Second Annual Father-Dog Camping Trip

I took Tucker and Grace back to the Allegheny National Forest for another awesome camping trip. Things went much more smoothly this time. No runaway dogs, no huge vet bills.

Mark was kind enough to loan me his canoe again. A few things I did differently this time that made the canoeing experience much more pleasant:

• Bought a kayak paddle. I got the 240cm version, which was about the longest I could find. A little longer would have been nice; I'm not sure that a shorter one would have worked. Not having to flip the paddle around every 2 or 3 strokes made paddling so much more efficient. It did make it a little bit wetter, though.
• Packed more densely. I brought about the same amount of stuff as last time, but I packed it into fewer bins. So I had less surface area above the water to catch the wind.
• Canoed less. Last year, the camp site I stayed at was about 2.5 miles from the boat ramp, and there weren't any trails nearby. The site I stayed at this year was only 1 mile from the boat ramp, and had access to plenty of good hiking trails.

Here is the GPS track on Thursday, canoeing from the boat ramp to the camp site. It took about 30 minutes to go about a mile.


The reservoir was crazy high. Not only was the boat ramp completely under water, the road to the boat ramp was partially under water.


Tons of trees were under water.


After canoeing in and setting up camp, we mostly just bummed around for the rest of the day. One of my Tiki torches blew out, which was kind of disconcerting. Thankfully, it wasn't close to the tent (or to me).


On Friday, we went on two hikes. The first time out, I got confused and took the wrong trail, which appeared to be an old road. Oddly, both ends of it dumped directly into the reservoir. Maybe it was from back before the dam was built? Anyway, I quickly decided to circle back to camp and change because I realized that I was way overdressed. It was really cold at night and in the morning, but then warmed up quite a bit during the day. Insulated pants and SmartWool socks were definitely not required.


Our second hike of the day was the Handsome Lake loop, which was a lot longer. A few miles in, I stepped into a mud puddle and ended up with a wet foot. A little while later, I evened things out by sticking the other foot in another puddle. Cotton socks really suck when wet. I stuck with my SmartWool the rest of the trip. Points where I missed my turn, and had to backtrack, are marked. Total hiking for the day: 10.6 miles.


The weather in the evening was beautiful, and there was an amazing sunset.




This was the view of the sky from my camp chair.