Shining Rock Wilderness, NC 1/29/15 - 2/1/15

This was my first trip with my friend Kirk, also known as Bammacker on hammockforums.net. Kirk did most of the planning for this one. He has a friend at Mountain High outfitters who recommended this particular loop. Kirk said he had been hearing the guy recommend this loop for over a year and finally decided to take the plunge.

This was the absolute COLDEST trip I've ever been on as well as the most elevation I've ever climbed in a day, and the highest elevation I've ever hiked to.

We left out from Birmingham around 3:30pm on Thursday and undertook the 5.5 hour trip to the Big East Fork Trailhead in Pisgah National Forest, our starting point. We arrived around 9:30 pm or so our time, 10:30 pm EST, geared up, and headed up the trail. I didn't take any pictures that night from the dark - but on the way out I snapped a few of what we saw pulling up. These were in the daylight:

I'm not sure how long we hiked the first night. It was for sure not more than an hour or so. Our goal was to find a decent spot, and get a bit of a head start on all the elevation we were to climb the next day. We found a nice spot and set up camp. We got to talking about hammocks and such and next thing we know it was 12:30am! Here are some shots of the next morning:

The river was down to our left.

Here I feel the need to plug my new North Face Thermoball jacket. This thing is awesome. It's puffy like a down jacket, but actually has a synthetic fill that is water resistant - and will still insulate when wet. At 12 oz. it's not the lightest jacket out there, but for $199, it's hard to beat. It was VERY useful for this trip.

The next day we climbed something like 2-3000 ft of elevation. What does that equal to a backpacker? Hell. To say it sucked is most certainly an understatement. Our packs weighed in a 33 lbs. including food and water. I thought that was a pretty decent weight, but let me tell you: it feels waaay different heading up-hill for 6-8 miles; flattening out for only a few hundred feet at a time. We took frequent breaks, and I snapped a few photos. It was cold. My face was red.

As we ascended the temperature dropped. Much of the trail had these little miniature ice-skating rinks, previously puddles of water. lol.

Kirk did some video too with his GoPro. I'll embed that at the end of this report.

As we walked up, we were able to see the white tops of the mountains we were headed towards. We were very excited, and a smidgen worried about how cold it would be on the top. But we were prepared.

The hoses to our bladders we carry in our packs had frozen, denying us access to the 2L bladders so we had to stop a few times to fill up my Platypus Bottle/bag I carry to get some water. We probably should have stopped more often...

Gotta do my "rock horns".

We were getting close...very close...

Ever since I was a little kid, I have always loved the snow. By the end of this trip, I was happy to not see it so often. We didn't see a lot of snow in terms of inches or quantity but where we saw white stuff on the ground, we also experienced cold. Nonetheless, it was truly beautiful.

A lot of friends I talk to about my trips think I'm crazy for going out in such cold conditions. I don't think they have an accurate understanding of how body body temperature works. My biggest issue with cold trips like this isn't getting cold. It's getting too hot! One must have a good understanding of the different layers to their clothing kit and be able to discern which layers are needed based on the external temperature as well as your body's heat output. When you stop, you have to immediately layer up, and then start the process of shedding layers as soon as you start again. When I was a wrestler in high school, I will never forget Coach Hughes remarking humorously over the fact that I "sweat like a fat-boy". I was only around 160 lbs then. Now, I'm 185 lbs and still in good shape, but sweat is my enemy. Sweat = hypothermia in these temps. It was probably 20 degrees F in the next few pics, if not less. I was burning up.

Just shy of reaching the top, we found a nice little shaded spot to sit and each some lunch. The temp was still dropping, likely was in the teens at this point. I put on my merino wool long johns under my hiking pants, my mid-layer fleece, and we headed up and....FINALLY! We reached ridge!

Most everything was covered in white frost. I should have taken some close-ups of the frost. They had the most interesting patterns where the wind had sort-of blown the ice in the same direction to make the patterns.

We came down off one peak onto Ivestor Gap. There were a few landmarks and it appeared to link up with some forest access roads. We studied our maps for a bit and then decided, yes, we were indeed going to summit Mount Tennant.

We went up towards the mountain, first without our packs thinking we'd be back for them after a quick trip up the mountain. But when we got through the first little patch of woods - we found the perfect camp spot (so we thought). So we went back and got our packs, took them back to the new camp spot, and then left them there to summit Mt. Tennant.

The summit was beautiful.

After we made it to the top, we headed back down towards camp (which wasn't much elevation below us. I estimate we were somewhere between 5000 and 5600 ft.). Once we made it down, we decided to try and gather some wood for a fire, and then we'd set-up our hammocks, and then we'd have dinner. Thing is, we couldn't concentrate or focus to do any of that. These simple tasks were simply frustrating us. The air felt heavy, and I felt like no matter how slow I went, I couldn't catch my breath. I was taking long, deep breaths to no avail.

So, we struggled with the wood for a bit - and then gave up. It took me about 45 minutes just to set-up my hammock. I finally got it all set-up and crawled in. I laid there for several hours, drank a good bit of water and ate some snacks - freaked out a bit by how bad I was feeling. Finally I started to perk up and got up out of my hammock and helped Kirk get a fire going.

Lesson learned! When climbing lots of elevation - it's VERY important to drink lots of water, eat all your calories, and you gotta take it easy once you get up there or your body will MAKE you slow down and adjust. Mine did. lol

I learned after the fact that around 6000 ft is where the oxygen is thin enough that your body starts to experience physical difficulty related to the decreased oxygen content. One would have that I would have known this, me being a Respiratory Therapist and all, but I had never been up at these elevations before, and it didn't occur to me.

It was 15 degrees just before the sun went down. That night it would drop down between 10-12 degrees. I had noticed that my tarp had started tearing at the end next to the grossgrain the night before and was stressed out about there being high winds and such cold - afraid that it would tear even further - leaving me exposed to the elements. It ripped a little more that night, but it held well. Warbonnet is an excellent company to work with on tarps, FYI. They are repairing it under warranty for free. I only had to pay to ship to them.

Also in the middle of the night, I had to get up to pee. When it's that cold - getting up to pee is difficult. You're laying there all warm, and you know as soon as you stick your legs over the edge of the hammock you're going to feel all that body heat leave instantly out of the cocoon you've worked to insulate for the past few hours. So, I get up, I do my thing, I get back in. My gloved hands are freezing. I reach up to close the winter cover on my Dream-Hammock Dangerbird and I get the cover stuck in the zipper. The winter cover adds several degrees to the inside of my hammock, so I freak out and tug at it like a moron. I not only rip the over cover, but I rip the zipper off the rails. I laid there staring at the zipper disgusted with myself for I don't even know how long. I finally decided, my feet were warm and I wasn't going to get out and re-adjust my hammock to lay at the other end.I threw the flapping piece of overcover over the ridge-line, zipped up my bag, and closed my eyes. I have an OCD thing about sleeping without some sort of bug net or cover separating me from the outside of my hammock - but it didn't seem to bother me at that point. I was just thinking, "I wonder what I'm going to break and tear up next? and how much is it going to cost me?".

Randy at Dream-Hammock gave an EXCELLENT repair price for replacing and repairing my Dangerbird. If you're looking at getting a new hammock, I definitely recommend his Dream-Hammocks. They provide the best customer service possible, great prices, and every hammock is 100% unique.

The next day was my favorite day of all. We started out slow and sore, but that didn't last long. The trail was almost ALL downhill his day - so we were able to cover a lot of distance. There was trails covered in snow, covered in ice, water to cross, water falls, all the cool stuff you could possibly want to see when hiking in NC.

We took a quick break at this camp spot where someone had made a swing out of some rope:

We ate lunch at this awesome spot next to a bridge that crossed over the river:

We hike a bit further and finally stopped to camp at an excellent spot where another river dumped into the river we had been following. The temperature was much warmer this time, and we had a much easier time setting up, and getting our fire going. Later that night we actually ran into the only 2 other backpackers we met on the trail the entire trip, Richard and Adam. They were from Asheville, NC and had covered the same loop we did - just a day faster - and were on their way out of the woods as Adam had work in the morning. They stopped and warmed up by our massive fire for a bit and then were on their way.

Here are some shots from that spot:

There was this creepy tent across the river from our camp. We ventured across to check it out and found two sleeping bags and some clothes wadded up inside with a bunch of dirt and ice. They had been there for a long time. We have no idea why anyone would have left their gear out there - but there it sat:

Shot of the campfire spot:

The moon was amazing:

Ah. FINALLY! Boots off, and drying my socks out by the fire: one of my favorite things to do on the trail. I am OFFICIALLY upgrading my kit to include an extra pair of socks just for use in camp next time. I've always just brought one pair for weight, but this trip taught me the importance of dry socks:

The next day we packed up and headed out. We hiked fast and were out in no time. I took a few pics, but not too many. We had a blast. I missed my nephew Kevin on this trip, thinking many times throughout the journey that he would have thought this place was awesome. We have had many a journey out at Mt. Cheaha in AL, and this place is like Cheaha on steroids. Kevin and I are planning to do a whole week on the A.T. this March - and now I know where our follow-up trip will be to: Shining Rock Wilderness to do this loop again! I definitely had a blast hanging out with Kirk. Kirk knows all there is to know about hammocks and backpacking gear - so I learned a lot, and have several new ideas to improve my kit. These adventures are one of my favorite things about my life. More to come! Hope you guys enjoyed the read.

Here's Kirks GoPro video of our trip:

And I can't leave out the most important pic of all; a tradition Kevin and I started doing at the end of ALL backpacking adventures...the victory shot: