Fri, Jul 18 2003 - Camping and Hiking at Cloudland Canyon (View Original Event Details) Trip Leader(s): Phil 'Foz' Parkerson Participants: Phil 'Foz' Parkerson, Michael Aubertine, , Amy Rampley, Christopher W. Barrigar, Susan Murphy, Naomi Ferguson Herte, e. herte, Missy McDowell, Ryan P Quinn, Cliff Smith, Christina Neros

Write Up:
On the weekend of July 20th 2003 the AOC spent a weekend of camping and hiking at Cloudland Canyon State Park. We were 12 in number and by 10pm Friday night the last of our group just beat the automatic gates into camp. We had a very large site that was set in a nice woody plot in the middle of the park. On Friday night we had a dinner of burgers and dogs and as the temperature dropped we all migrated to the fire side until well into the evening. Between the insects and the birds we had a background sound that rivaled some relaxation cd’s… (Check out a recording at my web site) On Saturday morning we awoke to the sounds of nature… In this case a roster and cows (a true treat for those not raised in the country…GRIN)… With breakfast on and coffee perking our happy band slowly dragged themselves out of bed and by 10:30am we were ready to head out for our hike. Saturday’s hike was a three part. The first part was a nice 4.8miles around the rim of the canyon followed by two sharp descents to the lower waterfalls. The hike was very scenic and stayed at a fairly even elevation. We stopped for lunch around 1pm on a small overlook that had a wonderful breeze. After lunch we continued around the rim of the canyon stopping for various photo opp’s (see web page) and an albino squirrel that was quick enough to evade all attempts and photography. By 3pm we were descending to the first waterfall and everyone made a beeline for the water (which curly was off limits… ha silly rangers). The last falls quickly earned names like “the baton death march” and similar others… It was a ½ mile of stairs to straight down canyon wall to another very nice looking waterfall but it we were stopped by fences before we could reach the water. After we reached the cars we turned up the a/c and headed for the ranger store to buy some soda and water. We spent the rest of the afternoon in camp showering and relaxing. Most people slipped off to be early as the night was cool and fairly bug free. On Sunday we all slept in till nearly 9pm at which point we had the bacon and coffee thing to help drag people out of their beds.. We departed camp around 11pm each headed off for a different adventure around the northern mountains.
Written By: Michael Aubertine
Photos From: Various

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