Sam I Am: Koot Backpacking

The Koots have graciously added me to their roster to show them how great (and wet, windy and cold) backpacking in late September could be. My team-mates for the weekend were my talented and beautiful sister-in-law Shannon, my former boss and favorite dirty-talker Emily, Can-and-will-pack-in-4 bottles-of-wine Christie, and the southern sweetheart/spider-monkey Jill.

I thought that a good introduction to backpacking for these fine ladies would be to take them to Ingalls Lake. It would be a short hike with a big pay-off at a beautiful alpine lake with no shortage of views and hopefully goats.

This plan had been on the books for several weeks, so when the weekend finally rolled around with the promise of lots of rain and wind, we were too committed to turn back. Plus we are clearly hard-core, so we had to go...

After a long night discussing the historical importance of a very informational film "Pearl Harbor" we arose a little later than planned on Saturday morning. We made it to the trail head and started hiking around 11:30am.

It was a beautiful day for a hike, it was high over-cast, cool and no rain - yet. As soon as we crested the ridge and came over Ingalls Pass, we got a small glimpse at what we were in for... the wind was howling.

After low-blood sugar, electrolytes, and some debate about how I might be lying that there is actually a lake up here... we rounded another small pass to find Ingalls Lake. It was all ours, for now. We spent a little time finding the friendliest way around the lake, and in the meantime the rain started to fall... hard.

Once we finally found a good ( as in comfort, not ethics - but that's not important right now) camp-spot, we set up camp, pulled out the 5 bottles of wine (4 of which were miraculously packed in Kristie's backpack!), all of our food and climbed into Kristie and Jills 2-man/5-man tent. For the next 5 hours we would drink wine, enjoy make-shift, pita, brie and salami pizza's, tell amazing stories, make toasts to one-another, do inappropriate things with each-others feet and wait for the rain to die down.

When the wine was gone and Jill fell forward onto her face for the 10th time, we decided to call it quits and head to bed. About this time, Hurricane Gustav showed up blowing what seems like hurricane force winds effectively prohibiting each of us from sleeping a wink.

Finally when the bell tolled 7:00 and we couldn't handle hanging out in our rain-soaked tent, listening to the flapping rain fly any longer. We decided to get up and per Emily's instruction "Get the F**K out of here!!

We had an adventurous hike out, all the while telling good stories, exclaiming in frighteningly low voices "how beautiful" everything was, and dreaming about pancakes.

By 11:30 we were cawing the call of relief as we saw our car in the parking lot. Our adventurous Koot weekend was coming to an end. Despite 40" of rain, hurricane force winds, and sub-standard waterproofing, we had an amazing night out. Hopefully I haven't broken these girls... hopefully they will backpack again...

Thanks ladies, I had a great time. And I think I'd like to make a toast...

Here are some photos:

Here is my traditional, and yes ... mandatory, self portrait...

Here is Emily - always cute while hiking....

Shanny is clever, she always caught me trying to sneak in a photo...

Ingalls Lake

Sorry to embarass you Jill, but we had to document your first-ever trip to the backcountry bathroom. Congratulations! I'd like to make a toast...

This is about the time that the wine made its appearance.

Its raining, but the party must go on...

Kristie and Emily... the wine is making them very friendly.

The smile on Emily's face would indicate that we finally added the Liquor to the Nalgene of hot chocolate. After our night, the liquor was a necessity, and I think it was only 7:30am.