What is your best backpacking experience?

Although several parks in the SF Bay Area region allow backpacking, only Henry Coe State Park has areas where one can disperse camp. In other words all the other backpacking parks use trail camps that require siting in designated locations one must set up on a per night basis when receiving a permit. Note Coe does have those same designated campsite conditions for areas about the main headquarters zone. Additionally and importantly for this person, by using the Hunting Hollow entrance one can self register and just hike out anywhere at least a mile from the parking lot. Thus is the only place in the SF Bay Area one can at a whim just drive out to, pay parking lot fees, fill out the backpacking self registration, then set out and plunk down a camp spot wherever. Of note campfires are not allowed anywhere in the park. A good destination is the Wilson Peak ridge line 1700 feet uphill 3 to 4 miles above. Will only recommend the March through early May period when everything is still green and wildflowers are out. Also wise to not go solo as it is mountain lion country.


Snippet from:

coepark.net/pineridgeassociation/activities/backpacking

Before starting out on a backpacking trip, you must register, pay your camping and parking fees, and obtain a permit on the day of your departure. This can be done at the Headquarters Visitor Center or Dowdy Ranch Visitor Center. At the Hunting Hollow Entrance or when the visitor centers are closed, self registration is available.

Also view:

www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=25829

Thinking about this for a few days, my most magical backpacking memories occurred after arriving at camp in some remote, beautiful place. Being away from civilization & technology and surrounded by natural beauty, sharing it with a few like-minded people or with nobody else as the shadows grow long, contemplating the day's accomplishment and tomorrow's promise, is what I love most about backpacking. I love camps with great views. Most of my favorites have been near treeline in western states. Mt. Rainier's summit crater was an outstanding camp site.

Speaking of the Indians broadly is a sort of misnomer as there were over 500 different tribes scattered across the country and they all had different living and shelter lifestyles. The Northwest Indians had radically different shelters than the Cherokee who had different shelters than the Cheyenne or Lakota with their buffalo hide tipis.

Plus, these people lived outdoors on a permanent basis and they had access to tribal culture and tribal technology which helped them survive. Speaking of the Lakota, they were experts on crafting clothing, moccasins, making stone knives, gathering tipi poles, using a dog travois for movement, carrying fire, staying warm on -20F nights, using buffalo robes for sleeping, preparing and storing pemmican and other foods, and moving all this stuff on a regular basis.

My solo winter kit actually has less luxuries than those provided by a tribal Lakota culture in the 1750s or 1620s. I have to provide my own heat at 0F, I have to carry all my own food and water; I have no tribal support system to help me survive. I use no dogs to carry my tent and gear, and certainly no later horses for such work.

The big difference now is I can go out in the woods once owned by the Cherokee and spend 21 days backpacking without getting shot by an arrow.

Travis N Wood wrote:

TipiWalter wrote:
The "misnomer" is yours. As I've indicated many times in these forums, I don't backpack all across the country. I backpack in the Northern Rockies. So the "misnomer" is your own. I spoke of my area, and you tried to apply that to your rough estimate of 500 tribes spread across half a continent.

TipiWalter wrote:
And you and I have access to modern culture and modern technology to help us survive. Would you prefer to carry a pack of smoldering coals from which to build a fire, or would you prefer a Bic lighter? Would you prefer heavy bison robes to keep you warm, or would you prefer a down sleeping bag? Would you prefer a stone knife, or would you prefer a finely-honed blade of carbonized steel? Would you prefer a dog travois?

And do you drive in a motor vehicle to the trailhead with your store-bought gear? Or do you walk or ride horseback all the way from your house?

You've had these choices for decades, and we have seen from your photos which you have chosen — when backpacking. Your actions speak more loudly than your words.

TipiWalter wrote:
I do not believe a word of it. But it does not surprise me to see you, with all the benefits of modern culture, try to portray yourself as tougher, more rugged, and more austere than the Natives of 200 years ago.

TipiWalter wrote:
Gosh, you really think the Cherokee or neighboring tribes would be devoted assassins of innocent backpackers? What other tribes do you have such a dim opinion of?

And TipiWalter, I didn't invite a debate with you. That seems to be your obsession. How about starting your own thread? I don't think that is what the opening poster asked for here.

To Travis N Wood---
A solo backpacker in one sense does not have access to modern culture and a modern support system as long as that backpacker chooses to stay in the woods. He could be car-less and hitchhiked to the trailhead. My point is that there is no wilderness tribe to help him survive---no one making moccasins or processing buffalo robes or sewing tipi covers or jerking meat or gathering roots or using dogs to move his camps.

And even if he went the bushcraft route and used stone tools and buffalo robes and carried fire it would still be just him alone in a Southeastern wilderness area empty of a tribal support system to help him stay out longer. He can't even legally live on govt land on a permanent basis (old Indian land), and so there's a compromise between the forest and the American city. Ergo we bring Bic lighters and Corona folding saws and down sleeping bags.

When I lived in my North Carolina ridgetop Tipi for 20 years I chose to live closer to the land on a permanent basis without running water or a telephone or computer or electricity. Was I a full blood Cherokee eating grubs and chickweed and venison and making my own clothing and 100% pure to satisfy armchair cyber hikers? No, of course not. Is the northern plains Tipi indigenous to NC? Nope but it works and it's primitive.

Point is, the tribal culture is gone in the Southeastern national forests and has been obliterated by the dominant conquering culture, and so any attempt a single individual makes to return to the land will be fraught with compromise. Blue walmart tarps instead of buffalo hides. Even Dick Proenneke used airplanes to cart out his stuff to his Alaska cabin.

The tribes have been scattered. The govt will bring back the buffalo to the Yellowstone and the wolves to the Smokies but will they ever allow a hundred or two hundred Piegan Blackfeet to return to a national forest in Montana and live tribally in their Blackfeet tipis and hunt animals and give birth to new Blackfeet children? No way, even though such a group would be indigenous to the landscape and part of the ecosystem.

So, when I go out on a solo backpacking trip or live in a tipi, I have no in-forest support system except for what is on my back. It's a harder lifestyle when all alone. The human tribe in that forest is gone. And so is the luxury of such a tribe. In other words, I do not think we as solo backpackers have it better or easier when we are in the woods and when we have to carry everything we need to survive---and divorced from a culture that allowed people to stay in the woods for 10,000 years without the so-called luxuries we now use and seem to love.

This is my answer to your initial Quote: "To a Native American of 200 years ago, almost everything I take would be a luxury item."  Their luxury would be having each other.

End of Rant #946.

My first winter backpacking trip and the snow "flurries" that were predicted.


Appalachian Trail between Rockfish Gap and the Wolfe Shelter in Virginia

Many native cultures were matiarchal in nature. That is, women owned and were responsible for moving the tipi, raising the children, growing the food, making all garmets and deciding how the land would be used. Maybe get some women?

One of my favorite backpacking experiences was in Linville Gorge seven or eight years ago..in winter. It was one of the first times I ever hammocked in the snow. It was a clear and starfilled night, very cold, at some point I thought I felt something brush under my hammock but with so much insulation I wasn't sure. The next morning I woke up to find coyote tracks right under me. The next day hiking the gorge was aided by microspikes making the usually slippery mass of roots and rocks a joy to hike. Veiws were outstanding, the company was great as well.