Minister Creek, PA

Well, it wasn't but a short three days that I was back from Montana when I packed the ol' sleeping bag for another trip. This time, I wasn't sleeping on the floor of a warm apartment in Bozeman. I was going to be sleeping on the cold hard ground in the dead of winter. Time to break my North Face 0° mummy bag out and put it to some good use.

So, I went on a weekend winter-camping/backpacking/snowshoeing trip to MInister Creek in the Allegheny Nat'l Forest in Northwest PA with some guys from my church. I was excited, because I had been snowshoeing before, but never on a long term trip. In addition, we had received virtually no snow this winter in Coshocton, so I was snow deprived. Back in the dark ages when Helfinstine roamed the earth and heat transfer was the dreaded saturday class with Dr. Clauss, I made several trips to Minister Creek for some fun backpacking and camping. However, the difference contrasted with my previous trips was that I had to lead a bunch of inexperienced campers on the first or second trip, trying to introduce them to the joys of camping. These guys were prepared! It was so refreshing to be able to concentrate on my own gear and my own needs and not have to constantly evaluate whether so and so had extra batteries for their flashlights, or if I was going to have to carry them out after they fell out of the tree that they were climbing. Here you see a very cold sunrise on Saturday morning - the temperature was about 10-15°F both mornings. Brisk. Wakes you right up. Where's that hot oatmeal, Robert? Here is a photo of Robert & Steve checking their waypoints against a compass and map. Robert (The Black Goat) wanted to make sure that we had a true wilderness experience, so he had plotted out many waypoints onto a TopoUSA map of Minister Creek, and connected those waypoints with straight lines, and not well-traveled trails. Robert seemed to have a real adversion for trails (perhaps he had been forced to walk on trails as a small child...I'm not sure). As we trudged along in our snowshoes, bushwacking through the woods, you could distinctly tell when the ground underfoot changed from soft and cushy to a familiar hard-packed trail. No sooner would we arrive on a trail, when Robert would point us 90° to the right or the left. It was hilarious. The same principles held for bridges. Bridges were shunned, just as trails were. Now, to be fair, snowshoes combined with gore-tex boots and a shallow stream bed make for an okay stream crossing. I didn't have the skill that Brad had (as shown in the above photo). I managed to spe-lunk my feet into Minister Creek just before the big climb out of the valley. It was cold and I needed some serious time in front of the fire to dry out later. All in all, I had a very enjoyable time over the weekend, getting to know these guys better, getting to trudge around outside in the snow all day (we hiked about 14 miles over the two days, at about 1 mi/hr average speed). It was good exercise, and good fellowship.