It has been said that the family that plays together, stays together. I am hoping that the same can also be said about family backpacking trips!! I must do a better job about picking the right weekend, future trips will be in the Spring or Fall!!  Both girls had been dropped of at their Summer Camps and we decided to take advantage and do a short backpacking trip near Glasgow, VA.

Appalachian Trail Foot Bridge Crossing the James River

We parked near the Foot Bridge and then hiked a few miles up the A.T. to camp near the Johns Hollow Shelter. There was a beautiful creek up most of the hike but this did not diminish how hot it was, the temperature hovered around 95 and humidity probably the same.

Julie on the A.T.

Here’s the happy couple smiling, fortunately the sweat is not visible.

In front of the John's Hollow Shelter

We had an eventful night sleeping in our Hammocks. Besides it being hot (did I mention it was hot?), we had a cacophony of sounds.  The most interesting of the noises being the “bellowing” of what we thought was a buck. Of course, there was the ubiquitous whippoorwill which only hung around for about an hour, thank goodness!!

Hennessy Hammocks - Beats the Ground

Alright, so where does the beer fit into this post? For those of you who know my wife, she doesn’t even like beer. I wish this was the good part of the post and I could say I had some high-tech cooler that kept a couple of beers cold for dinner. Unfortunately, this was not the case (pun not originally intended).

15 Beer Cans in the Fire Pit

I guess some folks had a “good time” recently. I am okay with having a good time but whatever happened to “Leave No Trace”?  I had a trash bag in my backpack so we loaded up the cans along with other garbage we found throughout the John’s Hollow Shelter area. As sad as seeing all this garbage was, we had a good laugh on the way out when I stated it should have been no hassle for these partiers to carry it out since it was “Busch Light”!!!

Busch Light

 Leave No Trace Principles

Plan Ahead and Prepare

Camp and Travel on Durable Surfaces

Pack it In, Pack it Out

Properly Dispose of What You Can’t Pack Out

Leave What You Find

Minimize Use and Impact of Fire

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