Kings Mountain Campout Chronicle

Here's a new sort of post: a sort of travel blogging, only about hiking and camping. On Friday, April 18, my troop left, without me, to Kings Mountain State Park [I was at the Honor Forum at Porter-Gaud School, in Charleston, SC (I serve on my school's Honor Council)]. I woke up at about 6:30 AM, and by about 7:15 my dad and I were on the road. We arrived at the trailhead at 9:00 and were hiking, with the troop, at 9:15. The views along the 11 miles of the trail we hiked that day, which encompassed both Kings Mountain State Park and Kings Mountain Military Park, were, at least in some parts, stunning. Unfortunately, I didn't bring a camera, although I now think the extra weight woul have been well worth it. We finally arrived at the campsite at about 4. The campsite was just past the state park/national park boundary, so the sight of the boundary line could be described as ecstastic. We set up camp, and our hunger soon found us, and a friend of I took a walk about .35 miles each way to the nearest stream to gather and purify some water to boil and cook with. We soon were eating some backpacking food (in my case Chicken Teriyaki from Mountain House.) and sitting around the fire. Sitting by the fire consisted of most of the next few hours (plus skipping rocks at the stream and a short-lived game of Sardines). On Sunday, we were up and, after some more water collection, were on the trail to hike the 5 miles necessary to complete the 16-mile circuitous trail. We eventually made it as rain began to fall (rain was on-and-off throughout the hikes and the night), and a thunderstorm converged upon us. We then proceeded to drive to the Military Park's Visitors' Center/Museum, learned about the history of the site, and chatted with the reenactors. Hunger, once again, became an unbearable force that led us to a Wendy's restaurant near Rock Hill, SC. While the rest of the troop devoured burgers, fries, etc., I sat next to them eating an Odwalla bar, having given up fast food after reading Fast Food Nation. And now I find myself here, a day afterwards, sore beyond belief. Looking forward to next time!

Here's the campout in pictoral form:

The brown line is the trail we took. The red circle is the general area where we slept.