Fiery Gizzard, TN

Cotton Makeup Pads, dipped in candle wax for firestarters.  These are awesome and burn for about 20 mins per disc. 

This was one of the prettiest spots on the Fiery Gizzard Trail. 

Beautiful butterfly

My handsome hubby by one of my other favorite spots on the trail.

I literally wanted to jump head first into this waterfall by the end of the trail. 

Overall, I had high expectations of this trail.  Almost everyone I had talked to that had done it, said it was awesome.  However, I think I picked the wrong time of year to go.  The water you see above was the only water on the entire trail.  All of the streams had dried up, but what did I expect the week before the offical start of summer?

The lower trail was all rocks, which I hated.  It hurts my feet. Also, I thought I was going to lose my husband at one point.  He slipped on some lose gravel and started to slide down the mountain.  Luckily, he got his footing before it turned bad.  A little first aid and we were on our way. 

The climp from the lower trail up to the Raven Point Camp Ground was horrible.  My legs weren't cramping up, but Jeremy's were.  I was just physically exhausted by that point.  It look us FOREVER to finish that one part. 

Once at the camp site, we grabbed our water filtration set and headed towards the nearest stream.  Like I said, there was no stream.  It was pretty much still water that we had to filter.  What do you do in that case? We didn't want to be dehydrated, so we took the risk and filtered it.  It was definately the nastiest water I've had, but I was greatful to have it.  I figured that the little amount we needed for cooking would be fine because it was boiled.  I was just worried about drinking the water during our hike out the next morning. 

The upper trail to the car was definate better than the lower.  Not nearly as many inclines and with our water breaks every 15 mins, there was no cramping. 

I can honestly say that while it wasn't my favorite hike, I did burn a ton of calories, so it was better than sitting on my ass all weekend.  It was a 9 mile hike.

If you want to check out the trail, you can find more info here:
About Fiery Gizzard
Map of the trail

My newest favorite thing for camping is something I think all girls should buy! I HATE squating to go pee, but we found this Go Girl device that made it easy to stand up and pee! I totall felt like a man, but I didn't feel like a bug was going to bite me where the sun doesn't shine either. 

My advice is to bring an extra ziploc bag to put it in when you are done. 

Rock Island State Park

I can't believe I haven't written about Rock Island yet! I totally forgot to add this one on the list.  It was by far one of my favorites.  If you want an EASY day adventure you should go.  It's located outside of McMinnville, TN.  We car camped on this trip last July 4th weekend.  Oh, how we've learned since this trip.  I believe this was the trip were Jeremy had the brilliant idea of using a yoga mat to sleep on b/c he didn't want to take up too much room in the car.  WORST SLEEP EVER. 

Good camp gear can cost a pretty penny, but it's well worth it for comfort & easy transport.  The other thing we didn't have on this trip was wood for a campfire.  A really nice man saw that we didn't have any and donated to our sorry cause.

There were several easy hikes around the camp site, but the best part were the falls.  They were awesome and you could walk right under them (although that scared me).

Here's a little video we took. Please forgive the southern accent, it seems to come out really thick when I'm in the woods.  Not sure why.

Here's the link to go to the TN State Parks Website.

Pinterest

If you haven't heard of Pinterest you need to sign up.  It's insanely addicted to it! You can post links to images for all kinds of things you are interested in.  I have a board dedicated soley to the things I want for hiking, one for my home, etc...

It's a better way to save links to things because you can visually see what you are linking to. 

Here's the link to my hiking list!

When you are there be sure to add me to your circle of pins!

*Hint - click on the Follow me on Pinterest button to the right

Hiking South Cumberland - Savage Gulf

We left Murfeesboro around 10:30am on Saturday July 2nd. This was probably too late to start a 4+ mile hike on July 4th weekend. The temp was in the 90's and I had the sweat to prove it.

We started the hike at the Savage Gulf ranger station.  There were the most beautiful purple flowers, so I had to take some photos before we got too nasty.

Jeremy, Heather (Frasier) and Chris

Our plan was to hike from the ranger station to the falls to eat lunch.  Then we would hike the remainder of the way to Hobbs Cabin.  This didn't exactly go as planned...

Between my husband and I we had 6 liters of water in our bladders and an extra platypus. This would have been an ample supply if we had made it to our original destination at Hobbs cabin, but we didn't make it that far. Instead we went to the Meadowcreek campsite. Fyi...the name implied there would be a creek, but there wasn't one with running water. If there was, we would have filtered it and had plenty for cooking. We stayed the night at Meadowcreek and rationed our water in order to have enough for the 3.7mile hike back to the ranger station.

We used our 1 3/4 cup of water so that we could boil it for the Rice and Chicken freeze dried dinner.  The meal was good, but REALLY salty! Too much sodium for someone who was trying to ration their water.  Also, we probably shouldn't have had the wine that Chris and Heather siphoned into their Platypus, but we did.  It was delicious too! Note to self: Our Daily Red wine

On another note, Chris had a few gadgets that I'm going to have to put on our list.  One was the Instaflater.  You can see him using it below, but it was great b/c you can inflate your air mattress without having to blow it up with your mouth. 

Chris using The Instaflater

On our way back there was a 14" diamondback snake on the trail. Heather, Chris, their dog Frasier, & myself walked right over it. Jeremy spotted it and decided not to tell me until I passed it so I wouldn't freak out. He tried to wake the snake by throwing a stick near it. It didn't move it, because it was sunning itself. Jeremy ended up going into the woods to get around him. 

Diamondback snake on the trail

Laurel-Snow Falls

Last weekend (March 19th & 20th of 2011), we did another overnight backpacking trip.  This time it was to Laurel-Snow Falls outside of Chattanooga in Dayton, TN. 

The hike to the falls was almost too good to be true for the first 2 miles.  It was a beautiful walk beside Richland Creek.  Then as it progressed and you had to get up to the falls, it got increasingly difficult.  The main thing keeping me going was my heart rate monitor watch, which was calculating my calories.

We honestly felt like there was NO ONE around us, which was nice and scary at the same time.  You do have to register with the state of TN to let them know you will be sleeping there overnight, so that made me feel a little better.  Also, being the paranoid person I am, we left a piece of paper with details on it for my mom.

Here's a really detailed website where we got a lot of information: http://www.cumberlandtrail.org/laurel-snow.html

This time we were a lot more prepared.  Differences between this trip and Virgin Falls:

• Jeremy got a machete so we could have firewood
• MSR Water Filtration bag which allowed for plenty of water
• New sleeping pads, we still may be in the market to find better ones though
• Sitting pads for the campfire
• Hot cocoa (FYI - Starbucks hot cocoa packets are WAY too sweet, next time we will split one and water it down)
• This time I had better clothing.  Moisture wicking shirt and pants that convert to shorts.
• We actually had a camp stove that worked like a champ! MSR Pocket Rocket Backpacking Stove

Virgin Falls - Sparta, TN

Back in October of 2010, Jeremy and I did our first big overnight hike.  We went to Virgin Falls in Sparta, TN.  It was a 4.5 mile hike to the falls and back.  We hiked to the falls and set up our tent right next to the waterfall.  It was such a great weekend to do this hike.

The hike to the falls had it's ups and downs.  It wasn't easy for a beginner hiker like myself, but I made it through.  On the way back to our car was the worst part.  We had to take many breaks to make it through. We were running low on water and Jeremy started to get cramped up from dehydration.  In the end, this is a hike we would try again b/c of what we know now.  It would be a great bench mark to test ourselves from. 

REI Scratch & Dent Sale

About a month ago, my husband, another couple and I went to the REI Scratch & Dent sale here in Nashville.  We got there at 4a.m., which I thought was nuts until I realized just how many other people were as crazy as we are.  Our friends had done this before and told us just how crazy it is, so we got our butts up at 4a.m on Saturday, put up some camping chairs and waited until the sale began at 9a.m.  Luckily, Starbucks was also in the same parking lot so at 6a.m. we had the help of caffeine. 

We got together our strategy...the 4 of us dispersed to different areas of the store gathering everything that looked appealing and went to a central location in the store.  We had a GIANT stack, so large that the store associates came over and made us take everything to the register immediately.  We paniced.  We had no idea exactly what we were buying so we had to go through the stack QUICKLY. 

We finally decided on what was crap and what was worth buying.  In the end we ended up with:

1. 2 person tent
2. 1 sleeping bag
3. 1 pair of Keens
4. 2 sets of trekking poles
5. 1 camping stove
6. 1 set of camping pots
7. 1 back pack

Our grand total was $300.  If we wouldn't have bought it at the sale, it would have cost us at least $900.  It was a pretty successful day if I say so myself.