My friend Travis gets the itch for fall and winter camping each year and invites me along. This year we’re also both trying to get some good camping in before our respective wives give birth in December and February. So this past weekend we went for a quick trip out to the George Washington National Forest.
Since Cherie is very pregnant and struggling to sleep on our very comfy bed at home, and the doctor recommended no more off roading past 24 weeks, she did not join me on this trip. Travis’ wife Jenny was in a similar position, so it would just be a guys weekend.
I met Travis at his house Saturday morning and we headed south to Harrisonburg. There we would meet our two other campers. Mike, an old college friend of Travis’, would be leaving his car in Harrisonburg and riding with Travis. Jesse, a friend from previous trips, would be tagging along in his Jeep Wrangler. Travis and I had time for some lunch at the O’Charley’s before the others arrived.
Once everyone was there we grabbed some firewood at Home Depot and I grabbed a small single burner camping stove that burns isobutane-propane. I’ve been considering one of these for a while to give us a compact stove option for the weekends we just want to heat some water. Also it should be more resistant to frozen fuel than our purely propane two-burner stove.
Then we were off. We poked around in the woods until we found a spot. We nicknamed the spot the Riverbend Campsite because it’s in the crook of the stream/river that comes down the mountain. That being said it was bone dry when we arrived. It had not rained much recently.
After setting up camp we continued up the mountain and made it the whole way to Flagpole Knob. After Flagpole we made it down to Meadow Knob. We ran into two mountain bikers that had just come up the mountain to Meadow Knob who were wondering how much further to the top of the mountain. They intended to continue to Flagpole in the morning but had underestimated their water needs and were a little concerned. We gave them several bottles of water since we had lots! After doing a few more head bobs and taking in the view from Meadow Knob we headed back to camp to settle in for the evening.
Not much to say after that. We had a nice evening in camp just getting away from the stressors of daily life for 24 hours. Mike had some excitement when a tree branch crashed down onto his tent in the middle of the night, and it of course rained overnight making our stuff wet, but other than that the night was uneventful. The rain on the tent while sleeping was nice though!
We packed up and headed out toward Harrisonburg. We split up as we hit town with each vehicle going somewhere different. I hit Krispy Kreme on the way out of town and go some festive doughnuts!
