Quehanna Wild Area Backpack, Mid-November, Day 1

"So, do you have to work tomorrow?" my husband asked me on Thursday morning, as we were both getting ready for work. And when I checked my work calendar and discovered there was nothing critical on it, I agreed to take Friday off. The weather was to be milder than it had been the prior week, and he wanted to get one last night out. I voted for car-camping, which is easier, but my husband lobbied for one last backpack trip of the year to our favorite back-country site in the Quehanna Wild Area into the Valley of the Elk.

The only problem was that my husband had a rescheduled dentist appointment set for Friday morning at 8:15, in Philipsburg, a town that we would usually drive through to get to Quehanna. But if we could do most of our packing the night before and have everything ready to leap into the car by about 7:45 in the morning, we just might be able to do it.

Thursday night found us putting everything into high gear to make our plan work. After doing our weekly grocery shopping, I came home and unloaded the car and started packing up my gear for the trip. The cat, of course, was a very big help, doing all of his routine quality assurance checks on the tent, the sleeping bag, the backpack. ("Ship shape and ready to roll, mum!" was his report. He left his calling card amid my gear - a few pieces of Tabby-fuzz, and perhaps a whisker or two - "Inspected by Tabby Inspector #1.")

Friday morning found us all up and around in our fastest and most expeditious mode. Our gear quickly went into the car: two backpacks, two tents, two groundsheets, two sleeping bags, two sets of sleeping pads, a cooler, two small fold-up chairs, two sets of hiking boots. At the last minute, my husband had made a fresh pot of coffee, and the Stanley thermos took the whole thing. A special treat: hot coffee for later!

While my husband went in for his dentist appointment, I finished the book I'd been reading, the latest in Dan Brown's Robert Langdon series. The timing was perfect. A huge hardback book, it was too heavy to carry with me into the woods. I shut the book a few minutes before my husband walked out of the dentist's office. Then we were off to McDonald's to have a hearty breakfast before heading to the woods. I savored the steak, egg, and cheese bagel I had, along with a hot and crispy hashbrown, knowing that it would be something I'd fantasize about the next morning in the wilderness, far from hearth and home.

We were in the parking area at Quehanna in short order, and in near-record time, we had our gear packed up and we were hiking into the back-country. There was just a smattering of snow in the shadows, left over from earlier in the week. The forest service folks had been doing some work somewhere nearby: a pair of large machines sat idle near the gate to the parking lot, and a set of muddy roads gave evidence of their handiwork (and made hiking through with a backpack a slippery, muddy mess).

We arrived at our back-country site before noon, and we set down our gear and got ready to relax. I really had just one more task to do on this day, and so I went ahead and got it out of the way. I stretched out my groundsheet, set up my tent (I took the old one this time, as the footprint of the newer one is a bit larger, and I wasn't sure it would fit in the narrow spot where I camp between the pine trees), and set up my gear inside. Two small blankets on the floor, followed by two sleeping pads, one sleeping bag, and on top a fleece sleeping bag liner. My husband had brought his down sleeping bag, as overnight temps were expected to go below freezing. Without the fleece liner, I wouldn't stay warm enough in the night.

And then we took our little chairs and headed out to the rock overlooking the Valley of the Elk, where we spent the rest of the sunny, mild afternoon. Once we were settled in, I grabbed my camera and walked down along the creek. In this photo, you see the stream, one of the many tributaries of Mosquito Creek, which in turn runs down into the valleys of the Susquehanna.

It was a fine, golden, sunny, blue-sky day - just delightful to be outside. On a prior trip this past spring, I found an elk horn along the creek, but there were no elk horns to be found today. (And maybe never again; I have no idea how rare it is to find elk horns in the wilderness, but that one was the first and only in my life so far.)

I took many pictures, then wandered back up the hill to the rock, where my husband was sitting reading his book, the music playing beside him. We contemplated how lucky we were to have such good weather - in November, no less! - and how fortunate we were that our schedules permitted this unexpected trip.

Late in the afternoon, a good breeze kicked up and made staying on the rock more of a challenge. So we walked back to our campsite to have some sandwiches and snacks and drinks. And then we returned to the rock to watch the nearly-full moon rise over the tamaracks in the Valley of the Elk, while we drank steaming-hot cups of coffee and contemplated our luck. To be here, in the Valley of the Elk, one last time before winter. What unexpected good fortune!

And as dusk fell, the moon disappeared behind some low clouds, and we were finally able to let go of the sky and head back under the pines. My husband lit the candle lantern and it cast a golden glow through the woods. In the distance, we heard the yip and yowl of coyotes. As it got colder, I put on all of the layers I had. And finally wrapped myself in blankets and crawled into my tent, and then into my fleece liner and into my sleeping bag, and settled in for the cold night ahead. And every time I awoke, I could look up into the sky through the stargazer panel and see the peekaboo moon.

The soundtrack is a song for a golden, sunny, blue-sky day: David Bowie, with Golden Years. This version is from one of my favorite films, A Knight's Tale.

P.S. Viewers with a discerning eye who look closely will see the tiny figure of my husband standing on our favorite rock, in the upper left corner of this shot.

Interested readers can catch up on our second day's adventures here.