Featured Adventure: Wildcat Hollow Backpacking Trail – Part 2

Day 2

I awoke around 7:45am the next morning to Ruby tilting her head, staring at the tent wall trying to figure out what the noise outside was. That noise was my brother’s snoring from the other tent. I laughed to myself and unzipped the tent to let Ruby out. Then I got dressed and followed her. For a weekend in June, the night had gotten pretty chilly and the morning chill nipped at me when I emerged.  I put on a fleece and went about my morning routine. When I had a nice pot of coffee ready, I used this information to entice Caleb and Kevin from their tent. We ate a leisurely breakfast of Pop Tarts © and oatmeal and then broke camp.

Setting out Day 2

On the trail

We set out on the trail at about 11 am. Had I been able to see the future, I would have gotten us onto the trail earlier. Given the pace we had been keeping the night before, I naively expected us to be able to keep a similar pace throughout our day of hiking.

We hiked through the lush trails in the forest enjoying the fresh air and overcast skies. The trail dipped and climbed repeatedly and soon took us briefly along a back-country road. As we followed the blazes to head back into the woods, we passed an abandoned, one-room schoolhouse.

Abandoned Schoolhouse

After we finished exploring the schoolhouse, we headed back into the woods. We encountered some volunteers from the Buckeye Trail working on maintaining the trail. They had cut a a nice path through all the tall grass and we profusely thanked them as we continued on.

We hiked for a couple more hours until my brother started to complain that his feet were starting to blister. The trail was overgrown where we were. So there wasn’t a very good place to stop to rest. He sat for a moment on a log and adjusted his socks. We then hiked for maybe another 20 minutes and found a great campsite to rest at about 1:30pm.

Resting on a log

At the campsite, Caleb tended to his feet by creating moleskin bandages while Kevin and I prepared lunch. We snacked on Caleb’s amazing trail mix and ate tuna and crackers. By this time, we were all starting to run out of water. It was hot out and every stream we had crossed was bone dry. We were just past the halfway point on the trail so we had a significant amount of trail left to cover. Our pace wasn’t what I had hoped it would be. So we really needed to find water soon.

We didn’t rest long after lunch. The trail headed into some really steep ups and downs and after a couple miles, we were all getting tired again. The sun came out and made everything even hotter. Caleb was the first to run out of water since we were using his water jug for most of the cooking in camp the previous night. I refilled his water bottle from my Camelbak so we could keep going.

We covered continuous steep ups and downs

As the trail continued, it opened into a pine grove and the trail widened. The path here was pretty open and we enjoyed the slightly easier passing. Through the trees, Caleb spotted a pond and went running towards it screaming something incoherent about water. Ruby seemed to have the same idea and was the first to get close. As soon as she approached the shore however, she immediately sank completely into the mud. Luckily, she was able to free herself and jump back out. The pond was a stagnant bog and we decided that it would not be in our best interest to try to drink this water. We continued on as I thought about how I was going to have to spend the night in a tent with my very muddy companion.

Taking a quick break on the trail.

We continued on, hot and thirsty, hoping to find water before we made camp for the night. When we were about 10 miles into the trail, we were hiking around a large incline and all just sat down to rest on the side of the hill exhausted. Kevin, Caleb, and even Ruby all fell asleep for a bit.

Ruby napping on the trail

They awoke feeling reinvigorated and we made great time. We covered the next mile very quickly. As we came down around a bend we spotted what we thought might be water in a creek through the trees. The overgrowth was so thick that we couldn’t see clearly and we couldn’t find a good way to get through. According to the map, we were going to cross this creek in less than a mile. With this in mind, we picked up our pace even more, praying that the creek would not be dry.

Enjoying the creek

To everyone’s delight, the creek was not dry! Caleb quickly started soaking his blistered feet. Ruby ran up and down the middle of the creek drinking water the entire time. Kevin and I took turns filtering water to refill our supplies. Back on the trail, we headed from the low point of the creek up a very steep 350 foot climb. At the top we were all exhausted and decided to look at the map. There were still another two visits to the low point and two more 350 foot climbs.

Caleb was visibly exhausted and was unsure if he could do two more climbs. We encouraged him with the prospect that he would not have to do these climbs in the morning. He reluctantly agreed. By the midpoint of the last hill, he was stopping repeatedly and we were all exhausted. When we finally made it to the top of the hill, we found a beautiful campsite in a pine grove. Caleb collapsed on the ground happy to have made it.

Caleb exhausted at the top of the hill

After we setup camp, we had an awesome dinner of Dinty Moore beef stew. We stayed up cooking S’mores around the fire and feeling triumphant.

The next morning, the hike out was only a little over a mile. It didn’t take us long to be back at the trailhead. We piled into the Jeep, cranked the A/C as high as it could go, and headed for home.

Finished the trail selfie