Camping in the Manistee National Forest

Thursday, 12 August 2010

I went last weekend with my brother in law John who's walked the trail before. There were lots of other hikers, canoers and views of the river from high up.

Friday
we arrived at the trail at 6pm, hiked 5 miles then camped around 8pm

Saturday
we had all day to hike 15 miles, stopping for lunch and to fish in the river.around 2am it started pouring with rain and there was tons of thunder and lightning
it's hard to tell here but it rained so hard that my pack got a little wet, but was fine in the morning.
Sunday
woke up a bit sore but walked 5 more miles back to the car .

Typical part of the trail along one of the hills




Panorama views (click to enlarge)

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Swamp Pole Vaulting

Wednesday, 12 August 2009

So the last day in the swamps we were all pretty excited about going home and i was particularly happy that morning. Normally when we came to a creek that was too deep to cross we would try to either go around or just wade through it. This time i had a different idea. I figured i could pole vault across.

Just to note ... that was a mistake.

Here's what i had going against me:

• big rubber boots
• 1" of mud inside the boots
• 2" of water in the boots
• insufficient approach distance
• forgetting that a swamp has 3 feet of mud at the bottom
• lack of athletic ability

Now this first time the pole sank into the mud right as i pushed down.
In spite of that i still almost made it all the way across. Really i did.
I landed mostly on the other shore...

Here's the video:

Being the smart guy that i am, on the way back i just knew that i could make it across. This time i left the pole stuck in the mud from the first jump so that it wouldn't sink any more. Too bad it was way out in the middle of the river and when i jumped instead of pushing me forward, the angle at the top pushed me backwards. I believe the word you're thinking of is FAIL!

I guess i was thinking that "low running" would somehow help???

Right here i'm thinking "oh ya....i got this"

This is about the point where i realized that the pole was in no way helping. Notice the angle of the pole is still pointed backwards.

Video #2:

To my defense, if i hadn't of jumped i would have waded through the water anyway. But there's nothing better then being up to your waist in mud at 8am, then have to work 12 more hours.

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