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| Emma Blue prepares to get going (date is a month off) |
We headed south toward Iowa. Yep, Iowa! The backpacking capital of the world. Ha! Well, it was highlighted in the 1996 Outside Magazine. So I thought we'd take a shot.
We drove east on I-90 toward LaCrosse. Our lovely GPS, whose name is Paddam, told us the wrong exit number at the right location. So we missed it. Oops! Decided to make lemonade our of lemons and had some lunch across the border in Wisconsin. Then we drove along the Mississippi on the Wisconsin side most of the way. It was beautiful though there was still some evidence of the flooding from last week. We crossed into Lansing, Iowa, which was the cutest little river town. At that point, we were only about 20 minutes from the parking lot. Awesome! About 3 hours drive time.
We got parked and everything organized. This is where inexperience reared its head. Just for a second though. We didn't have a great map of the area. The maps online and the map they had at backpack parking seemed to be lacking in some detail. And, if it was accurate, it would be about 4 miles to our first campsite. So we decided that I would drop Lorrie and Emma Blue off where the trail crosses the road and then walked from the parking lot to that point without my pack. So that's what we did. Turned out that was a pretty good decision. Though it also turned out that we probably would have had enough time to do the initial part of the trail as well. That's okay... I think it was better to listen to my gut. So off we went.
It took just over an hour to get to the first site, Heffern's Hill Camp. The trail was mainly fire road, gravel. We had one river crossing that was pretty low and neither of us got our socks wet. There was quite a bit of horse manure on the trail. Which is just gross anyway but even worse when you have a dog that likes to roll around in it! We were able to prevent that. This part of the trail allowed horses (obvious!) and bicycles. The campsite was at the top of a small inclined trail which allowed only human (and dog) foot traffic. No horses or bikes. There were 3 camping areas each with its own fire grate. At the 3rd site, there was also a warming shed for skiers. Though I considered putting our tent up in that just so I didn't have to use the rainfly. It was a little too far from the fire to go with that thought though. This 3rd site is probably the best for a larger group as well. The other 2 were big enough for small groups.
After getting everything set up, we decided to go explore. As we got toward the bottom of the hill, we noticed a group of men shooting their guns. We weren't sure if there was a shooting range or if hunting was allowed. Turns out that you can hunt anywhere in the Yellow River National Forest except campgrounds. Hmm, not too reassuring. No rule about shooting *toward* a campground. I saw nothing about seasons for hunting there so I don't know if this is something we would experience any time of year. If so, it's not someplace I'll be in a rush to go back.
After the gunfire died down, the wind picked up and there were some rain sprinkles. We had chicken curry for dinner... freezer bag cooking. Lorrie gave it a 4.5/5 tents! Pretty good start for her first backpacking experiencing. Though the fire was keeping us warm, it seemed the rain was going to force us into the tent. It was still pretty early so we did some reading. I have chronic difficulty sleeping the first night backpacking and sometimes camping. It's VERY annoying! The longer I stay awake, the more I start hearing ominous sounds. You know... squirrels stomping, birds dive bombing, lots of things that aren't really happening. And then there's the one-armed man with a hook who just escaped prison. He's usually around somewhere come midnight. Another problem is that if I'm awake in such a small space, so is Lorrie. That's just how it works. Emma Blue was up a lot too. I'm not sure what her deal was. But I think she got more sleep than Lorrie or me. lol
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