Appalachian Backpacking 2/14/2004-2/15/2004

This was my first backpacking trip in States. I was feeling a bit apprehensive as it was in the middle of the winter (ambient temperature was 20 F!!), but it turned out pretty well. We went to the Maryland section of the Appalachian mountains, south from Greenbrier State Park near I-70. There were five of us, Stan, Emelio, Slawa and James (12). We went on Saturday morning, hiking about 8 miles, and camped for the night and hiked 5 miles back in the morning. The trip went pretty well except for the fact that yours truly had forgotten to take a padding to keep below the sleeping bag. So essentially I had a thin nylon sheet and (flimsy in retrospect) sleeping bag between me and 10F ice in the night. I woke up in the middle of the night to shivering chill. What do you know, there's condensation inside my sleeper!. There was no way I could rest my back on the ground so I brought in my backpack and sat on it the whole night. In the morning my CAT leather boots had completely frozen. Even after thumping and running around for sometime I couldn't feel my toes. Emelio immediately gave me some frost bite first aid, so I still have ten little guys to twiddle :). Needless to say, the second day's hike took me to my limit.

We passed along Washington Monument Park, pausing for some lunch. The monument was erected in 1827, to commemorate G. Washington, and has a spectacular view of the surrounding low lands for miles around. We camped for the night at a campsite 2 miles south of the monument. Nothing like a good hike in snow-covered slopes to make even cold oatmeal taste like gourmet!! And a brilliant starlit night to boot. Being a novice, the experience was very instructive, especially due to patient Emelio :) (can't thank him enough!).

The photographs were taken with a Canon PowerShot S200 digital camera.