Hi all.
This is my first trip report, so thought I’d share my overnighter on the Black Creek Trail in the De Soto National Forest of Mississippi.
I arrived at the trail-head at about three in the afternoon. Originally I wanted to start at six in the morning on Monday, hike for the day, camp and hike back out Tuesday. Instead I took my son to the doctor in morning–it was an overly concerned dad, not an illness.
The goal was to see how I walked without pushing myself too much. It really didn’t matter how far I went, I just wanted to go without expectations and see what happened.
I learned that I can hike 20 miles in a day, but wouldn’t want to do it for several consecutive days without better conditioning.
The first day I hiked an hour or so and camped on elevated ground near the river. The next day I walked close to 10 miles before turning around at 11:40 or so.
The trail is a lovely hike through the woods. It doesn’t have anything particularly dramatic about it. Just trees and trail and yourself. The forest protects one of the last pine tree stands in the South so that is interesting.
The pictures were made with a Motorola X. Awful camera. The images are all heavily adjusted for color and contrast and they still don’t look good. I’m not doing that again. It’s my fault for not checking the battery in my camera. LOL I did manage to a few shots of my camp before the battery died.
Anyhow, here are some pictures. There’s plenty of water crossings so I never carried more than a liter of water. On the flicker gallery I posted geo-tagged images of all the crossings. I thought it would be a good way to document water sources.
The best thing to do when going solo.
Not using the Tyvek sheet any more. Just realized it’s kind of silly if the bivy has a waterproof bottom.
I always see a snake or two when hiking.
The last blaze before turning around.
