My first impressions of this place were all disappointing. This was not the forest that I had expected. This place wasn't all that different from parts of Iowa, Northeast Kansas, or Upstate New York. The coal mines that I had driven by, on the roads northeast of Herod, gave me the feeling that I was in more of an industrial paradise rather than the wilderness retreat I was looking for. Compared to Yellowstone, this place was just another pasture with scattered patches of trees. I didn't need to drive 700 miles for this!
I began to hope that I was missing something about this place. Maybe the "backpackers paradise" was there, and I just couldn't see it. It was Sunday, and I had until Friday to turn this thing around. Perhaps the Trail Society's guidebook would give me a better feeling about the forest. I went back to The Gap. The owner of the store told me that John O'Dell's store, The Trails Emporium, burnt down two months earlier. He also told me where O'Dell lived, so I decided to visit John at home. I drove up to John's place, but nobody would answer the door. So much for that!
After failing to obtain a guidebook that day, I decided to make camp at Garden Of The Gods. In contrast to the scene at the campground that very morning, the place was abandoned at 1500. When I discovered that I had the campground all to myself, I felt that things might start going my way. I choose Site #2, which was fairly close to the outhouse and a short walk from the well.
Garden Of The Gods is a nice place. It is not spectacular, but it does have some interesting sandstone formations, a nice little campground, a picnic area, hiking trails, and an "interpretive trail" where one can learn a few things about the geology of the place. A few thousand people visit the Garden on weekends, so it can be crowded. It was very pleasant when everyone was gone.
Except for a parade of cars that rolled through the campground, about one every half-hour, I had a quiet evening. I cooked a dinner of hamburger and noodle stroganoff, and lit a campfire. The logs that I had used for the fire had been riding around in the bed of my truck for over a year. My cousin, Tommy Reed, had given them to me for my trip to Yellowstone. I didn't use them on my earlier trip, because I couldn't get them to burn. I had brought some fire starters for this trip, so they burned well.
My state of solitude was broken around 8:00 PM, when a family of 5 rolled in to camp. The party consisted of a married couple with 3 girls. They had the good sense to keep their distance from me and my little territory, so promptly began to ignore them.
I slept reasonably well that night. I was able to roll the rainfly on my tent back and allow plenty of air to circulate throughout. I heard raccoons carousing and growling in the trees. I awoke around 0500 and decided to get up in the pre-dawn stillness. The fire was still smoldering, so I grabbed another fire starter and piled-on the last of the logs. The air was chilly. As daylight came, I made breakfast and plans for the day.
My enthusiasm for backpacking was weak. This placed seemed all wrong, not at all what I had been led to expect. But maybe there was more to it. Perhaps I had trained too much? I had given up on my training hikes in the two weeks before my departure. I had grown sick of hiking in Iowa, and I thought that a change of scenery would renew my interest. Whatever the reasons for my reluctance, I decided to try to shake it off. My plan for the day was to hike around the Garden Of The Gods.
I set off at the trailhead adjacent to the campground. I felt that I was well prepared for a moderate hike. The top of my backpack converts neatly into a large fanny pack, which I stuffed with a poncho, first-aid kit, and compass. I also carried a quart of water in a Nalgene bottle that fit nicely into a pocket on the fanny pack. I probed ahead, around rocks and roots, for rattlesnakes as I walked. I had heard that there wasn't any shortage of rattlers in those woods and that it pays to watch one's step. My chosen trail traversed a 1.6-mile loop from the picnic ground to the parking lot near Anvil Rock.
I was a bit uneasy as I stumbled through the forest. The trail was narrow, rutted, and rocky. Autumn leaves had been falling there for weeks, providing camouflage and cover to the creatures of the forest floor. I was sure that I would hear a rattlesnake before I saw it. I tried to convince myself that the anxiety I was feeling provided a heightened sense of adventure.
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