New Adventure: Backpacking in Savage Gulf

     My family just returned from our first backpacking camping trip.  I grew up camping in pop ups and tents, but never outside of a campground with basic amenities.  I love being out in nature and exploring, but have never been brave enough to step into the world of backpacking.  So when my husband and I first began tossing around the idea of replacing our annual family vacation with a backpacking trip I was a bit nervous, but I can now say not only did we survive, we enjoyed our first trip into the wilderness.  

     We spent several weeks planning and prepping our supplies for the trip.  Starting out we had no idea what we would need.  After spending some time researching and many trips to REI and Academy, we had our gear, and we were ready to start our journey.  

      We all loaded up in the car and headed out for adventure.  We picked a location with a great views and adventures: South Cumberland State Park.  We chose to hike out to the Alum Gap campground at Savage Gulf.  It was about a four mile hike to our campsite.  We started out with a stop on top of a beautiful bluff over looking the gulf to eat our lunch.  The view over the gulf was spectacular.  We continued our journey along the Big Creek Rim trail to our campsite.  

     When we made it to our campsite we set up camp quickly.  We could hear thunder rolling in.  We knew that there was chance of scattered thunderstorms all day.   We set up our hammocks.   It was a bit of a challenge to get all three set up with the tarps over top in case the rain did come in.

     After setting up our hammocks we went in search of water.  We were in luck we found a flowing creek about ten minutes from our site.

     After filtering our water, we headed back to our site and enjoyed dinner.  It was great to sit around the campsite and enjoy our evening.  We went to bed early, but ended up not falling to sleep fast, between my daughter jumping into my husband's hammock and the sounds of the night sleep was a little difficult to find, so we made it a late morning.

     One of my favorite parts of the trip was waking up and enjoying hot chocolate and oatmeal before packing up camp.  We decided to leave using the Laurel Trail back to the ranger station.  This trail was a little shorter at about 3 miles and had a completely different feel than the rim trail.  It was nice to make our journey a loop so that we saw new things the whole time.  

     Though I was a little hesitant to begin this adventure I am so glad we jumped in and cannot wait for our next trip out on the trail.  There are so many fun and great adventures waiting for us!