Can't Touch This / Return of the Pink Caterpillar

We left our intrepid backpackers in the wild woods of Sproul, heading into nighttime. As dusk approached, my husband and I started to guess how cold it would get up here overnight. He guessed 36 to 38. I said 33 degrees; almost, but not quite freezing. I was not worried, as I was well prepared this time. I had my Kelty Cosmic 0 degrees F down sleeping bag (yes, you've seen it before!), and this time, I was smart enough to bring an entire lightweight cotton sleep suit, which was perfect. As it turns out, our overnight low was 34, so I won that round.

We spent a rather quiet night in the wild woods, and I heard the owls again several times, hooting in the darkness (in fact, their calls would accompany us on our hike back to the car as well!). My husband, in one of his waking moments, heard the bugling of elk. I wish I had, but I did not. In the morning, we got up and began the leisurely task of getting our stuff packed up for the walk out.

One of the best things about the campsite we call Pine Glen is its proximity to where we park the car. We start at a main road, and drive maybe a mile or a bit more on a pretty bad dirt road (with some new washouts along the sides just to make it fun and challenging - hey, we're maneuvering a big, wide American car, here) to a spot by a gate. We pack up our gear and walk less than a mile from there, and in almost less time than it takes to strap all of our gear onto our packs, we can be in the pine forest, relaxing.

I did not mention provisions, so I'll cover that topic now. We always take along snack bars and yogurt and drinks and candy. This time, we'd just gotten two hoagies from the Scouts on Saturday morning. We split one for lunch on Saturday, and the second one, I took apart and we made the meats and cheese into six little Italian sandwiches on fresh French bread. The original hoagie roll, we saved (in the fridge at home) to turn into garlic bread later. We each ate two sandwiches on Sunday and one on Monday. It was quite nice, and very civilized.

The fact that our campsite is not a long walk from the car means that we can take along our regular folding chairs in bags. I am here to tell you that having a full-size chair is a god-send when camping out. I heard myself saying this ridiculous sentence to my husband: "If I didn't have a chair, I'd wish for one: a wishing chair! A chair makes all the difference!" You may see me sitting in my wishing chair in the extras, engulfed in my big, brightly colored Cosmic down sleeping bag. Do I look like a caterpillar about to turn into a butterfly? I think so! Oh, and the sleeping bag even has a tiny zippered pocket, just big enough for T. Tiger!

Early in the afternoon, we packed up our gear and then covered it up at our campsite, and walked about 10 minutes uphill to a little vernal pond we know. The water seemed low, for April, but it was the site of an entire set of bacchanalian rites for newts. Oh my, such sights I saw there! Then we strolled back down the mossy path to our campsite, sat in the shade for a bit, finished strapping our gear onto our packs, and made the short walk out.

My husband, always in the lead, was standing by a set of pine trees, waving to me, "Hurry up, hurry up!" There had been a porcupine on the ground walking around, and as soon as it saw him, it scooted up a tree. It was about 20 feet up the tree when I snapped the photo you see above. I got several shots, and in some of them, it looked almost . . . fuzzy and pettable. 

Um, take a step back there, girlie. This is most definitely a case of "No touchie the wild animal!" (I, myself, being a girl who might someday die of trying to get close enough to touch or at least photograph the cute or interesting wild critter.) Of course, it had no interest in us, and it was up a total of about 40 feet by the time we walked away. Well met, spiky critter! And what a good climber! Amazing. . . .

My husband commented on our walk out that he had never seen me in such a good mood over backpacking. Well, I've got to tell you that the experience we had on our LAST backpack trip sorta scarred me for a little while. The walk out that time through the trees, bushes, and rhododendron thickets of Moshannon State Forest was a bushwhacking extravaganza, and I feared at times that I might not have the stamina (or the knees) to make it back to the car. 

It was absolutely delightful that this trip - our shortest walk, in perfect, coolish hiking weather (high of 57 on Sunday, high of 62 on Monday) - was easier and so much more pleasant. It's late April, and sometimes spring heats up rather quickly, so we don't know if this might have been our last backpack of springtime. If it was, I'm glad that it was pretty much a perfect trip!

I've got two photos so here are two songs. First, for the porcupine above, I've got M.C. Hammer, with U Can't Touch This. For the girl in the sleeping bag, sitting happily in her chair, contemplating the lovely morning of what would turn out to be a gorgeous day for backpacking, I wanted a tune from the 10,000 Maniacs album, The Wishing Chair, from 1985. I had bought the CD and I played it on my portable CD player over and over and over, as I walked our beautiful Penn State campus end to end, wrapped up my undergrad degree in English and History, completed and submitted my honors thesis (I wrote a chapter every Saturday morning and reviewed it with my thesis advisor each Monday morning), and graduated in May 1986. Happy memories! Here are the 10,000 Maniacs, with Lilydale.