Trip 2 Citico Wilderness

December/January 2002 TRIP 2
Little Mitten's Lowe Pack and the New Year Cold Trip

My girlfriend Little Mitten and I arrive at a trailhead in the Citico Creek Wilderness and I park my old truck by the South Fork 105 trailhead, a connector trail to the North Fork Citico trail. In this picture you can see I'm still using my old 1980 North Face BackMagic pack and we still have the painted hiking poles I made at the Tipi.

Little Mitten and I backpack up the North Fork and cross the creek 7 times and arrive at this fine campsite on the left bank somewhere in the middle of the North Fork valley. Behind us is the ever faithful Shunka-dog, and to the right is the fairly new Mountain Hardwear Muir Trail tent.

Here's a great fotog of Little Mitten at the firepit eating a quick lunch and looking funny and goofy as she peers out from under her watch cap. She's wearing an old garment I had at the Tipi, an insulated army pants liner.

Here is Uncle Fungus in full splendor at the campsite smoking my little tobacco pipe and feeling pretty good about being out with Little Mitten even though the ambient temps are cold and falling. The creek crossings were difficult and we froze off our feet.

The next day we pack up and leave Camp 7 and pull some very steep climbs as we ascend the North Fork trail. Here Little Mitten is passing thru the Blue Rocks, two giant boulders marking the way and coming before Old Goat Falls. She is carrying an old Lowe internal backpack which was once used by Johnny B and gifted to me many years ago.

Somewhere on the trail we run into this ice formation and so Little Mitten tries to get a few drops of the precious liquid. She's fully loaded in her Lowe pack and carrying her painted Tipi hiking stick.

Here's another picture of Little Mitten posing by the Blue Rocks, two big boulders making a sort of gateway to the high ground.

Just before we reach the top of the North Fork trail, we pass this great ice formation at an open campsite by a rock ledge with several carved in foot steps. This is my favorite fotog of the trip because it shows pretty much everything, the ice, the pack, the tent, and Little Mitten.

Our final campsite of the trip happened here on Fodderstack ridge near Glenn Gap. We pulled the North Fork and reached Cherry Log Gap where we turned left and followed Fodderstack ridge for a ways until we found this great campsite I first found on Trip 1. The night temps fell to 10F and we woke to a heavily condensated tent. In the morning we packed up and followed our in-route back out and home.