By now, I'm a Nordhouse expert. I drive in, I park, I hike 1.8 miles out of the northwest facing trailhead, I no longer try to cut a straight line across the dunes I trust the winding trail (even when the lake looks RIGHT there), I stay at MY site. This if my 4th time to Nordhouse, what could go wrong?
Friday night is relatively uneventful. I arrive at the parking lot around 4:30pm and promptly head out. My site is untaken (always a worry, though I'm 4/4 camping here). I set up, take a quick dip, not some dark clouds way way off in the distance and decide I have time to lay on the beach and read a bit before I cook dinner (hobo pie- angus beef patty, sweet potato, onions and carrots wrapped in tinfoil). Well I get a bit absorbed in my relaxtion, and am startled by a thunder boom that rattles the across the lake and crests on the shoreline. Uhoh, I snap up and can definitely see some dark rain clouds coming at me. I figure I've got maybe 30 minutes 'til I get soaked. Unable to tell if it will be a quick or long storm, I fear that I might struggle to make a fire after, so I go all in on dinner. I build a fire and as soon as I have some coals I have my hobo pie in it. I continue cooking at this normal pace for about 5 minutes, but man, that rain is coming. I secure all of my other stuff and come back to the fire. This is taking too long. The next step is turbo cooking, I just start piling wood onto my hobo pie and make it the center of the fire. All with the terror that half of my meal is going to be raw and the other half is going to be ashes. Finally I hear the meat sizzling and rescue my hobo pie from the mini inferno. I tear into it, and nothing is burnt. I cut open the burger patty, a soft soft pink at the center, medium well, nice! I warily try a potato chunk, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, perfect! I somehow made the best hobo pie of my life, and then had to shovel the mouthburning food as fast as I could into my mouth. It started sprinkling on my 3rd to last bite, with no time to wash the foil, I threw it over the hot coals in hopes of burning off the food, stuck my titanium spork into the sand and retreated to my hammock. I read maybe 3 sentences of my book...and fell asleep for a 2-hour nap. Oops, when I awoke, the rain had long since stopped and daylight was fading. But in a complete accident turned brilliant move, the foil I threw over the fire not only kept the coals and remaining wood dry, it kept them hot. I didn't need my firestarter, I just threw some wood on and started blowing. I will be adding a sheet of tin foil to my backpacking gear list.
Saturday is a warm and blustery day. The waves are huge. I spend it swimming, body surfing, reading, repeat. Mid-afternoon I finally force myself to actually accomplish something; I'll go for a beach run. South. For a mile or two, then I'll hike until I see the Ludington lighthouse and snap a picture. Then I'll hike back, and run the last mile or so to camp. I execute my plan, carrying a gym sack with just my camera in it, snapping pictures here and there and of the lighthouse along the way. I hit my marker on the way back signaling it's time to run. Beach running is hard. I'm tired and thirsty and excited to go collapse back at my site. I snap one last picture of a neat peace of driftwood, toss my camera into my bag and take off.
Twelve or fifteen minutes later roughly I'm back. Exhausted, and deciding if I should hike up to my site for water of just plop into the lake. The lake is closer and the lake wins. I take off my gym sack and...hmmm. It is very light. With dawning horror I squeeze it, empty. And a neat hole in the bottom of the sack. Anguish. I don't go get water, I don't jump in the lake, I'm too tired to do much of anything besides start walking back from the way I came, hopelessly scanning for my camera. It was windy, the waves were big, and I ran most of it on the waters edge since the sand was hardest there. It'll be a completed hail Mary if I find my camera. But I can't not look. I never find it.
The beach where I was running and the hole in my bag.
At least I catch a nice sunset, and have my phone to take pictures with.
For the record I saw zero wildlife that was not in the bird family from Friday through Saturday when I went to bed. Still, I did a pretty crappy job hanging my food. I fell asleep feeling falsely secure. RIIIIPPPPPPPPP! I wake up well after midnight, disoriented. I hear it again, RIIIPPPP! What the he-, oh my food, the COFFEE! I'm out of my tent in record time with my headlamp, knife, mace, and hiking pole turned spear. The culprit, a large raccoon, has my remaining whole gym sack pulled up on the branch and is trying to tear into it. He freezes and stares at me. I do the only logical thing I can at 2am, I pick up a semi-burnt log with some embers still on it and heave it right at the raccoon. Even as my arm is on the backswing my brain wakes up enough to say no, wait, oh no. Too late. Sparks explode above my head like a tube mortar on the Fourth. Thank you rain, no forest fire starts, and the raccoon retreats to the top of the tree. I rescue my bag (still intact, just a lot of really small holes) and hang it properly. And still angry, I fill an empty bottle with sand and take one last aim at the raccoon. No dice, but it was still satisfying. This time I properly hang my food and go to sleep with a real sense of security. And in the morning the only thing that was ruined was my crackers, coffee was safe and delicious.
No comments:
Post a Comment