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Backpacked White Mountains, Lincoln Woods in , , 44.063475,-71.588974. Tempurature (min/avg/max): // Distance: 6mi
6 miles round trip, 1 hr out, 50 mins back. Finally got myself out on a solo backpacking trip. After a failed attempt to backpack up to Passaconaway, I was feeling a little discouraged. Like why was I bothering to to hike if I didn't enjoy the idea of hiking up to Passaconaway? But this time I was in the right frame of mind, and throughly enjoyed myself. I got to camp in good time, and rested peacefully. And by that, I mean there were no forest monsters that bothered me. As for actual sleep, well, I had picked a spot that had an hump on the ground, which was uncomfortable. I ended up sleeping on and off from about 8 to midnight, then didn't get to sleep till about 2am, then woke up at 5am. Still, I felt quite refreshed and in a good spirits. Temps got down to 40-45F by morning, and was down to about 50F by midnight. In my UA 3.0 base layer I was toasty the entire night, and not too warm either. Just right with zipper in the foot box open a little, and the neck cinched down a little. I didn't even have to use the hood on my mummy style bag. I was really glad I brought an audio book to listen to, as that really helped me get to sleep.
I think I could have used my neoair xlite sleeping pad instead of the the neoair xtherm, but really, the xtherm was only 3oz heavier. Warmer is better. A water filter on the other hand, not sure I'm ready to start bringing one. The water wasn't frozen, and my water bottle didn't freeze over night, but considering if you freeze it, it will no longer filter properly, but you will never know it isn't working right. I suspect in a week or two a filter will be fine.
As for making the water safe, I just boiled for the water I used to cook and clean with. I still had 1/2L of drinking water left over from the previous day, so I just used that for drinking to get back to the car.
I had made it to camp about 5pm on Saturday, and there were already quite a few people there. In fact, I had thought about going into spot #4 but by the time I went to the river to check it out and get some water, someone had taken it. I ended up in #1. There was a site that had a fire going north of me, which I smelt on and off. Enough of the smoke came down that my bag smelled a little of smoke when I got home. I don't really like the smell of smoke from a fire while camping. It's nice at first, but then it gets old when it has clung to your clothing for days. For this particular fire, once in a while when I smelt it, there was an odd smell to it. It was a bit of a sweet, smokey, and actually a bit of a burnt plastic smell. I finally decided was someone roasting marshmallows. It must have been the charged sugar I was smelling.
Brought: Osprey Exos 48L backpack, Zpacks Duplex, 20F Feathered Friends sleeping bag, Therm-a-rest XTherm, UA Base 3.0 thermal layer top and bottom, Helium 2 rain jacket, titanium pot set, whisperlite stove and large fuel container for white gas. Hiked in zip off hiking pants, long sleeve 1/4 zip running shirt, Injinji midweight crew toe socks, Salomon Quest 4D 3 GTX boots, LL Bean thicker puffy.
Wish I brought: Small fuel container, Therm-a-rest Xlite.