7/26/2010: Schumaker Camp

Last night we made it up the twenty mile long dirt road; it actually wasn't a bad road at all. You could definitely get a horse trailer up here and probably some types of RVs. This made us worry that the camp would be crowded, but we were pleasantly surprised - only one other group here, an old couple that decorated their campsite with rocks and arranged logs. (they seem to be even hippier than we are)
 
Anyways, last night we simply pitched our tent and passed out. We heard another group come in even later than us, but they didn't camp so they were gone soon enough. In the morning, Robert took to killing bugs between the walls of the tent and the fly - they were swarming the worst we have seen yet, great! After one particularly vigorous swat, we heard an animal run away outside our tent. It didn't seem too big, so we didn't bother investigating.

Breakfast was a leisurely affair. I pulled all twenty sacks of groceries out of the backseat and then we just sat and looked at them for a while. It was too daunting of a task to arrange them into hiking meals and put them away. Eventually we packed granola for the trail and ate yogurt with leftover granola. At one point we looked up and noticed a deer close to our camp. How cute we thought. Then it came closer and closer until it was rubbing against my hand like a lonely Theo-Cat! Ok, not that close, but Mama Deer was not afraid of people in the least. We are not a fan of pet wild animals so Robert tried to run her off with his slingshot. Even after hitting her a few times in the rump, she continued to creep back into our camp whenever we turned our backs. Once when Robert drove off to steal wood from other campsites, she made her move for real, walking straight up into the middle of our camp to a tree and began eating something on the ground. I sat still and let her be because I realized she wasn't after our food or pets. When Robert came back she left and I investigated her snack...salt! Someone had dumped out a good bit of salt and she was licking it up as fast as she could. She continued sneaking into camp until she was licking more dirt than salt and then we didn't see her again. Quite amusing.

We lunched on sandwiches and made a fire to stave off the hordes of bloodsucking mosquitos. You can literally swat them three at a time if you exert even minimal effort. I found a perfect spot for my hammock and tried to lay their as comfortably as possible with all the bugs. I read some of the Lipsmackin' Vegetarian  Backpackin' cookbook Robert convinced me to get on our last REI run. There are tons of recipes that I am dying to try, but many of them require either a kitchen, a dehydrator or special foods (those not to be found at a Wally world in Butte, MT....how do you describe humus to someone who doesn't know what a chickpea or a garbanzo bean is? I'm looking for this brown powdery stuff that when you add water makes a brown paste that tastes good on crackers. Tabouli got me even stranger looks.) We have a plan for this trip, but future trips will definitely include 
more interesting faire. If Mom doesn't have her old dehydrator or I cant steal it from her, one shall have to be purchased sofort! 

Next I think was an exploratory walk around the campsites and to the other side of the lakes (we are camped beside Twin Lakes). The highlight of the walk was when Robert caught a fish on his fly rod! It was his first on that rod for the trip and a doozey at that...a whole three inches long. He claims there are only small fish in the lakes, but I'm not 100% on that. We walked all the way past the second lake and scouted our trail a bit. It will be fun, but I'm not excited about the bugs. (fact check correction: Robert says it was actually four inches long. There is photographic evidence, so you can decide for yourself when you see it.)

Back at camp we set about making pizza in the dutch oven. This time we hand wrote the recipe so as not to be foiled by a faulty Pad that reloads all open websites and was incapable of reloading our pizza recipe on our last attempt. The dough went well and even rose just like it should, a big accomplishment for me...I have not mastered basic baking skills yet sad to say. However, halfway through the process it stopped threatening rain and started delivering rain. Since we returned the gazebo in anger, we had to fashion our own rain shelter or go hide in the tent. We manned up and rigged a way to suspend the tarp over our picnic table, stealing the idea from an outfitter we saw do it at Alta Lakes. I am beginning to feel like quite the seasoned camper: fire-check, impromptu rain shelter-check, good food-checkcheck.

Speaking of good food, the pizza was basically a failure. We burned the crap out of the bottom of the first pie, the second was cooked primarily from the top and unburned, but still the dough tasted like thick bread, not pizza. If anyone knows a good dough recipe or the secret to making deep dish pizza not taste like bread, leave me a comment please!

Our postprandial walk turned up four baby grouse and a momma grouse that called them back to her side with the softest mew sounds. We also found an abandoned outfitter camp complete with a stock yard with electric fencing,  irrigation for who knows what, and lots of poles to create tarp shelters and the like. It was strange and crazy all the things they built up here. Eventually the bugs chased us back into the tent where we are holed up now. (Butler Creek Outfitters, we think. Robert read it off the top of the toilet seat in their homemade John.)

Three side bars:
Jenn Photographs a Chipmunk
As the title suggests, Mr. Munk and I were having a bit of a photoshoot this afternoon. I was trying not to make him nervous and get as many cute shots of him as possible, so I was creeping up on him from behind the camera, shutter clacking away. I would occasionally open both eyes to scan for foot hazards, but I failed to notice a two foot drop off and yes, walked right off it! I fell on my butt, Mr. Munk vacated his bathing rock and a good laugh was had by all.

Schumaker Camp
I realize I failed to describe the peculiarities of our campground, so I shall remedy that. As mentioned previously, the camp is up a 20 mile long dirt road. It is a free campground in the Bitterroot National Forest. We were just hoping for picnic tables and fire rings. What we found was much more. It seems that the CCC has been renovating the campground and recently from the looks of it (there is a cat parked here and some campsites appear half finished). Each campsite has a new picnic table, made from real wood,  a tent pad sprinkled with fresh wood chips, an industrial fire pit with a functional grate and loads of firewood (if we had a splitting maul we would be in the money, as it is the logs are a little too large to burn so we are stealing already split logs from the old couple that left today) and many have wood chip walkways leading to the picnic table. All in all, the campsite is quite interesting. I'd love to look it up online and see what is really going on up here. All of what we know is conjecture and I read CCC stamped into the side of our table wood.

Robert Kills a Chipmunk
...with a slingshot. Thats about all the detail you need. Oh and then he buried it, how humane. (Robert: that's mean.) (jenn: . )