After a crazy week of work, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go camping. However, on Friday morning, the only thing I wanted to do was sit in the woods, even though I still had to go to work. That made my decision easy- I would go camping. I hadn't camped at
Kuliouou ridge yet, and that was a nice, close-to-town camping spot. I knew I could find easy camping places in the dark, as I had biked and ran the trail several times. Friday's trip was a bike-hike adventure. I left the house at 6:30pm on my Cross Check. I'm not sure why I chose that bike instead of the Xtracycle. In retrospect, the Xtracycle would have been more comfortable. I suppose, I wanted to get the Cross Check out for a camping trip for olde tymes sake. We logged lots of great miles in Finland and Sweden. I opted to bring the tent this trip because the wind was strong enough to blow our front door shut, even with the Dr. Stewart rock.
The 10 mile ride to the trail head was a little slow because of the headwind. I locked my bike to a sign at the start of the foot trail and reloaded my gear. My Jandd day pack was surprisingly comfortable with the tent strapped to the bottom. The ~ 1.5 mile hike to the picnic shelter took about 40 minutes. I had to switch my brain into tent mode instead of hammock mode as I looked for good place to set up camp. By 8:30 my camp was set up, I was in dry clothes and it was time to enjoy nature. The mauka clouds were moving fast, so the view of the stars was actually pretty good. By 9:15, I was tucked in bed. I unfortunately dressed for hammock camping(wool long underwear), and I woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat.
I slept late (almost 7!) so I didn't have a lot of time to hike around. I figured the hike to the top was at least 30 minutes, and it looked pretty Gargamel today (dark and gloomy). I decided to enjoy my coffee at the picnic shelter and save the hike to the top for another day. I brought the
Esbit stove for try number 2. Refer to Night #2 for a recount of my futile attempt to make coffee with this stove. I brought matches and the MSR whisperlite to make sure I had coffee this morning. The esbit stove lit with the second match, and heated 12 oz of water to almost boiling (perfect for french press coffee). I wouldn't count on that stove to do anything more. However, due to its small size and easy of use with matches (not a striker), I will likely take it on my 14 hr camping trips more often.
I took my camera out to document my successful coffee making only to find my batteries were finally dead. I charged some rechargable batteries about 2 weeks ago, and found that those too were dead. No photos of the coffee, campsite or scenery today. Darn. I packed up my tent and scampered down the hill. I passed about 20 people walking up the trail. Some of them looked very confused, as they should be... why would someone be walking down at 8:00am?
The ride home was fast with the tail wind. I even used the big ring for a while. I returned home at 9am, 14.5 hours after I left. When I got home, I used the big camera to document my rig (tent and thermarest strapped to the rack, pannier for shoes, lock, and flatkit, backpack
with everything else):
Another fun Friday night in the woods! 4 down, 26 more nights to go!
