Winter Backpacking Trip, with actual snow...

My brother Chris and I went on our yearly cold weather backpacking trip, our other two brothers have since decided that sleeping in the cold, after being in the cold all day, isn't quite for them.  So for the trip with them, we'll be doing something in March.  However, both Chris and I love the snow and the cold temps, not to mention the lack of crowds and bugs and made a decision to go a few weeks prior and actually followed through with the plan.

We ended up hiking the Thunder Swamp Trail, a trail in the central part of the eastern half of the state of Pennsylvania.  There's plenty of creeks and tributaries feeding them and feeding off of them to enjoy and listen to.  There's swamps to, but in the chill of winter, there's no bugs and no stink.

We chose a spot that was easy to get to Friday night, as we would be heading up in the dark and hiking in the dark, and easy to get out of Saturday morning.  Chris and I being brothers, we both met up later than we wanted to Friday night and got to the place later than we wanted to, but with no one to be responsible for besides ourselves, it didn't matter.  We met up at the park and ride, transferred gear, and made our way north west.  We arrived at the trailhead  and loaded up and made our way down the trail, literally down which meant it was easy and the next day would be uphill, but it wasn't that hard of a hike which made it not that horrifying of a morning hike out.

After an hour or so we arrived to the campsite, it was large and open with a established campfire ring.  The night sky was a deep blue and the stars were out in force.  The creek was flowing strong with the melting snow and recent heavy rains, which was nice to listen to.  We made camp, set up the campfire and had some snacks.  It was an early to bed night since we arrived so late, which was fine... a good night's sleep is always in order and appreciated.

I haven't been as cold as I was Friday night in a very long time.  For whatever reason I've never been as cold, I think the air pad I used was not insulated for the cold.  The good news, I woke to bright sunshine, warmth and a glorious day awaiting our start to the day.  We packed up around noon, yeah that's right, not early risers....  And went on our way.  A nice easy hike up to the car, to run into some morons that were out for a dayhike and couldn't resist making a comment to us about our equipment.  Being the OCD people my brother and I are, it irritated my brother for the next hour and a half, which isn't good for anyone.  Never sure why people have to go out of their way to be dicks, but they find a need to.

Saturday's hike was a wet and sloppy hike mostly downhill, with the exception of the uphill section in the first part of the hike.  Four miles later we made it to the creek and camp, there were two guys there and only one site to be seen.  They were very nice guys and we ended up talking enough that they found another site and moved there.  We had a nice fire by the creek, had a nice dinner and relaxed.

In the morning we packed up and decided that we were going to go to a short cut, well the short cut was a great idea until we passed our turn, went two miles out of the way and then got back on course.  Walla, we were back on the road within 3/4 of a mile and at the car.  Off to the waterpark to meet the family for two days of fun.