Eleven babes and brutes enjoyed the perfect spring weather backpacking along the A.T. from Carver's Gap to Bradley Gap. Here are all of the photos from the weekend's backpacking adventure.
Eleven babes and brutes enjoyed the perfect spring weather backpacking along the A.T. from Carver's Gap to Bradley Gap. Here are all of the photos from the weekend's backpacking adventure.
Posted at 04:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Many thanks to Theresa Baggett who is now officially a co-section
leader with me as a trail maintainer for the Smoky Mountains Hiking
Club. Our section is en route to Charlie's Bunion on the Appalachian
Trail just north of Newfound Gap.
Mark your calendars - we plan to do some light work clearing water
bars on either March 20 or 21 depending on the weather. Join us if you
can - it's a full day commitment as it takes 2 hours to drive to the
trail head, then we hike in 1.7 miles and start working our way back
down the trail, cleaning leaves out from the drainage ditches (water
bars). It's a great chance to learn basic trail maintenance skills.
National Trails Day is June 5th, and most likely we'll be leading an
all-women's maintenance crew that day - so please plan to join us!
More on that later.
We'll send more details out soon. In the meantime, looking forward to
Supper Club this Sunday night!
I won't be able to lead a hike on March 13th, so if anyone wants to
organize a Second Saturday outing, please do!
Seventeen more days till Daylight Savings Time,
Trena (Wigwam)
Posted at 06:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
For April 9-11 we are going to try to get a cabin at Roane Mountain
State Park for Friday night and then do backpacking Saturday-Sunday.
It's about a 2.5 hour drive from Knoxville, and we'll try to leave
early afternoon on Friday.
http://www.tn.gov/environment/parks/RoanMtn/
There are lots of hiking options from this location:Grandfather
Mountain, Linville Gorge, and the most beautiful hike I've done since
I moved here - the Carver's Gap section of the A.T.
http://www.tn.gov/environment/parks/RoanMtn/features/carver.shtml
All genders are welcome. If you would like to join us, let me know
ASAP so I can book the cabin. It will likely be around $30 per person
to share a cabin for one night (cabins sleep 4-6), plus pitching in on
gas to get to there.
No maybes, please - just let me know by Monday if you are a YES so
that we can get cabin(s) reserved.
If there are some of you that want to spend both nights in the cabin
and just day hike, that may be possible as well...let me know.
AND, Dre may be putting together another backpacking trip in
March...so stay tuned...
Posted at 06:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
After a logistically challenging morning of figuring out where to hike once we realized All Roads into the Smokies Were Closed Due to the Weather, Deb, Margaret, Justine and I hit the trails at Frozen Head around 12:30 pm. As we gained elevation, temperatures dropped and more snow started falling. We didn't quite make it to the fire tower, but we did a nice loop of North Old Mac and South Old Mac, checking out all the beautiful ice sculptures around us. A good, if cold, time was had by all. And it turned out we just missed Linda and a group of human and canine hikers who were there earlier that morning - as evidenced by the many, many paw prints we saw on the same loop.
Posted at 08:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Striders and Strider-Lites,
Apologies for a delayed trip report. I experienced technical difficulties. Several.
Gina Phipps, Laura Porter and I had a great hike Saturday at Norris Dam State Park on the River Bluffs trail. It was a crispy cloudy day, perfect temp for a walk through the woods. Looks like it would be ideal in the Spring, and actually I recalled I’ve done it during wildflower season with a naturalist and it was great, so maybe we’ll be back. We also had the pleasure of running into the Thompson family on the way back.
Despite the amazing remembering of the camera, among the technical difficulties experienced was the near total lack of battery charge in the camera. I managed to squeak out three photos including the requisite moss on rocks, and trail head sign, but missed any indication we were actually there together, our feet, and tree limbs in the sky. Then, because of no charge, I was not able to upload them and send them on. Then because of the amazing superior UT e-mail system, my original update to you all also disappeared. But I digress,
We saw a great blue heron down by the water, and a submerged log doing a truly amazing rendition of a whale surfacing. Caught us all be surprise. If it had been pink I would have thought those Amazonian pink river dolphins had migrated north.
Next up for us should be February 27, however, I can’t make it that day, so we can either try for Feb. 20 or see if someone else might lead the hike, although I’d hate to miss it. We’ve got lots of ideas of places to go, but I’ll hold off until I hear on dates.
Hope to see you all on the trail in Feb, and I’ll do my best to carry at least a few of those 10 essentials Trena reminded us of, and charge the camera!!
Miriam
Posted at 07:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
For those of you interested in taking a Wilderness First Aid course, the Knox County Red Cross chapter offers the certification classes regularly because they are required for many of the scout troop leaders.
Later this spring the certification requirements are changing, and CPR training will be a pre-requisite. I wish I’d had CPR training because a lot of the class assumed that knowledge. Breathing, as it turns out, is the most important thing when you are trying to keep someone alive. That, and preventing them from bleeding to death. Who knew? : )
I actually failed one of the two (poorly designed and ridiculous) multiple choice tests – but I still got my Wilderness First Aid certification which is good for three years. There’s some initial reading required, then two days of lecture, discussion, and small group application scenario activities. Overall it was really worthwhile and I learned a lot (despite failing the test).
The first thing I learned that surprised me is that there are no helicopter rescues in the Smokies. The mistaken assumption that if you get hurt someone will just airlift you out may contribute to hikers’ cavalier attitude toward their own safety. Right now the air force base helicopters and personnel (who in the past have done such rescues) are deployed overseas. The sheriff’s department doesn’t know how to use a copter for a wilderness rescue. And, even when copters are available there are few places in the Smokies where they can land. So, since there is little to no cell phone reception in the Smokies, if you get injured you’d better hope that you can walk yourself out or keep yourself alive for the day or two it will take for someone else to hike out, find a ranger, and for the rangers to come and get you (with horses if you are lucky). Keep in mind that nearly every month of the year it’s likely you’ll get hypothermia if you can’t make yourself a shelter to stay dry and warm. As you can imagine it was a sobering lecture.
Wilderness first aid is as much about being prepared and anticipating the worst as it is about how to give urgent care when help is delayed. One of the major things I came away with was an updated gear list of what to carry:
Random reflections on hiking gear:
• I was surprised how many in the group had never heard of the ten essentials. There are (at minimum) ten essential gear items everyone should have, no matter how short the dayhike. Here’s one version of the list.
• I’m now even more convinced that, in the winter, wool underwear is key. Our instructor fell into a river in the winter while hiking in the Smokies, but her wool underwear helped prevent hypothermia.
• Two bandanas are essential. Bandanas can be used for a plethora of things while hiking, including, as it turns out, compressing wounds to stop bleeding, making splints and making a sling for injured arms.
• Triangular bandages are lightweight and even more versatile than bandanas
• Sanitary pads are the BEST for stopping bleeding (think about what they are designed to do!) and they are lightweight and individually wrapped (sanitary.)
• Our instructors recommended a straight up Swiss army knife over a multi tool and wet wipes instead of hand sanitizer (which all three agreed causes more harm than good).
• Having a watch in order to take the pulse of the injured person is important.
• Here are three items that I am going to carry every time I hike, because staying warm and dry overnight is of the utmost importance, and everyone should hike assuming they might need to spend the night outside:
o Emergency bivy sack which can serve as an overnight shelter
o Esbit tablets and stove for emergency fire and boiling water
• A 55 gallon contractor weight garbage bag is good to keep in your pack to use for emergency warmth and shelter.
• Cutting up any old z-rests or non-inflatable sleeping pads into day-pack size portions for insulation to be used in emergencies, as well as lunch seats.
• Carry benadryl and ibuprofen, but never administer medication to others. Your injured person can self-medicate but you don’t want to be giving each other drugs.
• Keep your emergency/first aid supplies separated out in ziplocks to avoid everything getting wet when it’s raining.
• Relying on a GPS for navigation is stupid. However, it’s signal may help rescuers pinpoint where you are.
• Know where things are in your pack to avoid wasting precious minutes rummaging through everything.
Other hiking and safety tips
• It’s important know the basic health history of your hiking companions, especially relevant medical conditions such as diabetes or allergies.
• The Good Samaritan law exists in all 50 states. It means that if you help someone in an emergency situation, you can’t be held liable (though you can be sued). Lots of people are afraid to help others out of fear of lawsuits.
• Don’t ever burn poison ivy – it will, indeed, get into your lungs and, well, that’s just awful.
• The only time CPR will be useful in the backcountry is for drowning and lightning victims. In those situations you actually have a chance to restart their breathing and keep it going until they can breathe on their own.
• When you are hiking with others, YOU should know where you are on the map (and you should be carrying a map) and how to get back out to the trailhead. Don’t rely on others to guide you – be prepared in case something happens to your leader. If you have to send someone out for help, be sure they can find their way back to the car (that they have the keys!) and that they can find their way back to the injured party.
Over the course of the weekend we learned basic first aid for a wide variety of injuries – from impalement to chest wounds to broken bones to shock to lightning strikes to hypothermia. Unfortunately pretty much every lesson ended with “and evacuate as soon as possible” or, better yet, “immediately.” Well, that’s easier said than done in the backcountry, of course, which really brought home the seriousness of getting hurt on the trail.
We learned how to assess the situation, triage care, safely move the patient, and make a plan for action. The basic first aid mantra is check – call – care, though I think in wilderness situations it’s more like check – care – call, since you can’t call 911. First check the scene for safety (so no one else gets hurt) and check the patient for injuries; then prioritize care, administer urgent first aid and protect the patient from the elements; then make a plan for how to call for help – which means either leaving the person while you go and get help, or waiting until the person can hike themselves out with assistance. I would hate to leave an injured person in the woods while I hiked back for help, but realistically no one is going to be carrying anyone else out without putting themselves at risk. Finally, you continue monitoring vital signs (looking for trends) until help arrives.
In conclusion, ALWAYS hike with a minimum
of three people. That way if someone gets injured, one person can stay
with that person and the other can go for help. Oh, and only one person
is allowed to get hurt at a time, if at all. Scary stuff. But it's kind of like being prepared for the unlikely event that your house gets broken into, your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, or your computer crashes (to steal a comparison from Kris & her friend Chris) - probably it won't happen, but when it does, if you aren't prepared, the consequences can be dire.
Posted at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season. A few Strider updates:
- Here are some photos from our backpacking trip to Charit Creek Lodge
earlier this month. I highly recommend it, especially during the
winter when you can have the place to yourselves:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2400522&id=9428466&l=6b73359232
- I'll be taking a Wilderness First Aid class during the second
weekend in January, so if anyone would like to lead a Strider hike on
January 9th, please do!
- January Supper Club will be at Dre's on January 31st at 5 pm. She'll
send out more info soon.
Happy new year!
Trena
Posted at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Here are some photos from last night's Supper Club. Dre has offered to host the next one at the end of January - stay tuned for details.
Just a reminder of Saturday's Strider hike at Middle Prong, 10 a.m. at my house or 11 a.m. at the trail head in Tremont. Please let me know sometime this week if you plan to join us.
Here's the trail description of Middle Prong, which goes all the way to Indian Flat Falls, but we may not hike the whole way there.
If we're lucky, maybe we'll get more snow, and our hike can look like this one.
Have a great week!
Posted at 06:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)