Sawtooth Camping

The other morning The Fuzz's Sweetie was sleeping in - especially for her since she is normally an early riser.  Then when she did get up she had a great idea for The Fuzz-

Go Camping!

Now it needs to be noted that this was not completely out of the blue as they say.  He had been talking about doing a little back packing for a while.  But other things had been coming up.  Like that little problem with the water at the Old Place.

(Which unfortunately has turned out to be a bit more complicated than first thought!)

Now it should be noted that Our Fuzz is not particularly good at spontaneity.  And he did have some reservations- one being that as it was a weekend the campsites would be filled.  But after a bit of discussion, in which she even offered to help pack his grub up there, he came around and decided to give it a shot.

So they went to town and hopefully gathered what gear he thought he would need, and a few groceries.

Then it was off to the South Mountain State Park.

 The Fuzz had been hoping to be able to get a pack-in site either at the Upper Falls camp, or Shinny Creek.

But as he had feared, these places were filled.

It seemed that the only opening was at the Sawtooth Camp, up on top of the ridge, which can be quite a climb- especially with a pack!

At this point The Fuzz almost chickened out.  But His Sweetie said she was still willing to go up with him.  And they had been told of an alternate route, 1½ miles longer, but much less "strenuous"

Here's a look at the map.

They would start at the picnic area and take the Little River Trail up to the Sawtooth Trail, and then on into the campground (almost 4mi).

So it was time for "One foot up, and one foot down".

It turned out that this route was much less
"strenuous" than the Chestnut Knob trail that they had used in the past.  And it was a rather pleasant hike-

even if long.

Most of the climbing was not too steep.

There was one little incident (at the point marked with the X) where The Fuzz busted his ass crossing the Little River.

But he landed on his pack, and nothing was hurt but his dignity.

Eventually they made it up the mountain and into the camp.

After a brief rest, His Sweetie took her leave, and started back down-

Remember, this was his camping trip!

With her gone The Fuzz got about unpacking and setting up camp.  That blue pad was what he landed on in the creek, now it's drying out on the table.

There were 3 sites here, and a couple of guys were already in #1*.

(The Fuzz had #3)

The Fuzz gathered up a bit of firewood and got ready to cook up some dinner.

Turned out that there was plenty of firewood around- which The Fuzz had not expected.  But he had been planning on going to the more heavily used sites.  And those tend to be pretty picked over.

Here there had been a fire in the past, and the woods were filled with dead-dried-out trees.  It was easy to get nice stuff with his folding camp saw.

Then before dark, more folks came to the last site, and everyone settled in for the night.

*This was the "closest to the water" site, which turned out to be insignificant- but more on this later.