’s son and his friend decided to share a Nemo 3 person tent. Our  plan was to do our 3 day trip basecamp style by snagging a decent campsite alongside Echo lake and remaining there for both nights.  This would allow us to do a day hike up towards Indian Head Mountain on the ridge lighter daypacks.  This also gave us the advantage of returning to a campsite that was already setup if our hike back ended up taking longer than expected.

Water would be plentiful at basecamp due to the nearby lake, but their is beaver activity in the area, so water filtration and / or treatment is strongly encouraged.  There is also a stream that feeds the pond not to far from where the spur trail for the Echo Lake Shelter begins.  Our chosen campsite was on the opposite side of the lake, so went the filtration route with my Katadyn BeFree water filer system.

Full GPS track data, including campsites, etc, for this trip Sintax77 and many others can be downloaded on my Trip Data Page.

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Summer Backpacking – Fog, Rain & Shelter on the Old Loggers Path

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3 days of Backpacking, Trekking Pole Tent Camping and Lean-to Shelter Camping on the Old Loggers Path.

FTC Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission for purchases made through some of my links.

For this 3 day, 2 night summer backpacking trip, I decided to revisit the OLP in Pennsylvania’s Loyalsock State forest.  The OLP is a 27 mile backpacking loop along babbling brooks, waterfalls, hardwoods and hemlocks. I previously did this loop counter-clockwise as a solo hike a couple of years ago, but there was so much to soak in that I decided it would be worth hiking it again. This time I would hike it clockwise with my buddy Dave from Outdoor Vitals, who recently moved out to Pennsylvania from Utah.

Dave had never camped in a lean-to shelter before, so we targeted the Sprout Point shelter for our first night, followed by some tent camping along the confluence of Rock Run and Yellow dog run on the second night.  This would also be my first time experimenting with an ultralight trekking pole tent, so I was looking forward to trying that out.

Our weather ranged from highs in the upper 70’s with fairly high humidity, and lows in the upper 60’s.  This allowed me to save weight by packing a lightweight 40° quilt and leaving my extra warm clothing layers at home.  There was a possibility of rain each day though, so I packed in full rain gear. I also brought a folding saw and some other comfort items, so my base weight was still right around 10 lbs despite the warm forecast.

Trail conditions on the OLP are a mix of nice flat dirt sections, punctuated by spurts of steep sections littered with Pennsylvania’s infamous rocks to keep you on your toes ; literally.  Despite the occasional rough sections, the average daily gross elevation gain was only around 1,500 feet per day. Potential water sources are fairly plentiful on the Old Loggers Path, but the key word is potential. When I went before in spring, I got by with only carrying around 1 liter of water at a time.  This time around things were very dry, so the only water sources we used were the two that are always flowing – Pleasant Valley Stream and the Rock Run / Yellow Dog Run confluence.

Route Overview – Old Loggers Path Clockwise Backpacking Loop – Sintax77

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Camping in Heavy Rain – Pinchot Trail South Loop Backpacking Trip

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Join Sara and I for some Spring Backpacking, Camping in the Rain, and Trail Cooking on the Pinchot Trail southern loop.

 

FTC Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission for purchases made through some of my links.

For this early spring camping trip, my wife Sara and I set out to do some backpacking  with our dog and explore Pennsylvania’s Pinchot Trail southern loop.  I had done the northern loop a couple of weeks before and it was quite nice, so I was looking forward to seeing what this new section had to offer.

For shelter, we packed in our 4 person tent as well as a huge tarp to give us some extra living space during the rain storm that was forecasted to hit in the afternoon and turn into snow by the next morning.

The bottom of the Pinchot Trail South loop runs along Choke Creek, which offers a string of 6 or so beautiful waterside campsites over the course of a mile or so. Legend has it that the last of those campsites is the most picturesque, so our goal was to hike in a few miles to the creek and get to that coveted campsite before the afternoon rain started. If the weather broke early, we would aim to take one of the earlier campsites.

Route Overview – Pinchot Trail South Backpacking Loop – Sintax77

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How to Survive an Ice Storm – Hammock Camping the Roaring Plains

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3 Days of Winter Hammock Camping and Backpacking in the Roaring Plains Wilderness during Snow and Freezing Rain.

FTC Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission for purchases made through some of my links.

For this late winter backpacking trip, I decided to head back down to West Virginia’s Monongahela National forest to do some ridge hiking and cold weather hammock camping. Due to temperatures forecasted from the low 20’s to the low 40’s, I needed to pack in some heavier warm clothing layers for this trip, along with some camp tools, so I used my larger winter backpack.  For sleep and shelter, I used my go-to ultralight hammock and tarp set-up with winter grade down quilts (full gear list below).  As it turns out, I probably should have used that extra pack space for a larger tarp too, but live and learn I guess…

This trip video was sponsored by Magic Spoon.  You can try their variety pack and get $5 off by using this link and the code Sintax77.

The 6,792 acre Roaring Plains West Wilderness is a remote federal wilderness area located about 3 miles south of the more popular Dolly Sods Wilderness Area.  It boasts a healthy network of trails, which are unmarked and often, grown in and hard to follow.  Official paper maps are hard to come by, and by some accounts, not very up to date.  Based on my personal experience, I would highly recommend using a GPS with appropriate data while hiking here.  You can also find good trail info and map print-outs at MidAtlanticHikes.com and HikingUpward.com.  I also recorded my personal GPS data for this trip, which can be found here.

Route Overview – Roaring Plains Backpacking Loop – Sintax77

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