One of my more memorable overnights, for sure. I’d come through this area during an adventure race and it really caught my interest at the time and I decided to come back. It’s a long narrowing canyon that terminates in a waterfall and several climbing walls and during the race it was all ice and just an amazing sight. It wasn’t cold enough for ice this time but it was cold this night for sure.

I found a place to camp on a hillside inside a small depression that had a large piece of stone with a bale of rusty metal from some old industrial project stacked up next to it. Overnight camping isn’t allowed in this area but I didn’t know that at the time. The hollow is private land owned by a climbing coalition. The area isn’t great for camping but its cliffs are a destination for climbers. The bottom area is very swampy and stagnant as it never really receives direct sunlight and water is continually coming in from the waterfall and then out through the marshy creek that runs down the middle of it all. The brush is thick and the terrain is rocky and rough and it’s best to stay on trail. I was completely off trail and up on the hillside at this point, of course.

I had trouble with my light battery going dead, which had never happened before and has never happened again. When I was clearing the leaves and trying to make a spot to set up, I noticed hundreds of grubs and spiders writhing in the cold mud underneath. I was glad to have brought the hammock and not have to sleep directly on the muck. I improvised a spit and grilled a steak over the fire before settling in for the night. It was very cold and I had a bad chill as I lay there in the hammock. I can still feel the damp air around my exposed face in the dark. Every time I’d begin to drift off to sleep I would hear a loud breathing above or nearby and I would snap back awake. I have no explanation for the noise but it really freaked me out. As the night wore on I began to feel worse and worse until finally realizing that I’d developed a fever. I packed up camp and said goodbye to the booger in that holler as fast as my condition allowed me.

I remember being so relieved to get back to the Jeep and head out. I had reflective tape on the roll bar and my heart jumped with joy when my headlamp lit it up because I knew I was close. This is also when I noticed the no camping sign and realized I was lucky to not have a ticket.