3 days of Hammock Camping & Solo Ultralight Backpacking in Virginia’s George Washington National Forest.
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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
Join me for 3 days of Hammock Camping & Ultralight Backpacking on the Old Loggers Path in Pennsylvania’s Loyalsock State Forest.
For this 3 day, 2 night spring backpacking trip, I’ll be hiking a roughly 28 mile backpacking loop along babbling brooks, waterfalls, hardwoods and hemlocks. Being shoulder season in north central Pennsylvania, my weather ranged from highs in the 70’s down to just below freezing at night, with a little bit of rain sprinkled in for good measure.
Due to the weather, I packed some extra layers and a full set of rain gear. This increased my pack weight a bit, but I still managed to come in with a base weight of around 10.5 lbs or so. Water on the Old Loggers Path is fairly plentiful, so I got by with only carrying around 1 liter of water at a time.
Trail conditions on the OLP are a mix of nice flat dirt sections, punctuated by spurts of steep sections littered with Pennsylvania’s infamous rocks to keep you on your toes ; literally. Despite the occasional rough sections, the average daily gross elevation gain was only around 1,500 feet per day. I chose to do the loop in a counterclockwise direction, as this allowed me to camp in the Rock Run area after only about 7 miles after my mid-day start on day one.
Old Loggers Path – Route Overview – Sintax77
No permit is required for dispersed camping in the Loyalsock State Forest, so long as you are only camping one night at each campsite. You can find more information on the Loyalsock State Forest website here.
A detailed look at my 2017 Ultralight Backpacking Gear List (warm weather & 3-season)
For a detailed list of my backpacking gear, with itemized weights and descriptions, you can download PDF and CSV format copies of this list as well as lists for previous trips / videos my Gear Lists page.
Below is a simplified list of the backpacking items shown in the video (without weights or descriptions) along with links for details and current pricing.
Shelter
Hammock Body – Dutchware Half-Wit
Hammock Suspension – Dutchware Dyneema Beetle Buckle
Tarp – Hammock Gear Cuben Hex Tarp Tent spike – Titanium
Ground Cloth – Tyvek, long 3′ 6′ – I forgot to show this in the video. I like to place this under my hammock for organizing gear, keeping my feet dry when changing / getting out of the hammock and for wrapping around my pack to keep it dry during windy rain storms. 4 oz. A 3’x3′ square can get the job done as well for half the weight.