Back into the Wild

Trevor, Sean, and Yours Truly.  Fall, 1996.

What's up, folks.

It'd been awhile since me and the ol' High School gang had hung out, so before the school year really picked up steam, we figured we'd try our hand at another weekend in the outdoors (while the weather was still decent.)  

Our initial plan was to revisit Trevor's family property out around Rosebush - where we camped back in February, before the Pandemic hit - but at the last minute he had to back out due to a family engagement.  This left the rest of us - Sean, Scrunge, and Matt (who had flown in from San Francisco for this, if you can believe it) - scrambling to find a place to crash for the weekend.  We toyed with the idea of spending the weekend at Lee's family cottage on Eight Point Lake (located a mile or so down the road from ours), but, ultimately, we went Sean's family property, just north of Weidman.  

Sean, Matt, Trevor, and I - Winter, 2002.

This property was little more than a muddy two-track that snaked its way along the edge of a ravine, where on all sides the land fell away sharply.  The terrain was heavily wooded and hilly, with a stream encircling the property on all sides.  Eventually, once you white-knuckle navigated your way back through the woods the you ended up in a precipice where a simple, stone-ringed fire-pit and a couple benches were set up, overlooking a sharp ravine on three sides.  

No cabin, no outhouse, no nothing.  The weather held out for the most part, and we - and our vehicles - survived the weekend.  I'd call that a win, for sure.

So here you go, folks - another stint in the woods with the High School crew.

Enjoy. . .

Sean picked up Matt from the airport the night before, and they had stayed the night out at Matt's family cabin on Eight Point.  They got into camp in the late morning, and began setting things up.  I guess Scrunge rolled in around 1pm, and the three of them hung out for a few hours until I finally arrive at 5pm (I neglected to take a day off of work for this.)

We kept a fire going non-stop the entire weekend.  Day or night, rain or clear skies, we didn't care.

As usual, we all took turns with meals for the weekend.  Scrunge was on Friday's dinner, which was steak, onion and green pepper fajitas - they were ridiculously good.

My humbe abode for the weekend.  This tent, which I've owned since 2005, is on its last leg for sure.

I was happy my car made it back into the woods - at a few points, I wasn't sure it'd be able to. There's a succession of muddy hills as you come in where you have to speed up as you get towards the bottom of one and begin rising up another, because if you slow down you'll end up bogged down in the mud in a valley.

Camp for the weekend (Scrunge's tent on the left, Sean's in the middle, and mine can be see off to the right in front of Scrunge's red car.)

Scrunge works on dinner.

A decent stack of fire wood, but it was pretty soaked through - we'd end up having to cut down more wood the following day.

Scrunge had to bring his two poodles up with him again - it's hard for him to find dog-sitters, I guess.  They're pretty well-mannered, they just beg a lot.

After dinner, we set out for a nearby hill so that Scrunge could take some pictures with his fancy SLR (Note: he hasn't shared any of his pictures with me yet, so if/when he does I'll update this post and insert his in between my existing pics, where they fit chronologically.)

Scrunge, Matt and Sean.

View from atop the hill, which stood in the middle of a wide clearing.

Later on in the evening, trying like hell to keep the fire going.  The wood, as previously mentioned was soaked, so Sean had to regularly employ his handheld air-pump as a bellows to bring it back to life.

Hell, it works. . .

It was so dark in the thick of the woods that we brought along strings of lights to help illuminate the camp site.

Now it's goin'. . .

At the close of the first night.  Scrunge and his dogs went to bed around midnight, I turned in about an hour and half afterwards, and I think Sean and Matt stayed up until nearly 4am (because they're insane.)

The next morning was chilly, so I threw on an outer flannel that I rarely wear outside of camping trips - and that was last worn by Alayna on Easter while she collected eggs in the backyard - and found this in my pocket.

We threw all our empties against one tree - in order to make clean up on Sunday morning all the easier - and so soon this tree became known as the Trevor Memorial Tree (seeing how this is what Trevor's backyard looks like.)

Scrunge, bustin' a move while he brews up some morning coffee. 

Sean and the morning fire.

The bed of this fire was so hot we didn't even have to relight the damn thing, we just threw empty cardboard on it and it started right back up.

Sean was in charge of breakfast, which was the usual bacon-and-eggs affair.

Some shots of the surrounding terrain. . .

A soggy exterior (thanks to a series of overnight showers) but fortunately the inside remained bone-dry all weekend.

After assessing the firewood situation, we decided we'd have to cut down some more wood.  There were plenty of dead trees to choose from, so Sean busted out his trusty chainsaw. . .

TIMMM-BERRRRR

Scrunge makes a friend. . .

While moving the benches back, we found a gang of salamanders - pretty disgusting-looking things.

(The goal was to create a space where you could pass between them without stepping over them.)

On our previous camping trip, I got a ton of shit from the other guys because I had bought cheap deli meat and cheese, and only brought basic yellow mustard for the sandwiches.  This year, I went all out - gourmet mustards, meats, cheeses, breads, you name it - so no one could say anything.  Regardless, the others still hadn't gotten over my last lunch menu, so each of them brought fancy mustard as well.

Some ridiculously tall trees out here. . .

Matt and Sean take a stroll through the woods. . .

The way out to the road (believe it or not.)

It started to sprinkle in the afternoon, so Sean broke out a sail - yes, a sail. . . like, off a legit sailboat - to use as a make-shift shelter.

Securing something of this size took a lot of trial and error, but eventually we found three trees that held it up taught enough.

Shortly after we had it up, Sean's dad, uncle and cousin came out to visit for a couple hours (they were on their way to another hunting property and figured they'd pop in and see everyone.)

Sean and his dad.

Absolutely disgusting.  This is why you don't wear white in the woods, folks.

Riding out the rain. . .

Once the rain cleared out, Scrunge wanted to explore the surrounding terrain once again in order to take more pictures with his camera (that he will hopefully share with me soon.)  Here's Scrunge and his dogs, making their way up the hill that we visited the day before.

An old deer blind that we found that overlooks one of the ravines.

Sean and Scrunge

This could almost pass as a machine gun bunker, right?

After exploring through different woods, ravines, swamps, and fields on the property, we ambled into a rarely-used dirt road to check out another part of the property.  This offering from the exclusively U.P.- based Upper Hand Brewery (a subsidiary of Bell's, actually) was pretty damn good, glad to have a couple of them along with me on our afternoon hike.

Heading back into the wild, entering a pine forest. . .

A quartet of elderly statesmen.  And a brace of poodles, thrown in for good measure.

Back at camp, we said 'screw it' to cooking up a full dinner (which was going to be brats) and just made up some bacon as a snack.  My cholesterol is going to be off the charts by the end of this weekend. 

Scrunge is a chef for a living, so we make him do 90% of all cooking.

Awaiting bacon.

After eating, we decided to venture out once again - this time swapping Scrunge's SLR with his metal detector. . .

Like in previous years (like when we camped at Bob Duncan's property back in 2016 and 2017), we didn't find much - some shell casings, nails, barbed wire, chains, etc.)

Looking for signal in order to access GPS.  The rest of the evening was spent drinking around the campfire one last time, so I neglected to take anymore pics (they all come out the same after awhile anyway.)  Definitely looking forward to the next adventure with these assholes. . .

-Brian