[Rhodes22-list] Unexpected Polar Bear Winter Camping Trip

[ellner]

Roger:  What a weekend!!  Sounds like you all had a great time!  (and 
you're right about the chocolate----we WILL do just about anything if 
chocolate is involved!!)  ((and I can see Emily's eyes now....."how'd he do 
that while we're out here??"))  Thanks for a good winter 
story...........maryAt 11:19 PM 11/3/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>I just got back from a weekend backpacking trip with my Boy Scout 
>troop.  We hiked & camped on the Jordan River Pathway, which is in the 
>Mackinaw State Forest about 15 miles SW of Gaylord, MI.  It's about a 
>2-1/2 hour drive north from my house in Sanford, MI.  We had 19 Scouts and 
>5 adult leaders along, which is by far the biggest group we've ever tried 
>to do a backpacking trip with.
>
>Our troop has developed sort of a bimodal age distribution in the past 
>couple of years.  We have a bunch of 11 & 12 year olds & a bunch of 16 & 
>17 year olds with relatively few Scouts in the 13 - 15 year range.  It's 
>hard to find an activity that's interesting & challenging for the older 
>Scouts that wouldn't absolutely kill the new Scouts.  So, we tried 
>something a little different on this camping trip.  We divided the troop 
>into Group A & Group B.  Group A started their hike from a place called 
>"Deadman's Hill"  & hiked about 8 miles + about 1200 feet of total 
>elevation change + several small stream crossings to our overnight 
>destination at Pinney Bridge Walk-In Campsite.  Group B drove the vehicles 
>to another trailhead & hiked about 3 mostly downhill miles to the same 
>overnight campsite.
>
>I hiked with Group A along with 6 Scouts & one other adult leader.  We 
>hiked about 4 miles & stopped for lunch on the trail.  We covered the 
>entire 8 miles in about 4 hours.  The trail conditions were pretty tough 
>for hiking.  The area got about 3" of snow the night before & we got 
>occasional wet snow flurries during the hike.  The temperature was right 
>at freezing.  The ground was still warm enough to melt some of the snow on 
>the trail & there was freezing cold water dripping off the trees.  The 
>trail was slippery from the snow, mud, & wet leaves.  You had to be really 
>careful of your footing, especially on the hills, or your feet would go 
>right out from under you or you'd twist an ankle.  This was the 1st time 
>I've ever parallel "skied" in my hiking boots!  Did you you know you can 
>"hockey stop" a pair of Sorels in the mud if you edge them really 
>hard?  Without the heavy backpack making me so top heavy, it would 
>actually have been kind of fun.  Fortunately no one in our group got hurt, 
>all though we were all pretty wet & muddy by the time we made it to our 
>overnight campsight.  The fall colors were just past peak & the scenery 
>from the high ridgelines along the trail was great.  I saw an 8 point 
>whitetail buck, an easy 50 yard standing broadside shot with a 
>rifle.  But, it ran away before I could get my camera out of my pack.
>
>Group B got into camp about 2 hours ahead of us & had the campfires 
>burning when we arrived.  All the younger Scouts had done just fine on 
>their 1st ever backpacking trip.  Nobody in Group B had gotten hurt 
>either.  We all said a little prayer of thanks for that blessing.
>
>One of the adult leaders in Group B was Brenda Acklin.  Brenda wasn't able 
>to find a babysitter & had her 12 year old daughter, Emily, with her in 
>Group B.  This was also Emily's 1st backpacking trip.  Emily is kind of a 
>whiner & a fussy eater.  I knew Brenda would have her hands full taking 
>care of her.  So when we were planning the camping trip, I promised Brenda 
>that I would cook dinner & breakfast for the 3 of us.  For dinner, I made 
>Polynesian chicken over rice, green beans with lemon-butter sauce, hot 
>fudge brownies for dessert, & all washed down with hot spiced apple 
>cider.  Emily was a little slow eating her dinner &, in the freezing 
>temperature, the food got stone cold before she'd finished half of it.  I 
>warmed up Emily's whole plate of food at the same time as I was warming up 
>the brownies in my double boiler.  Waving the dessert in front of Emily 
>did the trick & she soon finished the rest of her dinner.  I've found that 
>when you camp with women, you simply must bring chocolate!
>
>Saturday night, the temperature got down to about 23 deg F.  After dinner, 
>I started feeling pretty tired & cold.  I was in my sleeping bag by about 
>7:30 PM & slept straight thru to 7:30 AM Sunday morning.  I think most of 
>the troop was in bed pretty soon after dinner & nobody got too cold overnight.
>
>Sunday morning, I made breakfast burritos + fresh baked honey cinnamon 
>sticky buns for Brenda, Emily, & me.  The last of the new Scouts was 
>finally packed up & ready to leave by 11:00 AM.  We all hiked out together 
>via the easier Group B route.  Hiking out from Jordan River level to the 
>ridgeline was uphill almost the whole way, about 450 feet of elevation 
>gain in 3 miles.  Some of our new Scouts were hurting bad by the time we 
>reached the trailhead.
>
>For some reason, the tailgate on my Chevy Astro minivan wouldn't open when 
>we got back to the vehicles.  I think it was frozen shut.  It made loading 
>backpacks into the rear cargo area thru the side door & over the 2nd & 3rd 
>row of seats a royal PITA!
>
>We drove a short distance to another scenic overlook to have a look at the 
>site of an ancient landslide.  Then we hiked about 1-1/4 miles to the 
>headwaters of landslide Creek.  The headwaters turned out to be a spring 
>that bubbles up out of the hillside & cascades down the hill in a pretty 
>neat little waterfall!  Yes, that's right, this stream starts out with a 
>waterfall.
>
>On the way home, we stopped in Gaylord, MI & had lunch at Taco Bell.  We 
>arrived back the SUM Church in Sanford, MI at 15:58, two minutes ahead of 
>schedule.  I love it when a plan comes together!
>
>The Jordan River Valley has quite a history in the lumbering industry in 
>Michigan.  There used to be a log flume on Deadman's Hill.  I imagine 
>getting in the way of a 5 ton log going down a 450 foot log flume would 
>just ruin your whole day!  There were some fatalities at this site, hence 
>the name.  Our campsite at Pinney Bridge Walk-in Campground was originally 
>the site of a lumber camp around the turn of the century.  The Jordan 
>River Valley was reforested during the 1930's by the CCC's.  Nowadays, it 
>is managed by the Michigan DNR as a working forest.  Along the trail on 
>our 8 mile hike, there were signs pointing out the sites of relatively 
>recent wood harvesting operations.
>
>I'm really proud of the way our troop handled this backpacking trip in 
>fairly tough conditions.  Nobody got hurt or hypothermic.  They all 
>managed to cook their own meals & slept thru the cold night without any 
>problems.  A few of our new Scouts got cold wet feet & I'm sure they all 
>learned a few things.
>
>I wish I'd brought an extra pair of fleece pants.  The pair of fleece 
>pants I wore on the 8 mile hike in on Saturday was pretty soaked by the 
>time we'd reached our campsite.  I really missed having a dry pair to wear 
>after dark on Saturday night & Sunday morning.  I had to make do with 
>light weight polypropylene long johns & nylon wind pants.
>
>We're calling this our 1st Polar Bear Winter Camping trip of the year.  It 
>didn't start out that way, but that's Michigan weather for you.  Our 
>Scouts will certainly have bragging rights at school tomorrow.
>
>Roger Pihlaja
>S/V Dynamic Equilibrium
>
>
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