Regan and I went backcountry camping this weekend. This was Regan’s first time backcountry camping, and it was my first time without having someone with me who had been there before. Even so, I spent weeks researching where we were going to go, which was tough because there were no photos or reports on camping in the area where I wanted to go; most of the reports were for hiking.
Here we are at the camping area. We started on the trail on the left, going up the hill. We took it because of what we saw on the sign, which seemed to indicate following the sign would lead to the Bob Creek Wildland Park.
After about a half-hour hike, and once we reached the first summit, we ran into a Public Lands Administration employee, and he showed us the direction we needed to go, which was in the middle ground of the photo below, and off to the left of the photo.
We hiked down to the parking area, and got on the right trail, crossing Bob Creek.
Shortly after the creek, we came across this forest, and the trail took us right through it.
The trail eventually forked, and the left fork led us to this gate, which I assume is the boundary between Black Creek Ranchlands, where we cannot camp, and Bob Creek Wildland.
We went through the gate, hiked over a small hill, crossed Bob Creek twice, and up in a meadow, where we decided to set up camp.
Here is a view of the campsite from the latrine:
Here is the creek where we got our drinking water and where we cooled off from the hot afternoon sun:
We built a small cooking fire around supper time by digging a pit, then using only small diameter wood.
Regan having supper. We brought dehydrated food for supper and breakfast. All we had to do was add hot water.
After the fire burned down and we doused it, we went to bed. We played games (Backgammon, Connect Four, Tic Tac Toe, Checkers, etc) for about an hour or so.
We had a pretty uneventful sleep, but around daybreak, I hear coyotes barking in the distance, and I thought I heard a bear grunting near our campsite. I did see a deer shortly after we arrived at camp. We go up around 6:30 and watched the sun come over the hill to the east of our site. Once it started drying our tent, we started a breakfast fire and rehydrated some breakfast.
We broke camp and left shortly after 10:00. Here are a couple of shots of Regan hiking back to the van.
We came across this frog on the way back.
We saw a coyote cross the road shortly after we drove away from the parking area, and saw a badge cross the road a few minutes later. I can’t wait to take Sinéad next year.