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Archives for September 2020

Trail Angel Cake

September 30, 2020 by pbryant Leave a Comment

I thought it was time for a dessert. This is another one from Chef Glen’s Recipes for Adventure (ISBN 9781484861349) that I tried for the first time a couple of weeks ago in Great Basin National Park.

Ingredients for 1 Large Serving (537 Calories):

3/4 Cup Dried Strawberries

1 1/2 Cups Dried Angel Food Cake (in pieces)

5 Tbsp Sweetened Cocoa Mix

3/4 Cup Water to Rehydrate

At Home: Pack dehydrated strawberries and sweetened cocoa mix in separate small ziptop bags. Chocolate milk powder works well (I used Nesquik). Enclose in a larger ziptop bag with the dried angel food cake.

On the Trail: Combine strawberries with water in a pot. Light stove and warm for ten minutes over low flame to slowly warm and rehydrate the strawberries and create juice.

Rehydrating the strawberries for three large servings.

Combine cocoa powder with four teaspoons of water in a second pot, or move strawberries to a cup or bowl if only one pot is available. Stir continuously over low flame, adding more water slowly until the chocolate sauce reaches a desired consistency.

In your bowl, cover the strawberries with cake. Push the cake down into the strawberry juice but don’t stir. This allows some cake to absorb the juices and some to remain crunchy. Drizzle chocolate sauce over the top. Too much sauce can overpower the other flavors. Enjoy.

Wet strawberries.
Dried strawberries.

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Campsite Spotlight: Big Creek #37, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

September 26, 2020 by pbryant Leave a Comment

Big Creek, next to backcountry campsite 37.

Scale is 0 to 4.

Time of Year Visited: November

This site doesn’t score high for privacy.
  • View: 1.5 You’re in the woods along a big creek, but you will likely see other campers.
  • Water: 4 You’re on a river.
  • Accessibility: 1.5 This campsite is just under 6 gently ascending miles from the Big Creek trailhead, which is near the town of Mount Sterling, NC.
  • Solitude: 1.5 Yes, you are in the backcountry, but you can easily see the other campsites along river. No foliage or brush to separate them.
  • Comfort: 3.5 Flat and shaded next to a large, babbling creek. No bugs in November. Fires are allowed at times.
  • Coolness: 2 River camping is better when you’re in the backcountry and you can hear the river moving.

Of note: This campsite lies near the junction of Big Creek Trail and Swallow Fork Trail. Just downstream from the site you can fish for brook trout. You can easily see then contemplating your lure. Catching them might be more challenging.

An angler tries his hand at trout fishing on Big Creek.

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Creatures Seen and Unseen

September 16, 2020 by pbryant Leave a Comment

For every creature you see in the wild there are countless more nearby, lurking just out of sight. Most times we don’t think about them, but at certain times in the backcountry we become more aware. And sometimes we wish we hadn’t. Ignorance is bliss after all.

Like the time in the Yosemite backcountry. I hadn’t seen another human in two days. I backtracked through the snow due to a swollen river, retracing my footprints, only to find fresh bear prints following my prints.

Or the time in Zion. My fourth night on the trail, when my head lamp caught two glowing dots looking back at me. My headlamp reflected off the retinas of something, but was not strong enough to tell me what it was. But my mind registered the spacing and equated it to something of good size. This happens fairly often in the dark of the backcountry.

And then there is any time you lay quietly in you tent and listen to the noises of the wilderness. You become very aware.

I had another of those experiences this past weekend in Congaree National Park. A few of them actually.

We visited relatives in the mountains of North Carolina over the long Labor Day weekend. I then took it a step further and was able to slip away from there for 27 hours to Congaree National Park in South Carolina for an overnight adventure.

It was 86 degrees and hot in the parking lot after my 4 hour drive. As soon as I reached the trail and the shade of the high canopy that the many towering trees provided, it was noticeably cooler, even comfortable. But the humidity was still high and I was quickly sweating.

I hiked over eight miles, enjoying the knees and coned trunks of the bald cypress trees. I tried to spot an alligator in Weston Lake that a hiker had told me about but saw large turtles instead.

The farther one hikes from the visitor center and the boardwalk the more overgrown the trails become. I found myself moving through narrow passages with overgrowth brushing both sides of my bare legs and I hoped that there were no chiggers as I was already scratching a dozen bites from the day before in North Carolina. I also had become aware that many spiders, some 2-3″ long, built their webs along the trail. Also, the trail was torn up in many areas. It reminded me of when wild turkeys scratch for grubs but on a much larger scale. I wondered if it could be wild pigs.

A section of the River Trail.

The River Trail reaches the Congaree River and runs near it for about a mile and a half. I spent the night in a flat dry spot off the trail, about 1/2 mile from the river. Hiking out in the dark I immediately noticed how many spider webs my headlamp picked up along and over the trail. I was fascinated and a little freaked out. I tried to take pictures of the spiders but failed in the dark. Even on the stem of the River Trail, which I had just walked the afternoon before, there many large webs over and around the trail – webs that I couldn’t have possibly avoided having not seen them. This meant the spiders likely rebuilt their webs every night after the hikers and animals went through. I ducked and dodged my way around the webs, sometimes going through accidently. I’d then wait to feel the crawling on the back of my neck as I looked ahead for the reflectors to make sure I was still on the trail.

The Congaree River

While still on the River Trail, I heard an awful noise. It took me a moment to place it – wild pigs. There were more than one and maybe they were fighting. They sounded nearby. Wild pigs were not something that I wanted to run into on the trail, especially in the dark. I tried to capture some of their noises on my phone but they seemed to pause each time I started recording, as if they knew what I was doing.

I came to another web with a large spider and stopped to get a photo, but then the wild pigs started again. This time very close. They seemed to be just out of the reach of my headlamp. I took off more quickly. But the faster pace didn’t work well in the dark. I found myself crashing into the spider webs, which panicked me more. I was suddenly off the trail crashing through the brush in the dark. The pigs and spiders were working together! But if I were trapped in a Charlotte’s Web movie, this was a much more sinister sequel.

Orbweaver

I stopped and calmed myself, found the reflectors, and got back on the trail. I proceeded at a brisk but controlled pace and soon the squeals receded in the distance.

Somewhere just before or after the Oak Ridge Trail Junction I clopped across a bridge over a creek and heard a great splash below. I spun my head beam down to catch something large moving quickly through the water and into darkness. A gator. Or I assume it was a gator. I couldn’t tell in that brief moment but I wondered what else would make such a splash getting in the water then move away so quickly.

After over an hour of hiking in the dark, I was glad to turn off my headlamp and hike in daylight. I reached my car a short time later having had a more intimate experience with nature – after all, that’s why I do it – and left behind Congaree National Park, where the wild pigs and spiders are in cahoots.

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Food: Homemade Beef & Bean Chili

September 2, 2020 by pbryant Leave a Comment

This recipe comes from my favorite backpacking cookbook, Recipes for Adventure, by Chef Glenn McAllister (ISBN 9781484861349). While I’ve tweaked a few of the recipes from this book to suit my taste, none of the ones I’ve tried have disappointed. As with all of the “homemade” recipes I’ll be mentioning, dehydrating will be required. With “off – the – shelf” recipes, the dehydrating has already been done for you, saving you time. But with homemade meals, you can control the contents and flavor.

Chili is a mainstay of my backcountry meal planning. After a long day on the trail, a warm and hearty dinner can be a real pick-me-up in the backcountry. I’ve tried other backcountry chili recipes that ranged from okay to crunchy and unappetizing, and unless I’m using crackers, crunchy is not something I look for in a chili. This one is my favorite backcountry chili so far. Chef Glenn gets it right by adding bread crumbs to the hamburger. This helps it rehydrate better on the trail and keeps it from being crunchy.

Ingredients for 3-5 servings:

1 to 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef

1/2 cup bread crumbs, finely ground

1 large onion, chopped small to fine

1 or 2 cloves of garlic, chopped fine

3 Tablespoons of chili powder

1 15-oz can of kidney or red beans, drained

1 10-oz can of tomato puree

1 14-oz can of diced tomatoes

Sauté onions and peppers while dehydrating the ground beef (right) before adding to the remaining ingredients (left). Don’t forget the bread crumbs!

At home:

Work the bread crumbs into the ground beef with your fingers and set aside. Sautee the onions and garlic in just enough olive oil to coat the pan. Add the ground beef (the less fat the better when dehydrating) and cook for about ten minutes until browned, stirring continuously. Add the chili powder and cook for one more minute. Add tomato puree, diced tomatoes, and drained beans. Cook until bubbling, then reduce heat and simmer for one hour.

Taste test, and add hot peppers and/or more onion if you’d like to spice it up. You can start dehydrating immediately or you can leave it in the fridge overnight to enhance the flavor.

Dehydrate:

Spread your chili out on dehydrator trays that are covered with non-stick sheets or parchment paper. Dehydrate at 125 degrees for 8 – 12 hours. After about four hours in the dehydrator, break up any meat and beans that are stuck together.

Dried chili.

Let cool and store in an airtight jar or divide into plastic bags for individual servings. Properly dried chili will keep for several months if protected from air and moisture. To extend the shelf life, store it in the freezer until you are ready to leave for your trip, or vacuum seal it.

On the trail:

In a pot, combine the dried chili with equal amounts of water (1 cup each for regular serving, 1 1/2 cups each for large serving) and let it soak for 5 minutes. Light stove, bring to boil, and then cook for one more minute. Insulate pot and wait for ten minutes. Top with whatever: crackers, cheese, fresh peppers, cheddar flavored gold fish, etc.

Pro Tip: Bread crumbs mixed with your raw hamburger will help it rehydrate properly on the trail. Not dehydrating for backpacking? Then no need to add bread crumbs.

Nutritional Value:

Calories: 300 for regular serving, 450 for large serving

Protein: sure!

Carbohydrates: probably!

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