A buddy and me went to the Low-gap trail to backpack this weekend. Weather could not have been better. We hit the trail at 10:00Am with our packs and had every intention of stopping to camp, but for some reason we just kept walking, no matter how much pain we were in.
We ended up doing the whole 10.5 miles in about 6.5 hours. We are slow and out of shape, but at least we try and we did it with full packs and a stop to filter water out of a stream. No one that passed us had the kind of gear we had, so I don't feel too bad about my 1.6mile/hr performance, especially since it's fairly rugged in spots and we took LOTS of breaks. Didn't see too many people, but the ones we did were friendly.
I had my Sig P238 holstered on my left pack harness in full view, mainly covered by kydex. No one seemed weird-ed out or concerned. You can carry handguns there and the hikers seemed used to it. I saw one gentleman with a really nice ESSE knife on his belt. We commented on each other's hardware.
I'd highly recommend this trail as a good place for novice backpackers to start. It's completely doable in one day for someone who is out of shape, but still presents challenges. Much better place to start instead of the KT. Tons of camping options in one part of the loop. If you walk too far, like we did, then you get stuck walking back to your car with zero camping options.
We did not want to risk getting covered in ticks marching through the undergrowth looking for a suitable camp site. (we're hammock campers.) We stuck to the trail pretty much the whole time. Ticks were in FULL FORCE! cover your goods and spray the bu-jesus out of everything you own. Every time i sat down on a seemingly clean log, withing seconds i had 4-5 ticks crawling up my pants trying to find a place to drain me. We saw one idiot running on the trail with no shirt on.
There are plenty of places to get water in the lower sections. The water we filtered out of the creek was crystal clear and tasted great. (sawyer mini squeeze)
The low gap also has a very cool rock formation called "shelter rock" you need to see it before you die. It's a nice place for a photo opp. and to eat a granola bar.
Lower sections of the trail would be down right impassible after a strong rain or during the wetter months. There are many creek crossings and part of the first section basically has you walking in a creek bed. Plan on wet feet if you go after a good rain.
I give this trail an A+ for maintenance and beauty. I give cell phone coverage on this trail a B. AT&T had better coverage with only a few dead spots. Verizon was dead most of the trail. Zero 4G coverage. We had two different modern smartphones and both phone GPS chips seemed to pickup and track surprisingly well. (Nokia Windows 8 phone, and a Samsung S4) Don't judge me for taking in technology. I know it can't be relied upon, but it can save lives, and I'm all for having as many life saving options as possible. The trail is extremely well marked with Diamond blazes. You'd really have to not be paying attention to get lots on that trail.
Now get out there!
I plan to do a few more this summer, as soon as I recover from this one. I'll update as I explore. Loving this whole backpacking thing...
Photos: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8WkiLDT-3nNaklMUFFmMldMdG8&usp=sharing
We ended up doing the whole 10.5 miles in about 6.5 hours. We are slow and out of shape, but at least we try and we did it with full packs and a stop to filter water out of a stream. No one that passed us had the kind of gear we had, so I don't feel too bad about my 1.6mile/hr performance, especially since it's fairly rugged in spots and we took LOTS of breaks. Didn't see too many people, but the ones we did were friendly.
I had my Sig P238 holstered on my left pack harness in full view, mainly covered by kydex. No one seemed weird-ed out or concerned. You can carry handguns there and the hikers seemed used to it. I saw one gentleman with a really nice ESSE knife on his belt. We commented on each other's hardware.
I'd highly recommend this trail as a good place for novice backpackers to start. It's completely doable in one day for someone who is out of shape, but still presents challenges. Much better place to start instead of the KT. Tons of camping options in one part of the loop. If you walk too far, like we did, then you get stuck walking back to your car with zero camping options.
We did not want to risk getting covered in ticks marching through the undergrowth looking for a suitable camp site. (we're hammock campers.) We stuck to the trail pretty much the whole time. Ticks were in FULL FORCE! cover your goods and spray the bu-jesus out of everything you own. Every time i sat down on a seemingly clean log, withing seconds i had 4-5 ticks crawling up my pants trying to find a place to drain me. We saw one idiot running on the trail with no shirt on.
There are plenty of places to get water in the lower sections. The water we filtered out of the creek was crystal clear and tasted great. (sawyer mini squeeze)
The low gap also has a very cool rock formation called "shelter rock" you need to see it before you die. It's a nice place for a photo opp. and to eat a granola bar.
Lower sections of the trail would be down right impassible after a strong rain or during the wetter months. There are many creek crossings and part of the first section basically has you walking in a creek bed. Plan on wet feet if you go after a good rain.
I give this trail an A+ for maintenance and beauty. I give cell phone coverage on this trail a B. AT&T had better coverage with only a few dead spots. Verizon was dead most of the trail. Zero 4G coverage. We had two different modern smartphones and both phone GPS chips seemed to pickup and track surprisingly well. (Nokia Windows 8 phone, and a Samsung S4) Don't judge me for taking in technology. I know it can't be relied upon, but it can save lives, and I'm all for having as many life saving options as possible. The trail is extremely well marked with Diamond blazes. You'd really have to not be paying attention to get lots on that trail.
Now get out there!
I plan to do a few more this summer, as soon as I recover from this one. I'll update as I explore. Loving this whole backpacking thing...
Photos: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8WkiLDT-3nNaklMUFFmMldMdG8&usp=sharing
. We hiked trail #10 about half way, too muddy to continue, so we got in somewhere between 1.5-2.0 miles. Not what I was hoping for, but what we had available.
