Category Archives: Hammock Camping

50 Miles of Hammock Camping in 3 Days – Backpacking on Cranberry Lake

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3 days of Backpacking & Hammock Camping along Cranberry Lake in the Adirondacks

FTC Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission for purchases made through some of my links.

For this adventure, I decided to do a fall backpacking trip with some higher trail mileage than I’ve been doing lately. Nestled in New York’s Five Pond Wilderness, the Cranberry Lake 50 is a fifty mile loop hike that circumnavigates it’s namesake, and passes by many smaller ponds along the way as well. Most of these smaller ponds have campsites or even a lean-to shelter nearby, which is quite nice.

The CL50 is not really an individual trail, but a collection of trail sections from 12 other trails is the area.  The route is well blazed with blue CL50 plastic discs nailed to trees along the way.  The trails used to make up the CL50 are blazed with similar yellow trail discs, so you will often see both blazes simultaneously.

The Cranberry Lake 50 goes directly through two towns – Wanakena, where I started, and the town of Cranberry Lake.  There’s only about 10 trail miles between them, so neither really poses much logistical value for resupplying, but they are nice towns to stroll through.

I chose to do the loop counter clockwise from Wanakena because the last 10 miles traverse some muddy wet sections due to beaver dams, so I figured it would be best to save that for the last afternoon.

I typically like to hike my backpacking trips on a 3 day, 2 night timeline, so that meant my daily trail mileage had to be around 17 miles or so during the shortened daylight hours of October.  On the upside, this hike is primarily along the perimeter of a lake, with minimal elevation changes, but did I mention that I hadn’t done a high mileage trip in a while? Yeah, the headlamp got a good amount of usage on this one. Let the night hiking begin…

Route Overview – Cranberry Lake 50 Backpacking Loop – Sintax77

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Hundred Degree Hammock Camping with Thunderstorms – Black Forest Trail

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3 days of Backpacking, Thunderstorms & Hammock Camping in Heavy Rain on a section of Pennsylvania’s Black Forest Trail. 

For this adventure,  I headed out for a 3 day, 2 night solo backpacking trip in Pennsylvania’s Tiadaghton State Forest.  The full Black Forest Trail is a rugged 43 mile loop with 8,550′ of elevation gain that I’ve done in the past and really enjoyed.

Facing a July forecast in the triple digits with thunderstorms, and the fact that my last solo hike was a pretty intense one, I decided to scale the mileage back this time.  My general plan was to simply go into the woods and use the network of connector trails to come up with a route on the fly, based on how the weather played out from day to day.

Black Forest Trail Short Loop – Route Overview – Sintax77

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Hammock Camping on the Six Husbands Trail

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Hammock Camping and Solo Backpacking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire

FTC Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission for purchases made through some of my links.

For this adventure, I decided to get back to my ultralight backpacking roots with a rugged 27 mile loop through the Great Gulf Wilderness, Dry River Wilderness, and Presidential Range, with a gross elevation gain of around 8,400 feet. The centerpiece of my loop would be the Six Husbands Trail, a trail that some say is the most difficult in the White Mountain National Forest. Now , if you’re familiar with the WMNF, you probably know that just about every trail is pretty intense, so this could get interesting…

For sleep and shelter, I went with my standard minimalist hammock camping setup consisting of a 10 oz hammock, 5 oz tarp, and a pair of 40° down quilts.  This got my base weight down to around 7 lbs. A full gear list can be found at the bottom of this post.

The Six Husbands Trail was Built from 1909 to 1910 by trail builder Warren W. Hart of the Appalachian Mountain club. Hart was known to build his trails specifically with adventure in mind, and this trail was no exception. It begins deep in the Great Gulf Wilderness at the junction with Wamsutta Trail, which along with the connected Alpine Garden trail is actually just the renamed southern portion of the Six Husbands trail. Wamsutta was one the six husbands of female Indian Chief, Weetamoo, who has a nearby waterfall named after her.

White Mountains Six Husbands Backpacking Loop – Route Overview – Sintax77

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3 Days Hammock Camping with 8 Pounds of Gear

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3 days of Hammock Camping & Solo Ultralight Backpacking in Virginia’s George Washington National Forest.

FTC Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission for purchases made through some of my links.

For this backpacking trip, I headed down to the border of Virginia and West Virginia for some early spring camping to get a dose of some warmer weather, babbling brooks, and mountain views.

With the milder temps and decent forecast, I was able to get my base weight down to 7.75 pounds, a welcome change after hauling some pretty heavy loads my previous few backpacking trips.

For sleep and shelter, I went with my minimalist hammock camping setup consisting of a 10 oz hammock, 5 oz tarp, and a pair 40° down quilts.  The 14 mile Little Schloss Loop has a decent amount of unofficial, but preestablished campsites with some nice  open areas and decently spaced trees, making it a great loop for hammocks. You can find my full backpacking gear list for this trip at the end of this post.

Water is plentiful on the Little Stony Creek side of the loop, but the ridge side of the loop that I started with is dry for the first 5 miles, so I packed in a full load of water for my first day.  Finding water every couple of miles on the remaining two days was no problem at all.

Route Overview – Little Schloss Backpacking Loop – Sintax77

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Deep Woods Camping & Finding a Cessna 414

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FTC Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission for purchases made through some of my links.

For this backpacking trip, we hiked into the Cranberry Wilderness in search of a twin engine private plane that crashed in 1995 and went missing for 6 years, deep in the forests of a remote West Virginia mountaintop.  There was also a hiker who went missing here back in 2011.

For sleep and shelter, Frank and I both decided to pack in our Amok Draumr Hammock camping systems. This would allow us to get a comfortable camping setup even if we were forced to camp in one of the mossy rock fields that are often encountered along mountain ridges in the Cranberry Wilderness.  A detailed gear list can be found at the bottom of this post.

On the morning of November 28th, 1995, a Cessna 414, tail number N28901 took off from Braxton County Airport in Sutton, West Virginia headed for Lynchburg Regional, Virginia.  After encountering low visibility due to foggy conditions, the lone pilot contacted air traffic control to request an IFR (instrument flight rules) flight plan in order to continue navigating the approaching mountainous terrain.  After a period of apparent poor communications, possibly due to a radio issue, ATC lost contact with the pilot.  Transponder signals ceased not long after the last communication, and the plane was never heard from or seen again until it was spotted from the air over six years later.

More info on N28901 can be found in this copy of the NTSB report.

Cranberry Wilderness Cessna 414 Search Route Overview - Sintax77

Route Overview – Cranberry Wilderness Cessna 414 Backpacking Trip  – Sintax77

No permit is required to backcountry camp in the Monongahela National Forest.

Full GPS track data, including campsites, etc, for this trip and many others can be downloaded on my Trip Data Page.

Trailhead Used: Big Beechy Trailhead, 38°17’44.2″N 80°14’55.7″W
Highland Scenic Hwy, Minnehaha Springs, WV 24954

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Solo Backpacking the Virginia Triple Crown – Appalachian Trail Section Hike

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3 Days of Backpacking, Hiking & Hammock Camping on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia.

For this late summer backpacking trip I’ll be hiking the Virginia Triple Crown, which consists of three iconic Virginia hiking destinations – McAfee Knob, Tinker Cliffs, and Dragon’s Tooth.

To create the loop, I essentially took an Appalachian Trail section hike and combined it with the North Mountain trail to close it off into a 35 mile backpacking loop. This gave me a healthy southern mix of mountain hiking, open pastures, and sweeping summit views.

I went with my most basic warm weather ultralight backpacking gear list for this trip, just to keep things simple and light. Due to the threat of rain, I also included a full set of rain gear. Surprisingly how I was still able to keep my base weight down to around 7.5 lbs. This was mostly achieved by simply leaving non critical items at home. Notable items are below or you can see my full gear list with weights & gear links on LighterPack here.

 

 

Virginia Triple Crown Route Overview – Sintax77

No permit is required to camp in this area, but there are some camping restrictions along the Appalachian Trail portion of the hike as well as some private land traversals.  You can find more information on the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club site here.

While on the AT in this area, you may only camp at one of the four designated shelters. Since I was exclusively on the AT for the entire first day, this gave me the following  camping options:

  • Jonh’s Spring Shelter
  • Catawba Shelter (reliable water)
  • Campbell Shelter
  • Lambert’s Meadow Shelter (reliable water)

I chose to camp near Lambert’s Meadow Shelter, as it was the farthest one into the loop and offered reliable water.

Full GPS track data, including campsites, water sources, etc, for this trip and many others can be downloaded on my Trip Data Page.

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