We went to Arrowhead Provincial Park in October of last year.  It was quite a while ago, but this was our first real "adventure."  It was our first foray into a different kind of camping, one where we did not need to pack everything but the kitchen sink.  Also it was our first camping trip on our own.  The other reason for this trip was to try out a bunch of equipment we has recently purchased after deciding to do away with the kitchen sink style of camping. We were still new to this new lighter packing and still packed a fairly full car.  Not as full as prior trips but still quite full for a fall camping trip.  We included a lot of extra clothing and just in case type of things.  Especially for some of the newer equipment we had, we brought some of our old gear in case we couldn't cut it with the new gear.  For example we were trying out sleeping pads instead of using a giant blow up sleeping mat - but we still brought the sleeping mat just in case the sleeping pads weren't enough for us.  We brought extra clothing - sweaters in case our base layers weren't as good as advertised, blankets in case our sleeping bags weren't good enough, you get the picture. Thankfully all of our gear held up and worked great and we did not have to use any of our "in case" gear. Here's a list of all the gear tried out: - tent - sleeping bags - sleeping pads - camping pillows - trekking poles - base layers - tarp

All of our gear turned out great. Our tent was much easier to setup than our previous castle. The night we arrived we had the tent up within 20 minutes whereas our old tent normally took us at least half an hour to get setup. The sleeping pads and bags great. We. With had some reservations over the comfort of sleeping in a thin pad comaored with the relative comfort of an air mattess but I think we were both pleasantly surprised at how comfortable a sleeping pad is.

It was also the first time that I had been tasked with firewood preparation, starting and caring for a fire. It was the first time I had actually chopped firewood and I think I did a fairly decent job of it. Starting the fire was by far the hardest part.

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I was trying to be smart and start the fire without the use of the first starter cubes I had brought.  It's no where near as easy as I thought it would be.  I started by trying to create some kindling by shaving the tinder we had gotten and then creating some very crappy feather sticks.  I tried lighting this and it just wouldn't work.  I tried this a few times and finally gave up and resorted to my crappy feather sticks and some napkins.  Once I got it started it was quite nice.  Part of the problem is that I wasn't patient enough in creating the kindling and also the fact that my kindling really wasn't kindling.  I think I'll be bringing cotton balls or lint on future trips until I learn other ways to start fires. The other thing that really got me was how freaky it was being out there on our own.  We had always gone camping with a group of people and being out there on our own was really unnerving to me.  There were people at the park, but we had picked a site that was really secluded.  There was really no one around us, nothing but blackness at night. I also never realized how much effort it is to cook and clean everything when there's just two of you. We made the mistake of packing food as though we were still camping in a group. This meant we had to prepare a lot at the campsite, cleaning and packaging vegetables, etc. Everything is so much easier in a group, where you can split up the duties. Its very tiring when you are required to do all the clean up and prep work on your own. I think for our next solo trip we will be looking at ways to really reduce this work.

OK, so the trip wasn't all bad. We got good weather and the hiking was great.  We went up at a great time, just when all of the leaves were changing colours.  It was quite the site.  We hiked around Arrowhead lake and took the Beaver Meadow Trail as well.  This is where I got to see my first beaver dam, which was also pretty cool. We also got to try out our shiny new trekking poles on this hike.  We had tried out a pair on a short day hike a few weeks earlier, but this was the first time we really gave them a go.  They were quite handy on this hike, though probably not completely necessary.  But they were useful at times, as there were a number of fairly steep ascents and descents along the trail.

It won't be until later hikes (specifically one we did very recently, which I have yet to write about) that we really grasped the helpfulness of having trekking poles. Well, I think this post has gotten long enough.  It was a great trip and made us that much more interested in camping and more adventures.  As a side note, packing lighter meant clean-up and packing up at the end of the trip was so much more convenient.  So, until next time....