Camping Again!

We went back to Prince William Forest Park again this weekend. First we hiked around the park (this is what I have pictures from, I forgot to bring my camera to the campsite).

First we hiked to the old Pyrite Mine. They used to mine pyrite for sulfuric acid. And here I thought it was only used to trick people into thinking you had gold. :) The mine area was being worked on this weekend - they are planting trees to encourage the growth of a hard wood forest. 70 some years later and the water and land here is still polluted from the mine. If you look on the hillside you can see volunteers planting.


Then we hiked down to the falls of the Quantico Creek. They are about 2 feet high at the most. Still it was a very nice day for a hike (cool and breezy) and although the hike back up was rough on poor little out of shape me, it was all worth it. Here is a picture of the falls. Lovely, no?


The if you look closely in the second photo, you can see some laurel. I took a close-up shot on the side we hiked down. (editor's note, I have no idea why but this picture disappeared).

I also took a picture of us. Don't we look happy to be out and about?

And when we were resting a bit on the rocks, we noticed a little still pool in between some rocks! And there were little polliwogs! Maybe tadpoles? It's funny - you can see the clouds reflected in the pool. That why it looks kinda odd.

So the deal with the Park is there is a backcountry area. You have to file for a permit (permit's free) and then get a key and go over to a section of the park that is next to the Quantico Base. But I guess the Marines cut the locks and replace them to keep the National Park Service on their toes. And so we (and two other sets of people) had keys but they didn't work. And there is nothing the NPS could do - so we had to hike to the start of the trail. It probably added something less than a mile (and it was all downhill on the way in) but I was already tired. But Harland encouraged me and so we hiked in and camped. Carrying all the stuff... well... let's just say that my pack has made me very aware of certain muscles. I'm on the wrong side of sore.

It was a very peaceful night - no thunderstorm like they predicted (yay!) and I am fairly well rested. The birds were quite chirpy this morning, including a very close-by and rather loud cardinal. We also saw a deer grazing on the hike in last evening.

I'll start posting reviews of our gear this week, hopefully starting tomorrow. I wish I had some action shots... but I forgot to take the camera out of the day pack when the whole key thing got me flustered. We might go **somewhere** next weekend hiking, but I dunno where yet.