My wife and I headed up to the Kisatchie Wild Azalea Trail for a back packing trip and camping trip this weekend. This trip was the start of our training for a possible 8 day backpacking trip in the fall to the Appalachian Trail. We want to hike the the southern end from where the trail starts in Georgia to the North Carolina line.
We got to the southern trail head in Woodworth, LA around 11am on Saturday which has a parking area which can hold about 6 cars. I was a little nervous to leave my truck over night, but it’s in a rural part of Woodworth so I took a chance and it turned out ok. No broken windows or damage to my truck when we finished. We got all of our gear ready and headed out on the trail. The trail runs about 26 miles north to Boyce, but we were only going to do 5 - 8 miles on this trip. The first part was a little wet, but after about a mile or two it got much dryer. Didn’t see many azaleas in bloom as we were a little early for that but I took a few pics of some I did see. The Trail is well marked with yellow diamonds on trees. It’s a well worn trail so no way of getting lost. Most of the trail meanders through pine forest with occasional oak bottoms and a few sections of cypress that follow a creek about 5 miles in. It was a little warmer than usual this weekend so we sweated up a storm and drank about 3 liters of water between us plus a Vitamin Water at the start at the trailhead by the time we set up camp. There was very few people on the trail so it was not crowded at all. We did meet a very nice kid solo camping and chatted with him a bit as he camped in the same general area we did.
We set up camp at around the 6 mile mark along a very nice sandy bottom creek. We were able to use the creek to refill our water bottles after filtering plus soak out battered feet in it to cool off. We lit a nice fire as we cooked our supper and before long the sun had set and we hit the hay. We didn’t sleep that well, but did get some sleep. The temp was warm at bed time but did cool off to the 60’s which made a nice morning. We made some coffee and ate some breakfast bars and hit the trail at 8 o’clock. We made it back to the truck in 3 hours and were pretty worn out. Both my boots and my wife’s boots caused foot issues for us. We got a few hot spots and my wife got some blisters. We did doctor our feet at camp with tape and new socks but we won’t hike with these boots ever again. We are going to start the quest for out boots in the near future as we gear up for our trip. We were able to see what worked and didn’t work and made notes for things we need and things we don’t need. Our packs weighed about 25 lbs with our water so we are close to being at the weight we need for our fall trip. We definitely were glad to see the truck as we were beat. All in all we had a great trip, saw some nice scenery and got some practice in ( checkout the American Carrion Beetle Genus- Necrophilaand eating a dead mouse. You can see the claw in the pic if you look real close)
We got to the southern trail head in Woodworth, LA around 11am on Saturday which has a parking area which can hold about 6 cars. I was a little nervous to leave my truck over night, but it’s in a rural part of Woodworth so I took a chance and it turned out ok. No broken windows or damage to my truck when we finished. We got all of our gear ready and headed out on the trail. The trail runs about 26 miles north to Boyce, but we were only going to do 5 - 8 miles on this trip. The first part was a little wet, but after about a mile or two it got much dryer. Didn’t see many azaleas in bloom as we were a little early for that but I took a few pics of some I did see. The Trail is well marked with yellow diamonds on trees. It’s a well worn trail so no way of getting lost. Most of the trail meanders through pine forest with occasional oak bottoms and a few sections of cypress that follow a creek about 5 miles in. It was a little warmer than usual this weekend so we sweated up a storm and drank about 3 liters of water between us plus a Vitamin Water at the start at the trailhead by the time we set up camp. There was very few people on the trail so it was not crowded at all. We did meet a very nice kid solo camping and chatted with him a bit as he camped in the same general area we did.
We set up camp at around the 6 mile mark along a very nice sandy bottom creek. We were able to use the creek to refill our water bottles after filtering plus soak out battered feet in it to cool off. We lit a nice fire as we cooked our supper and before long the sun had set and we hit the hay. We didn’t sleep that well, but did get some sleep. The temp was warm at bed time but did cool off to the 60’s which made a nice morning. We made some coffee and ate some breakfast bars and hit the trail at 8 o’clock. We made it back to the truck in 3 hours and were pretty worn out. Both my boots and my wife’s boots caused foot issues for us. We got a few hot spots and my wife got some blisters. We did doctor our feet at camp with tape and new socks but we won’t hike with these boots ever again. We are going to start the quest for out boots in the near future as we gear up for our trip. We were able to see what worked and didn’t work and made notes for things we need and things we don’t need. Our packs weighed about 25 lbs with our water so we are close to being at the weight we need for our fall trip. We definitely were glad to see the truck as we were beat. All in all we had a great trip, saw some nice scenery and got some practice in ( checkout the American Carrion Beetle Genus- Necrophilaand eating a dead mouse. You can see the claw in the pic if you look real close)
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