Just this past week, I went on a three day GIRLS ONLY backpacking trip. Yup- 8 women in the wild for two nights and three days with no man in sight. Well, there were men, but none were allowed to help us! For those of you in the world who have never experienced backpacking let me give you a quick run down on how it works.
Backpacking is where you pack up a big backpack full of supplies for a certain amount of time. For example, you would pack things like, food, shelter, clothing, toiletries etc. When I was younger ( read: in my twenties) I have packed before. One of the times was in Zimbabwe, while I was serving as a
Peace Corps Volunteer. Quite frankly, some days it felt like I was camping everyday since I had no running water and had to poop in the same place I showered, but I digress...The most recent time I went was with Greg and 2 of our friends in an area outside of Sonora/Angels Camp where we had to carry a bear cannister ( a container to put our food and anything that smelled delectable to bears) and also filter any and all of the water we were to consume. My one requirement for this girls trip was that we didn't go to bear country!
Back in January I had made the decision to "say yes" to most things that came my way. With that in mind, I was the first person to sign up when my friend Becca asked if I wanted to go on a ladies only backpacking trip. The funny thing about a ladies only trip is that there is almost certainly going to be someone who had never gone backpacking before. so I knew I at least had a few trips under my belt, so why not!
Three days and two nights sure seemed heavy- and I don't mean in the metaphorical sense! In order to get your pack under a certain weight, it requires a bit of finagling and distributing weight and determining if you really need clean underwear for each day you are on the trail ( yup- you definitely don't want to skimp on the undies ) . Greg was not about to let me out of the house with my pack being more than 30 lbs. and I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to do it. When tuesday morning rolled around, my pack weighed a little over 31 lbs. but there was no way I was leaving anything behind!
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| Ready to take on Point Reyes! |
We met up at the
Bear Valley Visitor Center at Point Reyes on Tuesday a little before noon. There were 8 of us and we were all ready for our adventure.
The first day we hiked out to
Wildcat Camp which would end up being almost 7 miles of hiking. During this hike we would encounter poison oak, stinging nettles, endure the hottest of the three days and test our will power not to eat all of our snacks on that first day just to get the weight down from our packs! We ended the day around 5 p.m. ready to take in the ocean breeze and chow down on some freeze dried food. I chose to bring lasagna and also bring along some red wine ( who knew?! Thank you to
Platypus for making a reservoir for wine!)
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| Naomi, Myself and Leilani |
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| Sunset at the beach of Wildcat |
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| Token Chaco shot |
Little did we know that the second day would actually be the more challenging day- for me anyways! We had to do 8.2 miles in order to make it to Coast Camp. In the morning I had 2 packets of my brown sugar oatmeal and of course my instant coffee in order to start my day off on the right foot. This day would prove to be the most beautiful ( in my opinion) since it went along the ocean. We came across such gorgeous sights, a pack of teenage girls at camp, more poison oak, more stinging nettles, more bathroom stops and a great lunch spot where we saw Nessie the Lochness Monster! Ok, that part wasn't true, but we really did see something out there!
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| Still smiling!! |
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| Good thing we can all read |
Coast Camp was amazing. If anyone out there gets a chance to go, you should stay at Coast Camp for the amazing view getting there! And you might meet some interesting folks ( we sure did!)
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| Almost there! |
Day three was a welcome relief. Our feet were tired, blistered, our shoulders weary, our hearts and minds ready to get out of Dodge and back home. We had a 6+ mile hike out to the cars. It seemed that this day we were all propelled by the thought of clean clothes, a hot shower and In and Out burgers! The elevation seemed more steep on this day but I think it had to do with the fact that our feet and calves were so tired! We got out of the gorgeous woods in just about 4 hours- which was amazing! If we hadn't been so sore, I would have guessed that everyone would have run out!
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| Woot!! |
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| Yahoo!! |
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| Stretch it out! |
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And we made it!!
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Sending a shout out to Becca for organizing the trip, all the ladies for making it fun,
REI for introducing me to a much bigger world of outdoor activities and of course my friend Matt Jones because without him my pack would have been the end of me and he made it fit perfect! I ended each day with a smile and my sanity intact. I got to know all the gals a little better and I got to know myself a little better, too. yup, I am definitely saying yes more!
