Sounds of the Desert

“Well, here I go…. It’s make or break time.” That’s what I thought as I was driving to the trail head of Zaleski State Forest on Saturday morning for my first solo backpacking trip. I was feeling a little anxious about my first solo.

I got to the trail head parking lot at about 9:30am, self registered and was on the trail by 10am. A little background about Zaleski. If you’ve never been there before, their trail head isn’t very well marked. You have to walk down the road a little bit to find the sign. So, I finally find it and head in and up.

The first half mile or so was pretty much up and down, not a great deal of problems. It was the next mile (ok, maybe it wasn’t a mile, but it sure as heck felt like it) that was the killer. Up, up, up I went. Once I got to the top of the ridge, it was a fairly nice hike. On the way up, I was concentrating very hard on the ground. I noticed something move to the side of the trail. It turned out to be some sort of lizard. I tried identifying it, but I’m still not certain as to what it was. I think it was a newt of some sort.

I passed a fair amount of people along the trail, which was to be expected of the holiday weekend. I was starting to get a little concerned because of my unfamiliarity with this trail. I knew that there was a lot more to the trail than what I was doing and had thought at one point that I may have gone the wrong direction. Another thing about Zaleski is that they have points of interest marked on the map with numbers and letters. I started getting worried I had gone the wrong way when I hadn’t passed any of either. It wasn’t until I passed a family and talked to them for a little bit that the wife asked her husband where they were and he said “B”. Whew… ok, back on track. I was going up to point D to camp.

I started feeling much better when I started seeing markers for the points of interest and started to really get into the hike. I stopped along a ridge line at around 12:30pm to eat lunch. There would’ve been a great view if there hadn’t been trees in my way. After eating, I started up the trail again and just a little ways up, there was a really great area with a wonderful view. Figures…

The next part of the hike took me down into a ravine. It was much cooler, but the gnats and mosquitoes really started swarming. I move on only to find that the source of the bug increase was not only due to the cool, moist ravine, but also to the swamp area I was approaching. Great. So, the bugs got worse and a frog startled me by jumping about 3 feet in the air when I scared it.

Just past the swampy area was another climb. After all, what goes down must go back up. This climb was slightly worse as I was already fatigued and the bugs were relentless. So, about halfway up, I stopped and dropped my pack. By this time, I was a little over halfway to the campsite.

I made it into camp at about 2:30pm, set up my site and sat back against a tree and listened to the sounds around me as other backpackers started to filter in. I read my book for a better part of the afternoon and evening. It was a very relaxing way to end my day. Today’s hike was 6.1 miles in.

I was up at 7am the next morning, ate a couple of power bars, broke camp and was on the trail by 8:30am. I didn’t want to relive the bug problem I encountered the day before. Today it would be toads. There were toads everywhere, which was very cool (it brought back childhood memories for me).

I had a short hike before I reached the road for the Turkey Management area. I now know what Preacher was talking about. It was very tempting just to take that back to the parking lot, but I overcame it and pressed on. I seriously questioned my decision about 5 minutes later. Once again, a major climb would push me to my limits. I made it to the top with frequent stops. From here on, the hike wasn’t too bad. I hiked on a ridge for about a mile and a half when I reached yet another road. This one appeared to be a forest service road. When I crossed it, I started questioning, yet again, if I had missed my short cut trail because I hadn’t seen a couple of the points of interest I was supposed to have past. About a mile further up, it was to my great relief that I saw point of interest 9 (I missed 7 and 8 somewhere, probably on that climb just after the road... …). My short cut trail was just a little further up per the map and sure enough, it was.

This section of trail was probably the coolest part of the hike to me. There were a great deal of rock outcroppings and nice scenery. Someone managed to put a large tree over a ravine which covered a section of the trail. I managed to get past the tree, but in the process lost the trail. I figured I had to go up since down was straight down. Once I got back on the trail, I looked back and saw that people had made a trail around the top of the tree. How I missed it, I don’t know…

I made it back to the trail head at 11am. It was a great experience and a great confidence booster. I'm very glad that I didn't chicken out on it.

Things I think I learned:
1. I will never use soap the morning of a trip, ever again.
2. Always trim toe nails before heading out, you're libel to lose one...

The rest of the pictures to this album can be found here: http://community.webshots.com/album/443338730AgRVar