Standing Indian Loop

11/16 - 11/18 (2 nights)
2018 bag nights: 35

I met JC and his wife and friend for a weekend of backpacking. JC and I generally try to get at least one trip together each year, but his wife had never joined us before and this was the Julia's first time backpacking. The weather forecast was close to perfect, highs around 50 and lows around freezing with basically zero chance of rain. The weather forecast was the only reason I ended up doing this since I had been fighting a chest cold/bronchitis for the last couple days.

We decided to do the Standing Indian Loop, a place where the Appalachian Trail does a kind of loop as it follows the ridge. One concern was the loop is about 25 miles, most people do it over 3 days/2 nights. We had three nights planned, but since we were driving about 5 hours we thought it would work ok.

We met about 1:00 and started hiking up the Kinsley Creek Trail towards Standing Indian Mountain. The trail parallels the creek for a bit and then starts climbing up to the Appalachian Trail and then the summit, a total climb of about 2300 feet over 5.5 miles.

We got to the summit just in time for sunset, but it was really windy and about 35 degrees, so it was hard to linger and enjoy. The combination of hiking and being sick hit me pretty hard, I cooked dinner and then was unable to eat anything. I ended up laying in my hammock for about 2 hours, then got up and drank more water and ate some gorp and talked for a bit before heading for bed and hoping to feel better in the morning.

I woke up just in time to see the sun peak over the ridge. The wind had died down and it was a beautiful morning.

I went back to the top to check out the view with my coffee. I felt a lot better and decided that I could keep hiking.

Weird piece of junk just off the trail

Today was just hiking the AT, very easy hiking without a lot of the ups and downs the AT usually has in the southeast.

We passed a couple boy scout groups and a bunch of other people which made us want to avoid camping near the shelters. We ended up hiking about 10.5 miles to Mooney Gap which set us up for an easy day hike to Pickens Nose in the morning. The views were great, I'd like to see it in the fall with the leaves changing.

Woke up the next day after coughing all night, still sick, but mostly feel fine. Today was the climb to the Albert Mountain Firetower a climb of about 1000 feet over 1.5 miles.

The last couple days, the galax leaves had been catching my eye, so I decided that I should finally take a photo.

Looking up at the firetower

View from the top of Albert Mountain

The firetower itself is in great shape, much better than some I have seen.

We had thought about camping here or nearby and catching the sunset, but it was only 1:00. After a little bit of discussion, we decided that we could be at the cars in about 2 hours and a cheeseburger and beer sounded really good. So, down the trail we went.

In retrospect there were a couple nice spots about a mile or two from the road, we should have camped there and made a beer run to the trailhead and then had an easy hike out in the morning. As it was, I had an easy drive and got home about 10:30 pm. It was nice to sleep in my own bed and see my kids in the morning.

The whole area is really pretty with a couple of nice view points, but it was way to crowded and not long enough given the drive time. I'm not sure I'll be back, but if I do return, it would be in the middle of the week to try to avoid the crowds.

Sweden part 2

6/2 - 6/15/18

After my kayak trip in the Stockholm Archipelago, we rented a house on the edge of the mainland about a half hour outside of Stockholm for a couple nights. We ended up mostly just hanging out because my youngest had a raging fever/ear infection. We ended up finding a dr in the small town nearby and he basically said "rub some dirt on it and get back in the game" (no antibiotics for you)!

This is looking down at the sauna/guest house, there were about 100 steps to get down to the dock and the row boat.

Kids go to bed, wife and I enjoy the quiet and then down to the dock for sunset.

Then back to Stockholm for a couple days while my wife finished up work stuff. My wife loved Stockholm, but she got to enjoy it without kids for a couple weeks. I only saw it with kids (one with an ear infection), so I don't have fond memories. We did get another interaction with the Swedish medical system after the ear infection turned into a burst ear drum on our last night, this time antibiotics were prescribed which sort of helped, but the US doctor just laughed when he saw her about 10 days later and said that there was still a massive infection and the antibiotics were not strong enough.

So after a couple of days in Stockholm, we rent a car and load up for the west coast of Sweden and the small town of Fjallbacka for a couple nights. We took a boat ride ...

There are a lot of islands not far from the mainland with lots of vacation homes. The actress Ingrid Bergman had a summer home on one of the islands.

According to the boat captain/tour guide, this little white house is an outhouse

I took the kids on a hike up the Kings Passage, it is a split in the large rock cliff next to town. The stairs give access to the top of the ridge and great views of the harbor below.

We also enjoyed a walk through town and the cemetery after dinner one night.

I did a little exploring myself waiting for sunset along the harbor.

Sunset from above the Kings Passage

One day we drove about a half hour to see the rock carvings at Tanum. These are ~2500 years old and depict boats, people and animals.

Because the carvings are shallow and hard to see, some of them have been filled in with paint.

All of the carvings are on slopes that would at times have water sheeting across them and would supposedly be easier to see at certain times of day/year when the light hits them just right.

A man (the black things at the top are like sandbags and appeared to be placed to keep water from sheeting across the figure).

A boat

another boat

and another boat

A horse

A warrior

After Fjallbacka, we headed south to Lysekil for a couple more nights. On the edge of town is a nature preserve that has great views of the water and sunset. I was very happy that our Airbnb was an easy walk to this area for sunset a couple different nights.

An interesting bit of graffiti from the late 1800's

One day we drove to Nordens Ark, a zoo for endangered animals. Some of the animals are "local" and others are "foreign".

View from the Airbnb window

The nature preserve (Stangehuvud) is the site of an old granite quarry. The land was purchased by a local woman and donated as a preserve. My wife took the kids to the local aquarium and I got a couple hours to explore the preserve.

The church steeple across the rocks.

In one place, I stumbled across a small pond filled with water lillies.

We then headed back to Stockholm and our flight home. We stopped at Sigtuna, a small tourist town with lots of ruins. By this point, I was ready to be done with travel and was not feeling the call of photography, so not many photos.

Sweden is a gorgeous country with very nice people, but sadly, a little far from the US, so no idea when/if we will return.