Virgin Falls

When JP and I had gone to Fall Creek Falls, we had decided we wanted to backpack into Virgin Falls, which is in the same area.

Here is the html for Virgin Falls.

http://www.state.tn.us/environment/na/natareas/virgin/

We did this a day hike a couple of years ago but had to do it really quickly in order to be back in time for other commitments. When we went last time, it was really crowded with lots of scout troops camped at various campsites and the trailhead parking lot overfilled. Since it was Labor Day weekend, we were expecting the worst.


At the trailhead. The first thing we noticed was how few cars there were.



Our plan was to camp at the first campsite, so that we would have a minimal hike out in the morning. When we arrived there was a young couple setting up their tent here, (there are three fire ring/tent sites here in this very cozy site), but as soon as we started setting up our tent they broke theirs down and left. I felt kind of bad, but since I figured that all the campsites would fill up any way, if they did so because they desired a campsite to themselves they were not likely to have their wish. After pitching our tent to claim our spot, we threw in our sleeping bags and pads to lighten our load a bit, but carried the packs the rest of the way so that we were getting the conditioning.
Normally, the creek that this site sits at the edge up is a beautiful flowing river. There is in fact a cable to help cross during high water. But it has been so dry this year that there was barely any water at all, just barely enough for us to filter for drinking.




Laurel Falls. The first big falls on the trail, these falls are normally pretty spectacular, but its just a trickle now. There is a massive cave below the falls, but some bright group of campers had decided to build this massive smoky fire inside the cave and while this didn't seem to affect them (perhaps their brain cells were already dead anyway) it made it very unpleasant for every one else. So the "mist" in the picture is actually smoke.



Sheep Cave. Last time we came here we didn't have flashlights and so never ventured inside the cave. Needing to filter water to replenish our stocks, we needed to go in to get to deep enough water. It was a real treat. I'm not sure how far the cave actually goes back, we probably went 50 yards and it clearly went much farther. We saw a cave salamander, lots of cave crickets, and some bats. And bonked our heads a bunch of times.






Virgin Falls. Fortunately these falls were still running strongly. You can see some other hikers in the pictures which give you a sense of how high the falls are. The falls actually run from out of cave and then flows for probably 10 yards on flat rock and then plummets to the bottom which is another set of caves/pit platforms.

The force of the water has carved the stone into beautiful shapes. One of the other hikers who had descended into the pits previously on ropes said that they all drop down about another 100 feet and then the separate tubes join into a single tunnel that runs another 150 yards or so underground where it comes out into the Caney River.



Cave above Virgin Falls and runout. It was a short hike to the cave above the falls. Again we weren't able to do this the first time, but with flashlights and time this was pretty fun. There actually are a set of caverns within the cave


We were pretty beat by the time we returned to camp. We definitely need the conditioning, I'm not sure we could have gone more than another mile or so under load. My entire shirt (my bike jersey) and hat (my beloved Bosox cap) were completely soaking wet from sweat, as was almost all of my shorts. Although I had brought a change of shirts, somehow I forgot my backup shorts, so I had to stay in them. When we got back, another family had pitched their tents at the site as well. Although we initially stayed at our end of the small campsite, at the end of their dinner one of the campers walked over and offered us some of their leftovers that they were going to have to throw away. So we talked a bit, and then when we were moving a big log to have a place to sit by our fire pit, they invited us to sit by their fire as it was already blazing away. We accepted their invitation and had a nice long campfire conversation. They were grandparents with their daughter and her son. (The daughter looked to about 17 to me, but given that AM has been mistaken for a teenager even though she is 40, I suppose looks can be quite deceiving.) The grandfather is a principal at one of the middle schools in the area, as well as scoutmaster for his troop. So we had extended conversation both about scouting and about schools. When I asked him what one thing would make his school better, he responded that it would be the ability to discipline effectively. He felt that his hands were so tied that kids who acted out could not be stopped and this disrupted the classroom and forced teachers to spent much effort to trying to control these unruly kids that there wasn't time and energy to teach effectively. We talked about what alternatives were currently possible and what he would like to be able to do. It was a very pleasant evening spend in the company of strangers.


When the fire died out finally, we prepared for bed. The night was still warm enough at first that I was really too uncomfortable to get in my sleeping bag, but by the middle of the night was chilly enough that I did. Both JP and I slept more in cat naps. Whether from how sore I was or being in a new environment, or our neighbor snoring, somehow I just couldn't really stay comfortable. (Oh, and my inflatable pillow deflated twice in the middle of the night didn't help.)

But the morning made the night worthwhile as we got up to a beautiful Tennessee morning in the woods, ate breakfast and walked out feeling joyful.

Olympic gymnast

So I think it was Wednesday night that AM pointed out to me that EM was pretending to put powder on her hands, slap it off, and then was standing on the edge of the couch with her arm up to begin her "routine". A little latter on she came and asked me to help spot her on the "balance beam" that she had created in imitation of what was going on on the TV. (Apparently she had figured out she needed a beam but not that the beam needed to hold itself up.) Anyway I thought it was quite funny and so I have posted a couple of picture here.

Why I went into the woods

When we were back in Utah, JP and I had bought backpacking equipment to start what we hope will be a lifetime of backpacking. We decided to do a small check-out trip at Monkey Bell park this weekend to test out our gear and more importantly our performance. We took off directly after school and work to drive to the park. The park has an 11 mile parameter loop trail which can actually be done as two separate loops of about 6 to 7 miles each by using a bypass trail thru the lakes area. The parameter loop has three back country shelters (much like yurts in Europe, so you don't necessarily need to bring a tent, although without a screen for the bugs it seems like you would get bitten to death.) We stayed at the Hall Springs shelter, which is about 3 miles in on the trail, which gave us enough time to hike in before dark and get our camp set up. The weather has cooled slightly, making the evening bearable outside, even if the hiking is still quite sweaty.



Great Beginnings. Everything feels light when you first put it on. But even after 7 miles, I would say that my new pack definitely felt way better than what I remember of my old pack experience as a Scout. The modern internal frame back can be extremely well adjusted to sit right on the hips and then compact it to stay firmly on the back. We had to play with JP's pack several times, but I think we finally got it pretty dialed in.







Some sights along the trail.



Our shelter in the woods



Setting up camp. We put up our tent, minus the rainfly.





There was a nice spring near the shelter. We had borrowed a water filter and pumped several liters of water to refill our water bottles from it. We definitely need to get one of these, as they are way lighter than taking liters and liters of water and in Tennessee it is not hard to find a water source that just needs to be filtered.



JP tending the fire. The night started cooling off a bit, the fire was only for comfort, not warmth or cooking. We did take pleasure in how well we got it going using only our hot spark, a bit of lint, and gathered fire wood. I was really pleased with the hot sparks tool as it removes the need for matches that could get wet and lint is very light weight and lights beautifully. For our cook stove we brought our new butane stove. This worked very well. We simply boiled water and added it to our Mountain House beef stew packets (freeze dried and light). This seemed to work very well. Obviously since we were only going one night, we could have brought anything we wanted, but we wanted to get experience with what we might use for long trips. For all you more experienced backpackers out there, what do you like to take?

I spent some time trying to get a cellphone signal to find out if Michael Phelps had been able to win the 100 m fly. We didn't find out until Saturday afternoon. After letting our fire die out we went to bed. We were once again reminded of how deafeningly loud a Tennessee night is. Some day I will get someone to identify to me all the bugs and their personal sounds. Our semi-self-inflating sleeping pads worked well, although sleeping on a flat wooden platform probably wasn't that much of a test. Our tent is relatively large (and JP relatively small) so it wasn't as cramped as I thought it might be.



JP chopping wood. This is how we prepared firewood :-)







More sights along the way out. We felt pretty good, although a bit tired and our feet definitely hurt. Looks like we need to get some good hiking boots to take the additional strain of pack weight. We weighed our fully packed packs when we got home and mine was 23 pounds and JP's 18. I suspect that for a long trip the normal weight will be closer to 30 or 40, so we probably need to get stronger.

Tap Dancing

Last year, JA's ballet dance teacher left the public city programs to start her own dance studio. At that time, we couldn't afford the increased cost to keep JA in her class and JA had become less enthusiastic about doing ballet. This year, she decided she wanted to learn tap dancing, so she started in the basic beginner class. Here is a video of what she has learned so far.

Visit from UNA bee-ers

Last week our friends from UNA, who have added beekeeping to their long list of other hobbies, stayed overnight so they could attend the temple and go to GG's 7th birthday party. SI remains the last of our friends and family to be All But Dissertation, as NG, TD, and BB have all managed at long last to cross the finish line after leaving their graduate study university ABD and taking teaching jobs while finishing. SI is in the final editing stages and CI has sworn he can't train for another marathon or bike race until he finishes, so hopefully that will give him enough incentive to get it done.

JA drawings

JA has really taken a knack to drawing cartoon pets. I thought I would post a few of her pictures for you to see.

A dancing swan

ME has been taking a beginning rhythm and dance class and today was their little "recital" so here is a little clip of their "swan dance."

House Hunting

We have to admit that our house hunting became very discouraging this week. Last week we had found what we thought would be a perfect house, closer to work, lots of space, perfect neighborhood for us. However, we worried that it would be at the very top of our price range. We had tried to schedule time with our banker last week, but he was on vacation, so this week we finally got to sit down and figure out what price range we could afford.

Very disappointing news.

Because the only down payment we will have would be any profit from the sale of our current home, what we can afford is WAY less than what we would need for that sweet house and WAY less than the range we had been looking in based on estimated monthly payments that we knew we could afford within our new budget. The only good news is that according to what ever calculator/website that the bank uses to estimate the market value of our current home suggests that our home is worth a little bit more than we thought.

So now as we go thru the various web-site listings of homes, all we seem to find are homes that are either too far away for me to bike to work or in unwalkable neighorhoods or too ugly (I admit that I think a great many homes are just plain ugly and can't understand why someone would build something ugly and plain when for a little more money they could build a nice face on the house).

Dealing With Death

I suppose each of us respond to death in different ways. For me (SS) one of the manifestation is in my dreams. For about a year after my father died, I had a recurring dream of being stalked by a great white shark. The dream would take many different forms, but it usually involved ending up in deep gray water, often from a location that should not necessarily have had water associated with it, and then trying to escape while this shark mercilessly hunted me. The dream would end with me waking up in the middle of the night and my heart pounding.

A few nights ago the shark dreams returned, only but in a different form. Here I was in the water with several others after our boat had capsized, and the shark was not hunting me but another. In this dream we were trying to get to somewhere we could get out of the water and the shark was going past me as it homed in on this other person. In my dream I was pushing against the side of the shark trying get it to turn away but it was relentless. After it passed me, I found that there was a reef near to us that we could get out of the water and danger and I was screaming to this other person to climb up on to it, but he couldn't, and then the shark attacked him and tore him to bloody pieces in front of us. I woke up with my heart pounding. It didn't take me very much reflection to recognize that this dream was a response to the sudden death of my division chief, a good friend, mentor, and leader a few weeks ago.

Waiting for Pictures

I would like to post pictures of our newest nephew here, but his parents, which are otherwise quite technologically savvy and even have their own blog now, appear to have neglected their parental duties in this modern age and have not sent any digital images or posted on their blog even though baby C arrived two days ago.

Hopefully, they will take this very subtle hint....

UPDATE

Alright, at long last we finally have a photo. Parents claimed sleep deprivation kept them from being able to get on the computer (plus Grandma's sleeping mattress was in the way...)