Backpacking Mammoth Cave National Park - Destination: "The Bluffs"

 Over the years I've done a favorable amount of backpacking, enough anyway to feel accomplished at the endeavor. I've done far more canoe camping but both are excellent outdoor activities and they share some common elements that tend to blend their requirements into similar techniques. I recently made a return visit to spend time backpacking into the backcountry of Mammoth Cave National Park. While it is but a few miles up the road from where I live, the location has remained a somewhat neglected outdoor resource for me. Even so, there is an abundance of above ground outdoor opportunity awaiting anyone desiring a near wilderness adventure.

This year I jumpstarted my Beyond the Campfire Adventure Photography video series with the intent to motivate myself into getting out to photograph and explore the great outdoors more while I still have the ability to do so. As I climb toward the big 70 in age, my physical ability to purposely stress myself beyond what is ordinary has started to diminish to some degree. 

Although I've stayed in pretty good shape for someone my age (lost 35 lbs, strength training at the gym, jumping rope, punching a heavy bag...and so on), my old body sometimes pushes back reminding me to slow down and take it easy for a little while. I've learned to listen to it in spite of the fact that my hearts desire tells me I'm still 25 years old.

My backpacking gear consists of mostly 25 years and older equipment...all venerable and functional...but, a bit on the heavy side. Today's modern, lightweight equipment was just a pipe dream back when I first started backpacking. Back then my budget allowed for only rudimentary and often heavy gear collected from the likes of the local Army Surplus Store, garage sales, and the local discount sporting goods store...a good portion of it was homemade make-do gear.

Similar to Mine

I use a 40-plus year old Coleman Peak One packer stove...probably one of the most dependable and useful pieces of gear I have. In all those years, it has never failed once. By today's standards, it is quite heavy, but it also includes the ability to fine tune the blue flame from a simmer to a fly me to the moon flaming torch. It will boil a pot of water in nothing flat, and a single tank of fuel will last for several days.

My old sleeping bag, also a Coleman Peak One, is also about 25 years old. It is filled with somewhere around 4 lbs of Quallofil fiber...where each strand when viewed thru a microscope contain 4 separate chambers...which gives it a temperature rating down to Zero degrees Fahrenheit. It's a bit bulky but has kept me warm on some very cold nights out in the boonies. A homemade flannel liner adds about 10 degrees to the temperature rating.

The newest piece of equipment I have is my self-inflating sleeping pad I purchased on a clearance sale about 15 years ago. One of the best investments I ever made.

I use 2 packer tents. One is somewhat larger and heavier than the other. On this trip I chose to use the bigger one because I wanted a little more elbow room for my camera gear. Made by Camp Trails it is a two man tent that actually fits one person and comes with a nice full cover rainfly which came in handy that night as a gentle rain fell pretty much all night.

The backpack I haul all of this gear around in is, again, about 25 years old. It is a JanSport Internal Frame large capacity pack. It has several outside pockets and various other straps and rings and things to attach whatever suits your style. It has been quite durable in spite of some abuse over the years.

Those are my main pieces of equipment along which I include various other assorted odds and ends to make up the 10 Essentials of Backpacking.

On this particular trip I included 2 cameras, 2 tripods, extra batteries, 2 extra lenses, and a fanny pack just for the camera stuff, because I wanted to shoot a lot of B-roll video footage and have enough flexibility to photograph the scenery as I saw fit. I normally would not have carried all of that extra weight, but in the long run I used all of it and the results were pretty good even if I say so myself.

The hike into the Bluffs area is pretty flat with some up and down dips and climbs until the last side trail that leads you to The Bluffs campground. There is about a 1/4 mile very steep drop down to the campsite and, consequently a 1/4 mile long very steep climb out. The climb out is much more difficult than the drop down especially when carrying a full pack.

Along the trail I encountered several muddy places but was easily able to skirt around them. You are pretty much walking through a cathedral canopy of trees, and during the fall, the colors are amazing. I made this trek the first couple days of November and although there were good splashes of color, the peak of the fall season had not arrived...(a week later it was in full swing).

A newer version 

There is a source of water near the campsite. A spring flows over the edge of the first bluff you encounter with enough flow to create a small pool of water at its base. It good clean water and it's enough to easily fill several water bottles but the water must be treated before drinking. T o do so, I use a pumper style PUR Hiker water purification system (now called Katadyn) that will filter out pretty much everything that could make you sick. I've never gotten even the slightest grumbling in the tummy after drinking the filtered water...and the taste is fresh and clean.

It was another one of those really good additions to my gear collection.

Photographing the trip involved a series of B-roll video clips where I set up a camera on a tripod then film myself walking a little ways down range...walking back to retrieve the camera...then continue on. I wanted to video sections that provided not only scenic value, but also captured a representation of what the trail was like. Doing this obviously took more time, but it was well worth the extra effort.

Photographing the area was at times a challenge because it was difficult to see through all the clutter and focus in on a good subject. Even so, there were numerous photo ops available with the bluffs and within the surrounding canopy of the woodlands. The lighting was tough as most of the first day it was bright and sunny with a cobalt blue sky. Pretty to hike in and look at, but difficult to photograph because of the harsh contrasts such conditions produce. That became the real photo challenge...how to capture the scenic value without capturing the harsh contrasts?

I was able to build a fire and spent a while after sundown sitting around the warmth of its flames. It was the first time all day I felt like I could relax. 

There is something magical about a campfire. I've built hundreds over the years and no two of them were the same, but each of them told a similar story. It's a story about why we need to sometimes put life on hold and travel into the wilderness to experience what it has to offer the soul. Sometimes Life gets in the way of Living. 

A campfire helps us to step away from the stresses of life, to experience the calling that resides within our hearts. Backpacking, in spite of the physical demands, pushes the Mute button on Life, so we can begin living a little.