About a month ago now, I had my first experience with back packing. I never imagined that carrying one night’s worth of stuff would be hard but I was wrong. Luckily on the way back I had lost some weight in wine, cheese, sausage, pumpkin bars, etc. Clearly I might not be an official backpacker considering I “had” to bring all of those items but even now looking back I would have carried them again. Tthe pumpkin bars though, that is kind of a funny story, let me explain. I thought, how perfect would a pumpkin bar be while camping? Amazing! So the night before I left I was running behind and started baking at 10 pm when I was getting up at 3 am to leave. I was rushing through the recipe and then popped then in the oven to bake. I took them out 30 minutes later and they look amazing. I let them cool and packed them up. I decided, though I don’t normally, I should try one now. Thank goodness I did. I took my first bite and immediately felt a burn on the back my throat and thought, well I bought new cloves maybe that is it? But the burn intensified and in about 30 seconds my entire mouth was on fire. What the heck?! Then I looked at my spice jars…I had accidently grabbed the cayenne pepper jar instead of the cinnamon jar. Worst baking fail ever. I was in such denial I actually still planned on packing them. I realized that when you are camping water is scarce because you have to filter it so the idea of feeding people cayenne pepper bars I decided was cruel. I sadly left them in my fridge thinking I really hope my roommate doesn’t try them.
For this hike I had the hook up; it might be my commitment issues or maybe just that I am cheap but I didn’t want to buy anything for the hike because I thought maybe this will be a one time think. My friend Alyssa had my back: clothes, sleeping bag, sleeping pillow, sleeping pad, back pack, head lamp…like I said the hook up. She even made me a survival kit that had bandaids, paper you can write on even if its wet, coffee, and of course vodka.
I guess I should finally tell you which hike it was, the conundrum hike to the hot springs, which was 8.5 miles each way. I knew it would be tough but man the last mile was rough. When we got to the camp site it was like seeing heaven. We set up our tents and then headed to the hot springs; the entire reason for doing this hike. This is when the sausage, cheese, and wine came into play. There was a rock that we used as a table and we called it “appetizer island.” Everyone in the springs gave us some interesting looks but once we offered them a taste they understood why appetizer island must become a “thing” at the springs from now on. I could not imagine sitting in the one of the worlds highest natural hot springs without munster cheese washed down with malbec…could you?
I ended up with bruised hips from the backpack and blisters on my feet but it was all worth it for the view of the sky at night so far from city lights. I have never seen anything like it.
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