Around February 2023, I was keen to do a multiday hiking, camping, and bushcraft trip. I needed a short adventure/vacation, so after some deliberation, I came down to doing a hiking and camping trip to Greenridge State Forest, Maryland.
Greenridge State Forest is Maryland’s largest state forest. Located on the Maryland Panhandle, the forest is also part of the Appalachian Mountain System. I hadn’t done a multi-day hiking and camping trip since my hiking and camping trip in the Amazon Rainforest in Northwestern Bolivia, through Parque Madidi Nacional. That was in 2007, so I was long over due for one.
I spent the Saturday after work packing my gear, and wasn’t completely packed until Monday morning, when I realized that I was still over packed. I left on Greyhound on Monday, and took the Bayrunner shuttle in Baltimore that dropped me off in Hancock, Maryland at 9:50 PM at night. Luckily the drop off spot was right next to the entrance to the Hancock Potomac museum along the C and O Canal trail, and I immediately walked to the path, then hiked about 2 miles to Little Tonoloah Recreational area where I setup camp.
I wanted to test out some different concepts and methods this trip, so instead of a tent, I carried two Equinox Egret tarps. I had my new Zoobelives 10 degree down sleeping bag that’s rated to 10 degrees, a Baofeng UV-5R handheld radio, and a new set of hiking poles.
It started to rain a little when I setup camp, so I made myself some hot chocolate and ramen noodles, before going to sleep in my tarp shelter. I used one of the tarps to make a basic A tent made with a center rope and staking down the four corners of the tarp to the ground.
I woke up early the next morning around 7AM to a light rain, got cleaned up, made breakfast, broke down camp, repacked, and started hiking from the western edge of town along the C and O Canal Trail at around 8:30 AM. I had my large, 45 pound backpack on my back, and my smaller, 20 pound backpack on my front. This was not an ideal hiking setup. I was definitely over-packed, overweight, and not comfortable.
Before I left the site, a driver pulled up and we talked a bit. He thought I was homeless and was going to give me some money. I said no, it was my vacation and that I was backpacking to Green Ridge State Forest. I guess when people see backpackers in the off season, they presume that they must be homeless? In any case, it was a friendly conversation, and he was also an avid outdoors-man, and goes camping with his family four times a year. After that, I started hiking along the trail.
It took several adjustments to the smaller front pack before I could carry it somewhat decently without the shoulder straps coming off. But it wasn’t comfortable. Yet somehow I managed to hike with that for 16 miles to my least favorite campsite on the C and O, Indigo Neck, where in 2020 I experienced a paranormal encounter that left me leery of the place. I got to White Rock campsite, and kept going. Two gravel riders rode past me, and then disappeared down the trail. I knew I was hiking parallel to the Western Maryland Rail Trail.
I kept walking and noted after about 5 miles that the front pack was truly a drag on me. I took a break at Cacaphon campsite to make lunch, filter some water, and rest my shoulders and legs a bit. A Dutch hiker came into the site, and we talked a bit. He was walking the American heritage trail, which is about 6000 miles long. That’s a long walk to take. He took a picture of me as I left the site.
I kept walking, and by about 3PM, I passed by lock 56. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much of a cell data signal, so I couldn’t tell if I had to walk from Lock 56 to Site 84 in the state forest. I walked up and out onto the road, but without a clear sense of where I was going, I decided against it, and decided to walk on the Maryland Rail Trail to cut out some time to the Little Orleans. I really didn’t want to camp at Indigo Neck for the night, not after what happened in 2020 during my bicycle camping trip.
Unfortunately, by around 4:30-5, Indigo Neck was literally the only real option I had to setup camp and get some rest. I needed time to setup camp, make food, and rest, and it was going to be dark by 6. Another hiker walked by me and I asked him how far it was to Indigo neck, and he said it was just a mile further, as he walked there, and then started walking back. I was resting about every two miles now. Did I mention that I was over-packed?
It’s amazing how when you’re not fatigued, packs can seem manageable, but when you do get fatigued, everything feels a lot heavier. I arrived at Indigo Neck, and I walked around a bit first to gather wood. Then refilled my water, and set up camp. I didn’t get the strange willies I got the last time I was there. The river access was terrible, as the bank was steep, and slippery. It was hard for me to get access to the water of the Potomac river, but I managed by tossing the feeder end of my Katadyn Hiker Water Filter into the water while clinging to the steep bank.
I made some rice, sausage, and hot chocolate, while feeling my body start getting sleepy. It was also windy, and the Potomac river at night gets really really windy. I tucked into bed, and managed to sleep. The sleeping bag performed well, and the outer shell didn’t let wind go through it. I did learn that I do have to re-loft the down inside the bag though to make it work right.
The next morning I got up around 9AM, made breakfast, refilled some water, and then hiked for an hour to Little Orleans. I stopped by Bill’s Place, a hiker/biker bar, and saw that it was closed, but I heard some commotion inside. I gently knocked on the door, and no one answered, but I could hear people talking in there. About fifteen minutes later, I heard the door open, and a familiar looking bald man with a mustache who I saw the last time I was there came out with a mop.
I asked if there was a taxi or shuttle service from the town to Hancock. Jack, the owner of the bar said he could drive me there for $55, which I agreed to. I realized that the 16 mile hike took a lot out of me, and the chances of me walking back after camping in the state park was slim. I would come back before 11AM on Friday for Jack to give me a ride to Hancock.
While I still had signal, I drew a map of my route to the site on a piece of paper. The big lesson for me this time around was to always, always have paper maps with details on me, as cell phone service is spotty once you get out of populated areas. Most of the country, if you think about it, has spotty cell service.
Then I left for site 84. I walked up the road going up the mountain towards the site, and got about 1/3rd of the way, before I realized I needed some more water, so I hiked back down again to filter some water from the stream along the road. I wondered if I could bush wack my way to the campsite, and figured maybe I could follow 15 mile creek there, as the site is along the creek. So I made a small attempt from my position, till I realized that I had no real familiarity with the terrain, and carrying that much gear, it would be difficult to bush wack.
So, I walked back up the road till I got to Mountain Road, took a short snack and water break, then walked up Mountain Road, and took the left down Yonkers Bottom Road, which took me to Campsite 84.
Campsite 84 is a pretty campsite and I setup camp, rested, made some lunch, and began setting things up. I worked on my principle remote camp routine requirements, which were wood, water, setup shelter, and a cat-hole for a bathroom. I wanted to spend the next two nights, enjoying nature, trout fishing, meditating, and exploring.
While organizing my things out of my pack, I noticed that the heaviest items were my food. And it was then that I realized that I over-packed in food, mainly with the baked beans, re-fried beans, Uncle Ben’s rice which had it’s own water, and extra cooking gear that wasn’t really necessary.
While exploring, a car came down with three dogs and two dudes. They came out, and I approached them wondering if they were the ranger. They weren’t, but they also said that the office was really far from the site, and not to be concerned with registering. They were Vince and Matt, and Matt’s uncle owned the property that I was thinking of cutting through to get to the site.
I took a nap in my shelter to rest a bit, as I did do about five miles that morning to get to the campsite. Afterwards, I explored along the river for good fishing spots, gathered wood, and then setup a fire before going to bathe in the stream’s icy cold water. It was refreshing, frigid, and incredibly invigorating. I could feel the salt and grime wash off, and as usual, I needed to scrub my nether regions. God that felt so good to get those clean!
I came out of the bath, to see a truck come down with a husband and wife. I approached them asking if they were the rangers, and they said no, but also not to worry about registering with the office, as it was the off season.
After that, I warmed up next to the fire, and made some sausage, red rice and beans, and finished my oranges. Then I rested in front of the fire for a bit, before I noticed the wind was picking up, and the temperature was dropping fast. I made some hot tea, and enjoyed the stars for a bit… and then something eery happen.
I sat on a log stump in front of my fire, which was now in a nice, hot, sparking, yellow and orange lively flame flicker. I touched my combat knife in my belt, while my cheap LED lantern on the side started acting up, presumably from the cold, and I started to doze a little bit.
It was then that I noticed that the entire woods was silent. Eerily silent, as there was no howl of coyote, bark of dog, or hoot of an owl. Now, granted, this was winter time, so there wouldn’t be anything really puttering about in the cold at night. But it was strange. Eerily strange.
At that point, my memories brought me back to that strange night in Indigo Neck on the C and O Canal trail back in 2020, where I was contending with a strange yowling that sounded like a kid, or more likely was a bobcat. Speaking of which, at Indigo Neck on this trip, I found the remains of a bird, which indicated to me either a feral cat did it, or it was that same bobcat.
Anyway, I remembered the documentary Missing 411, but in particular, it was Hellier, the web docu-series talking about the high strangeness in the mountains around West Virginia. My willies shot up, and right around then, I heard a snapping of twigs to my left. I was only 60 feet from the base of the super steep hill that goes up to a ridge line, so whatever it was that made that snapping noise, it literally was right next to me.
I started talking to “it” to my left to make sure that they had no element of surprise on me. I acknowledged their presence, and reminded them that they were not invited into my camp, that I was here for a good time for myself, and to not bother me. But to sweeten my offer a bit, I went to my bag, and grabbed my harmonica’s and mouth harp.
I told it that I was going to play some music for it. I started with the mouth harp, and played it in an ancient, almost shamanic style. Then I went at it with the harmonica’s, playing military beats and harmonies. Not that I know any music with these instruments, I just played whatever came to me. Each time I stopped, I asked for applause. There was none.
After a little while, I heard a barking of a dog or probably coyote in the distance, and I felt like things around my camp went back to normal. It felt like I’d entertained whatever it was, and it chose to leave me in peace. I went to bed that night, at about 9:30PM.
I woke up around 3AM, feeling distinctly cold in my bag. There were definitely some cold spots in it, and my pad was not comfortable. I’m investing in a new sleeping pad, as I wasn’t comfortable at all. Then again, the pad was free, I salvaged it from the shed at my house. I think a good Thermarest Z rest pad should do the trick.
I tried unfurling and using the emergency reflective blanket inside the bag to see if that helped, but it didn’t. In fact, it condensed moisture on the blanket inside the sleeping bag, which I felt the next morning, giving me a cold and clammy feeling.
I woke up the next morning, and discovered that the water in my Nalgene was frozen. Temperatures during the night obviously went below freezing for a significant part of the night! No wonder I felt cold in the early morning!
I immediately hurried to get the fire going again, and set it up to boil some water. I also dug out another ca-thole across from the camp, as I knew I would have to go to the bathroom pretty soon. In the meantime I made myself some tea, hot oatmeal, and ate an avocado. A lot of the excess weight in my bag came from my food, primarily from the re-fried beans, baked beans, potato, and two avocado’s. There was also Uncle Ben’s rice, which was already hydrated, and that made it heavy.
After breakfast, I did a few short hikes around to explore the area and see what was around my site. It was right next to a wide part of 15 Mile Creek, which meant trout. I hiked up a 4X4 path along the creek, and discovered a gorgeous section of creek with pools that had to have been at least 6 feet and more in depth. There had to be fish lurking in that pool.
I went back to my site to equip my rod and set it up, and spent the morning looking for and fishing for trout. There was nothing. I was totally skunked. But I did notice something odd about the pool. I didn’t see any minnows, just some light insects in glittering in the sunbeams and reflections off the water. The water was crystal clear, my goodness it was gorgeous to see.
I went back down the creek near my section, which ran along the ridge line, so there wasn’t really a way to hike along the creek. I also didn’t have waders with me, so I wasn’t ready to cross the icy cold creek. I did spot some minnows in still part of the creek adjoining the main flow.
I went back to my campsite around noon for lunch, and made burritos. That also weighed a lot, the burrito bread, cheese, peppers, and onions. But it made for a really nice meal. After lunch, I had an idea, and went back to the pool with some burrito bread to see if maybe chumming the water brought up any fish activity. I tore pieces of burrito bread off, rolled and pressed the bread bits into balls of dough, and tossed it in the water.
Nothing came to attack the bread. Strange. I went back and grabbed my gear and crossed into the creek to a small sand bar to see if getting in a little closer to a section would get me any where. I still got skunked.
I tried out my trout magnets, Mr. Twister’s on a jig hook, and even took a shot with some of my flies on a transparent bobber. I lost the fly, one of my trout magnets, and realized that the snags were just as much of an issue. Speaking of which, I was glad I didn’t bring out my fly fishing gear, since I would’ve snagged it on the branches and brush along the creek.
Early afternoon, I headed back to my camp and hiked along the road a ways to look for wood, and to take a look at the terrain around. I saw that the closest base of the ridge line was only about 50 feet from my campsite, so whatever it was that was in my site stepping on twigs and snapping them the night before, it was right next to me.
Man, just writing that raises my hackles and gives me the willies. I wonder if part of it was just me giving myself the willies from these thoughts!
Anyway, I went up the path, and noted some of the fallen branches along the way. As I went, the woods on the left were low, but pretty dense brush. The creek went dry for part of it as well. I decided that I was glad to be camping in the campsite itself.
I went back to camp, and gathered wood along the way. I piled up a batch and I wanted to have enough wood for a really nice camp fire my last night there. I also setup another cat-hole digging with my hatchet. I used the camp saw and hatchet, both of which are heavy items, but they made my camp tasks for setting up camp and processing wood much easier. I also used the Baofeng UV-5R, which for me was a game changer, because the weather report for the night indicated there would be snow and rain. Because of that, I reconfigured my tarp shelter to be more tent like.
Around 4:30 I could see the sun was starting to set, since the sun always sets earlier in the mountains. After another bath in the creek, I started making dinner, of sausages, Uncle Ben’s Red Beans and Rice, and planned a strategy for how I was going to get through the cold night.
I ate dinner around 6:30 PM, made some hot chocolate, and then sat down to enjoy the twilight around the campfire. I read a bit in my new book, 6 Ways In and 12 Ways Out, a survival manual from the US Rescue Operations Group, which is a Special Forces group of the US military.
Speaking of which, that’s another thing I should’ve left at home. I brought my ebook reader. How many excessively heavy things did I bring?
Night fall came, and I decided I wanted to play some more music, this time recording it with my mp3 recorder. I also spoke a bit into the mp3 recorder, talking about how this camping trip was as much an escape from the crazy reality we are all now living in, and I needed this retreat into nature.
Around 8:30 I started prepping my new strategy to deal with the cold. I boiled creek water in my pot, and put it in my Nalgene, and then used the Nalgene like a hot water bottle in my sleeping bag to pre-heat it. After brushing my teeth and washing my face, I prepared another hot water Nalgene bottle, putting that in, before taking out the previous one to boil it one more time, and then taking that into the sleeping bag with me.
Oh man, what a game changer! I was toasty in my sleeping bag. Getting in, I always took my pants off, put on thermals, put on fresh socks, kept my fleece on, and got in. I think my sleeping bag must’ve been about 75 to 80 degrees!
Around 4 in the morning, I noticed that the bottles were no longer so warm, but I was still pretty warm inside the bag. The new configuration also did a good job keeping the wind out, even though there wasn’t that much wind. Mornings with precipitation, I noticed, don’t often have a lot of air flow.
I woke up around 6:30AM with the intention to leave camp at 8:30AM and make the one hour hike back to Little Orleans, where I had arranged with Jack, the owner of Bill’s Place for a ride from Little Orleans to Hancock, Maryland, and then check into a motel for the day and night.
I got everything wrapped up and repacked by 8AM when I received a message, due to the sporadic signal in the camp, that Jack suggested an earlier departure time, due to the forecast of snow in the mountains. I agreed with that assessment.
I cleaned up, put my gear on, and hiked out of the camp, up to the top of the ridge line, and then back down again, where I ran into Jack, who was in his new Dodge Pickup Truck. The timing was impeccable, and we ran into each other around 9:30.
I got in, and he drove me the 20 miles to Hancock. Along the way we talked about what the locals used for heating, which is a type of wood furnace that they have outside. We also talked about his jet boat, which he uses for shallow water fishing in the Chesapeake Bay, and about Yellow Perch fishing, which I am keen on since I’ve never caught a Yellow Perch before.
He dropped me off at the Motel 8 at around 10AM, where I registered for a King Sized Bed and room, and talked to the desk manager about some of the strange things that happened to me in the mountains around here. The desk manager was from West Virginia, and said that West Virginians often hunted for subsistence and he knew his way around the woods and mountains.
I mentioned to him the story of me hearing the giant footsteps I heard at the Devil’s Alley campsite walking in the water and snapping a massive tree into the river in 2020 during one of the creepy nights when I bike camped it alone. He acknowledged what I witnessed, and mentioned a story of a giant being he heard moving through the brush.
He also told me about the “wights”, one of which came out and smashed into the front of his car, and then disappeared. His description of it sounded a lot like the creatures of Hellier. He said not to mess around when those things were around.
My room cost about $89 for the night. I went to my room, took a well deserved shower, and then a nap. I woke up, and put on clean pants, and then went out to get some lunch at Buddy Lou’s place. I had fish and chips, kraut, and then an apple dish with ice cream, and a hot toddy. That almost put me out!
I then walked up to an antique bazaar, before heading back to my room to binge watch Ancient Apocalypse by Graham Hancock on Netflix. After that, I headed out to dinner at the Potomac River Grill where I had some locally sourced beef medium rare, salad, and two beers, while talking to the locals about how fishing was around there. I headed back to the motel afterwards to watch some UFO disclosure videos, and then slept.
The next morning, after breakfast of some cereal and checking out, I hiked down the road to the Bay Liner Shuttle pick up point, which was a trucker’s stop. I went into the recently opened IHOP to grab some breakfast, but the wait was too long. So I grabbed something quick, before hopping on the Bayliner to Baltimore, and then the Greyhound bus to Washington D.C.
Overall, good trip, despite some of the company being a little eery. In terms of testing out some new ideas and systems, the tarp system with the hiking poles was a good combination, but I still prefer a normal tent. I would like to get a steel nalgene for next time as it would make a better hot water bottle than the plastic one, and without the strange plastic after taste. I carried too much food that had water in it, so I think having food that’s can be hydrated would be a much better to save weight. And I’m not bringing an ebook reader along next time.
