Back in late October, I went backpacking at Big Hill Pond State Park near Pocahontas, Tennessee, about two hours or so from Oxford. Yes, I’m a little late getting around to posting this. James Church, a fellow Computer Science geek and Eagle scout went with me. Here’s a map of the park (large PDF).
You can see all of my pictures here. I was pretty happy with my pictures, especially considering all these were taken with my Fuji point and shoot. You can view an enlarged version of any photo on this page by clicking on it.
I did a lot of backpacking in my high school days, but this trip was my first in over ten years. I’ve done two 10 day treks in New Mexico and two multi-day trips on the Appalachian Trail, but that was all back when I was in shape from playing three sports.
Just before we left I weighed my pack and found it was just over 50 pounds. Never again. I made it, but there’s no reason to carry that much stuff. Next time my pack will be at or under 45lbs. Some people go a lot lighter, but I’m realistic enough to know 45lbs. is a pretty lofty goal for me.
One of the trail markers that guided the way.
We arrived at Big Hill Pond State Park on Friday around 5pm or so, with just enough daylight to make it the mile or so to our first campsite. Each campsite has a small cabin, which we were happy to use. For supper we had some homemade chili I had cooked the previous day. We played a rather lengthy game of chess which James eventually won.
The cabin we stayed in the first night.
We got a late start Saturday morning, which was not good because we planned to walk about seven miles that day. Before lunch we walked through two different swamps. The second one had a mile long boardwalk that allowed us to walk right over the swamp. We ate lunch at the base of a 70′ observation tower that was formerly used as a fire tower. From there it was a quick three mile walk along some ridges to our campsite.
A view of Travis McNatt Lake, not far from our cabin on the second night.
My MSR Dragonfly Stove setup to cook supper Saturday night.
Several trees were completely orange or red, but there were some trees that were still completely green. I suspect another week or two would have been the peak of fall foliage there. Temperatures ranged from the sixties during the day to low thirties the second night. The forecast was so devoid of precipitation that I actually left my rain pants and gaiters at home. I did bring my rain jacket and pack cover, just in case.
Sunday morning we had a four mile walk around Travis McNatt Lake to get back to the car. We got a much earlier start than the previous day and made it back to the car by 11am.
One of the neat features of Big Hill Pond State Park is the train track that runs through it. It passes through in one of the more remote parts of the park. It’s a little surreal to see a modern train passing through what passes for wilderness in the eastern US. Big Hill Pond was actually “built” in 1853 when dirt was excavated to build a levee across the creek bottoms for the Memphis to Charleston Railroad. Today the track still goes to Memphis and actually parallels Poplar Avenue for quite a ways in east Memphis. Trains seem to pass through every couple of hours, day and night.
A train passing through the Big Hill Pond State Park wilderness.
For a couple of desk jockeys we handled the physical exertion pretty well. Of course there weren’t many big elevation changes, which helped a lot. James was dragging a little at lunch time on Saturday. Lunch seemed to perk him up a bit and he made the rest of the hike fine, though he was pretty exhausted once we made it to the campsite. It didn’t hit me hard until Sunday morning. James had a skip in his step, but I was very happy to make it back to the car.
I had a great time and will definitely be planning another trip soon. However, I won’t go until I’m in better shape. I haven’t done much in that regard since the trip, but I just bought some new running shoes and I’m ready to get going.
I would definitely recommend Big Hill Pond State Park as a first backpacking trip or for someone like me who is doing their first trip in a long time. The cabins are great because you don’t have to worry about buying or carrying a tent. There isn’t much elevation change, it’s relatively remote, and the the scenery isn’t half bad.