Between my busy wedding season and the holidays (and the 2nd round of busy wedding season), my husband and I have not gotten to spend a great deal of time outdoors together. Sure, we had day trips here and there. But I haven’t been backpacking since June! I knew we had to remedy that and so we planned a backpacking trip during his vacation the first week of April. We decided to go back up to the Barnhardt trail for our first trip of the year. We had found a beautiful camp spot on the side of a cliff about 4 miles into the trail. It is a dream.
The Friday before our trip came and we made the usual pit stops for supplies. Sportsman’s Warehouse to get hand warmers, a fuel canister, and vegetarian backpacking food. (Cabela’s is closer to my hosue, but my choices are bland mac-n-cheese or pasta primavera. I need variety!) Then off to Sprouts to pick up all the protein bars! And some applesauce packets, bagels, peanut butter, and honey stingers. We rushed home to pack our backpacks. My husband was particularly excited because he had just gotten a new pack a few days prior. We stuffed our packs full of water, food, and our camp. We were both very excited when we found out our pack weights had gone down from the previous year! Mine was 24lbs before I added my jackets and toilet paper!
The next morning we woke up before the sun, ate some muffins for breakfast, and put our backpacks in the truck. After a pit stop for coffee (you know I love my Dutch Bros!), we were off! Compared to our last backpacking trip to Colorado, the hour and half drive to the Barnhardt trail was a breeze. I did some quick stretching and took my pre-workout and then enthusiastically headed up the trail! Finally, the great outdoors for two days with my favorite person!
I was doing pretty good, until we hit the switchbacks. Back and forth, climbing, climbing, climbing. More and more people started to pass us on the trail. It was very apparent to me how long it has been since we have been backpacking and how much I have not been to the gym as of late. In my defense, most of the people passing us did not have 25 plus pounds on their back. But I did not let it get me down! I channeled my inner Dory and sang to myself “Just Keep Swimming” up the mountain. Before I knew it, it was time to stop for lunch!
There is this killer flat area on the trail just begging for you to stop and sit at to eat your lunch. (Or to have a fire as is evident from the ash in the corners of the rock.) We enjoyed the break and the cool breeze as we ate our lunch. Peanut butter bagel sandwiches with honey and, of course, protein bars. While we were snuggling up with each other, we heard a swarm of bees overhead! We both froze and listened, ready to jump up and run if we needed too. Luckily they passed by overhead and we didn’t even see them. I joked that it could have been someone flying a drone, because drones sound like giant bees!
After that adventure, it was time to head off again. We made another pit stop for water (so we would have fresh water to make dinner and breakfast) and finally made it to our camp spot. Ok, it wasn’t that long. In total it took almost 4 hours to get there. Not too bad consider I have not been in a squat rack or on a treadmill for quite a while. 😉 We set up our tent and took a moment to marvel at how much greener the landscape was compared to the year prior. We really weren’t sure what to do with ourselves after that. The fire pit was still there, we knew where we were going to hang our food, and it wasn’t dinner time yet. We decided to enjoy a game of King in the Corner and then lay down in the tent for a bit.
After and awesome dinner on the side of a cliff, my husband wanted to go look for animals with his binoculars. I tagged along with him. And then the wind started to get crazy. We checked the weather before we left, and there was supposed to be 15 mph winds and 40 mph gusts that died down in the evening. But it seemed to pick up in the evening! I didn’t have all of my jackets on, so I naturally got a bit cold. I went back to the tent and read The Purple Cow while my husband stayed out to look for animals. There was no way we could have a campfire with that wind, so we just played card games until we got tired.
Sleeping was interesting that night. The wind gusts got even worse throughout the night. And the almost full moon cast a creepy shadow of the tree next to us on our tent. We were both sure it was going to fall on us, but didn’t say anything. (It did not fall on us. Not even close.) It seemed like every time we fell back asleep, the wind would wake us up again. Finally around midnight the wind stopped, and we slept like babies. (I checked my Fitbit in the morning, and to my surprise I slept way more than I thought through the wind!)
My husband and I woke up, yet again, before the sun. We had just enough time to get dressed before we saw the sun rays start to hit the tent. We hurried out of the tent to watch the sunrise together. (And take a few pictures.) Then we ate our oatmeal on the side of the cliff and enjoyed the rest of our morning. We wanted to get out of there before it got too hot (and so we could still catch a movie that evening), so we packed up camp and headed off.
We stopped to get some more fresh water (because how could you not?!), and met a super cute puppy. I just realized we did not get his name, but he was six months old and full of energy. He jumped up on my backpack, sat down, and proceeded to give me kisses. What a perfect almost end to the trip! After that we flew down the mountain. It took about an hour and half to get back to the truck and then we were headed home. We took our traditional stop at In N Out for lunch, took a shower, and made it to a matinee showing of Going In Style. Perfect Weekend!
