Backpacking With My Dog in Dolly Sods (4K)

we hike through the forests the fields and across streams but atop the grassy peaks we are struck with feelings from deep within our own dreams and memories memories that seem to call back to an ancestral past and dreams that envision a brighter future today adventure archives would reunite to once again explore the mystic patch of wilderness we know as dolly sucks like everyone else we woke up one day and suddenly it was already september we didn't know how we got here or how time had passed so quickly but we had finally decided it was about time we all went on an adventure together and the whole crew is here brian myself andrew thomas and a special guest excited yeah anxious don't know how sierra's gonna do i guess we'll see have you been as well as anyone could be doing i guess it almost feels like the good old days meet sierra my golden retriever who would be joining us on our first backpacking trip we headed out onto the road to the east back together again can't escape each other then we arrived in west virginia we drove past small rural towns and through beautiful forested hills despite the hilly drive sierra was fast asleep now we made our way onto country roads as we got nearer to our destination dolly sods but there was one small hiccup the trailhead we had intended to start out on actually had no overnight parking this is problematic okay we'll follow you out we thought we could just park at the trailhead like the previous trailheads we've done at delhi sods but apparently this is in actual wildlife refuge so you need to get a permit first unfortunately they're closed due to the pandemic so we're gonna have to either find another way to get the permits or go to a different trailhead it's been 10 years and none of us has learned that we got the bystander effect that's the problem because if we're by ourselves speak for yourself it's really pretty hope we can see it we actually decided we're going to do bare rocks instead it's like a 40 minute drive to get to the parking lot and thomas has never been there before we've all been there so we got to take him at some point it was literally 30 trips ago that we went there last time wow was it yeah our intention was to see a completely new section of dolly saads that would still be happening for the most part but we'd be starting at a very familiar trailhead a little more crowded than last time we came here yeah surprising yeah we grabbed our gear got everything sorted and headed out you guys excited yeah man cannot wait perfect day perfect weather like the sky is so clear and so blue right now it's unbelievable continuing the tradition of showing the crew of adventure archives jolly sods one by one the first time we came here it just looked like something out of like hyrule like only our wildest imaginations seeing it for the first time like this it's just mind-blowing like i cannot wait to get out there at the trailhead we finalized our plans we would be hiking west from the trailhead then head on to the raven ridge and rocky ridge trail which we had never hiked before from there we'd head further south towards the blackbird knob before looping our way back out on familiar trails immediately we were greeted by the familiar views of the spacious grasslands vibrant greenery and distant windswept trees that we had grown so fond of do even for thomas the scenery was familiar in a different way i was telling andrew earlier as soon as i hit that trailhead and looked out i seen that first shot from the first all i saw so many times it looked like i just got thrown into the video we were surrounded by lush late summer flora like this delicate tawny cotton grass so brian how does it compare to winter i think i like this so far just because in winter the ground was just mush and wet all the time you can tell it's a completely different season but it still feels exactly the same in terms of when you're walking and things you see the trail now took us up a familiar forested hill so noticing there's all these beech trees which gives this little alleyway like a nice medieval feeling but growing along the fourth floor are these things called beach drops which is a parasitic plant kind of has this like translucent dish orange brownish color and they siphon nutrients from the trees using my cena of fungi that's why they're that colors because they don't need to be green to get energy from the sun they just take it from the tree nearby so what is this right here this is just a little beech tree which it might be a clone from a tree that's like shooting up yeah either that or is just a young beach and at the crest of the hill was a nostalgic view this spot right here when me and andrew came here the first time it was just so magical and dark and mind-blowing i wonder what that is over there i feel like the remember the rocks that we hiked through at the end of the winter trip oh that could be those yeah from the top of the hill we could see distant blue hills contrasted by the greenery around us so what type of bushes are these sort of berry bush they're not blueberries no i don't think so but i did i feel like i did see some blueberry bushes further back and in fact i see some leaves along the ground that kind of look like some sort of a blackberry bush and i do remember finding blackberries out here last time our first time here the evening sun shone down on us and the cool breeze filled us with energy we came to a familiar junction where andrew saw some wild fruits down here there's some blackberries and they're actually nice and ripe they're kind of smaller and it doesn't look like the species i'm used to but they are edible i'm just going to not eat them in case someone coughed on them or a dog peed on them now we made our way down a small hill and across a boardwalk leading into a spruce forest was the campsite we stayed at right there or yeah it's just up ahead oh okay here we crossed a creek and sierra seemed to not mind getting her feet wet and on the opposite bank was where we had camp during the winter a few years back now that we're passing through this old campsite it's a lot bigger than i remember i kind of recall it as being like really cramped when it was just dark and snowing we were so desperately trying to get that fire started just couldn't think of anything else and now we approached the campsite we had stayed at during our first time here kind of camped like just right off the trail here it was like right here not an ideal campsite but it worked up ahead we saw a strange pile of pine needles this is the woody ant nest and they just kind of collect all this debris into a big pile i think sometimes if they feel threatened they'll release formic acid which actually gives the ants i think a sour sort of taste but i've seen some people do it where they they spread a tarp out fold the corners over and then take clumps of this and throw it on the tarp and what happens is all the ants get scattered and they take all their eggs and put them under the folded over parts to keep the eggs under shelter and you can collect all of those and cook them and eat them like scrambled eggs delicious scrambled eggs it's nasty come on dog a boardwalk now took us through a ferny section of the woods though it looks like it had gotten quite a bit of use out of it the evening light and lush ferns gave the forest a serene feeling but just up ahead was something a little more exciting dude coming up here we're going to get to one of my all-time favorite views of anywhere we've ever been oh we climbed up the wooded hill making our way towards the sun-soaked crest the dirt path led us to a wide open ball look at this field it's pretty nice it just kind of comes out of nowhere this is exactly like it looked in the uh in the video here my only regret is that sierra's a little too short to see past the bushes here you know what this is though this is the definition of the word freedom like there is no better encapsulation of that of everywhere we've been i think this is still my favorite view it's got to be up there at least the first time we saw it it was so surprising like it filled me with this the possibility of all the things i could see you know which is ironic because it's still my favorite thing so nothing else has topped it it feels both exotic and familiar at the same time in the distance we saw blue hills in the horizon as we descended into the valley below before continuing on we pause to rest and give sierra a water break see the problem with trying to give a dog water on the trail is if you give her too much you can't put it back so now all that water's gone to waste that's in this bowl then it was onward through the open meadows off to the side we saw a whitetail deer frolicking across the grasslands the trail ascended now giving us a nice view of the hills behind us in the golden evening sun which was a sublime sight well i gotta say i'm assuming i speak for everybody but i am really really happy to be hiking with other people again particularly you guys but i do without some of you no it's great all joking aside it was great to be reunited with the whole crew especially at one of our favorite places on earth just ahead on the path we came by a trail intersection one which we had passed by previously quite a crossroads we're at like the last time i was here we camped pretty early and all this stuff that we're doing right now is the second day i'm kind of like losing track of where we are right now typically we went up here turned left at the first junction but we're gonna go past it right yeah yeah this feels like a place where like covered wagons would stop and like get some water for their horses or something i don't think this looks at all like what you'd expect west virginia to look like maybe that's just my bias seeing similar landscape out in the west but this is beautiful i feel captivated by the wide open spaces and grassy fields in a way i imagine the others had been their first times here this landscape was truly evocative some areas conjured up images of the oregon trail to the west while others felt more like a landscape from a medieval legend matter where you hike this place plums the depths of your dreams and memories to draw up endless nostalgia so up ahead we came to another junction where we would split from our original path okay so we went this way last time right and last time wasn't the sign on the ground oh you know it might have been yeah these are the moments where you have to like remind yourself to be in the present moment and just take it all in foreign jesus is ai the setting sun's light only added to the feeling of wonder we were all feeling especially those of us who were here for the first time how do you think sierra is holding up you know she's getting a little uh i guess a little excited she's still a puppy she's only a year old and so they get really distracted kind of really hyper when they're in a new place so for how old she is she's doing really well we ascended another hill and the sunlight glistened through pine trees we started to look for a campsite and andrew went scouting around on the open hillside oh yeah nothing opening up it it just is kind of more of this brushy stuff that wouldn't be any good to camping i feel like the rocky ridge might have some open spaces people haven't taken but we'll see eventually we came to another junction this will take us to the same way same place either way well let's let's stick together let's take the open one yeah we have been told the path to the left would lead to wooded campsites but for some reason we all decided to go right here the path was much muddier but the open sky was alluring as we continued dusk soon fell upon us with the daylight's final vibrant colors trail is a little bit ambiguous here how's it looking over there thomas i hear some voices so hopefully that means there are more campsites around here there's definitely some nice open rocky areas here but i don't know if it's anything we can camp on there's some tall grassy area over there that we might be able to make work but i'm just trying to find something that's a little bit more dog friendly to get us there prospects for camping here seem less promising than you would think we just ran into someone who said there might be one over a ridge in this direction where he saw some tents he was camping in this direction and thomas is scouting for something there i'm just gonna look over here really quick and see if there's anything i mean this is nice and open but it is all very rocky like what about this patch here okay that's kind of thick and shrubby any luck no we eventually regrouped realizing we had veered off track and decided to continue on the rocky ridge trail okay so it looks like this is all private property so even if we wanted to camp out here we couldn't we're gonna get back onto the rocky ridge trail go south a little bit and then hopefully be able to find something so the rocky ridge continues somewhere over there okay actually looking at the gps i don't think that this is it the rocky ridge trail i think is a little bit more over this way i'm gonna get my headlights up yeah i think that's a smart idea eventually we reach the junction the left path would have taken us directly to we should have taken left earlier that was the actual trail that led here we were now in an open area with large boulders in the distance andrew went to check the rocks for any potential campsites the sky glowed brilliant hues of pink and blue as we kept investigating for campsites keeping in mind they had to be safe for the dog as well as for us so those rocks were no go i mean it looked like there were some spaces we could figure something out it wasn't ideal no fire pit but we'll keep that in mind just in case so there's definitely a campsite right there dude's got a fire so we're gonna see if we can find somewhere over here it was mostly dense shrubby stuff here so we went to check the rocks again yo this isn't by no means ideal but we could make this work i could put a tent there here put another one right here andrew was also investigating oh yeah this would work yeah i think so uh thomas says he found a spot up ahead i'm sure it is going to be more than 25 better than whatever we saw i feel like labor day weekend was not this busy back in the day if anyone's gonna scrounge for a campsite at night it might as well be us eventually we caught up with thomas there's other campers right there they were gracious enough to let us stay here i say we sit down have ourselves a snack yeah you know there's a uh irony in that we are in an unideal situation not because of our own mishaps this time we got here perfectly on time still great though it's real great view it is really great actually i want to give mad kudos to my dog for her first backpacking trip she's a little anxious right now but that's okay always considered there's not a lot to complain about dusk faded away and a brilliant display of stars appeared against the dark of night now it was time to prepare dinner settle into camp and put up our shelters we used the flame from robbie's stove and a piece of fat wood to ignite the fuel cube so we could each cook our own meals with the water boiling it was time to cook my supper okay so last time we were all together you're talking about three sisters like corn beans and rice i got three sisters this time and i put in this plastic bag so i have more room to pack stuff to the bag i added the included oil and gave it a good mix as that cooked i chowed down on some simpler fare what are you eating thomas i am eating a very sad meal i'll just albacore tuna because i'm hungry and don't have the patience to eat what's cereal dog food piece of cheese oh good for her this is not bottom nor middle ramen but top ramen it is shrimp flavored which i've heard some people make fun of for some reason i feel like shrimp sounds good flavor sauce some shrimp flavor and some vegetables i've got my oil as well while the ramen cooked i had dug into some tuna that was a little bit more glamorous this was a bit of a last-minute target purchase but i gotta be honest this thing is delicious it's called latin citrus as wild tuna quinoa white beans jalapeno lime juice cilantro and veggies and uh if you guys could try it i'd want you to try but you can't try don't eat it all meanwhile we drank the remaining hot water to warm ourselves up it's good for healthy i dinked it with the handle oh yeah that's good times wow it's actually cold outside this is like the first time it's getting cold since playing between the lasers it's been so long since i've seen you guys in person but it doesn't feel like that at all it feels like it's been just yesterday now it was time for the three sisters oh man the flavors if you guys know us you know that we like to share our food this is one of those times where i'm kind of sad i can't share it but not too sad i am very embarrassed very upset with how muddy my dog got so i spent the last 20 minutes just trying to clean her up so that she sleeps a little better tonight but i'll get her nice and taken care of she's having a blast right now it was time to indulge in the ramen nice and almost all dente or as i call it i'll al dente looks nice and steamy though not super warm but it tastes almost top it's about midway to the top it's like the ramen fell off the top and you ate it on the bottom not super good though it was like top 15 ramen yeah so i'm having the pad thai after it was highly recommended by robbie it smells really good i put all of the stuff in the packets in there it's a very mild saltiness but like you got all the flavors like the lime and the peanut butter it's really good it's definitely not like they're just typical salty uh hiking meal we milled around camp for a while then thomas and i headed to our tents but andrew and i would be camping a bit more rustically tonight me and robbie are cowboy camping i've got my tarp on the ground plus an air mat and my zero degree bag which i switched out last minute with my summer bag and i'm actually pretty happy i did that i think i'm gonna be nice and toasty we'll see how much i suffer yeah good luck i haven't slept in an airmen in a long time and it's like really luxurious it's gonna be a good night super clear sky camping with some fresh air it's worth it as the night rolled by a brilliantly orange moon peaked just above the horizon and began rising into the sky above us one of the clearest milky ways we had ever seen hovered above our campsite as though a guardian watching over our earthly realm safe with the company of the universe we drifted off to sleep in the morning a rising sun cast the sky in hues of pink and orange the valley beneath our camp was filled with a hazy morning fog as the fog dissipated in the morning light we talked about how our nights went so last night was the moon so bright that you had to use a face mask i had it like this last night and it worked surprisingly well how was the cowboy experience for you it was great actually i was like nice and warm i slept quite soundly i had a dream about fighting people but then there was like that dream thing where you can't like throw a punch correctly like why can't i do this i was just on the cusp of freezing to death i wasn't like shivering but it was cold enough that it was really hard to sleep and i was like am i going to sleep i brought this because it's been so hot on all the other trips i just figured oh this one will be hot too right wrong yes this is my first night with sierra and attend i just kind of slept in the middle and she slept on the side kept each other warm did she like just sleep soundly through the whole night i think she got up and turned her head around a little a few times but she woke up she was shivering a little bit so i just opened up the door and she ran around and warmed herself up like immediately though the sun was out it was still a brisk morning and sierra played catch and chased her tail a bit to warm herself up then she went off to wake up brian how'd you sleep uh really good how about you all so good dying i was somewhere in the middle really good and bad not content with just shivering thomas decided to brew something that would warm him up so just for the audience at home that is a cup of hot water and ramen seasoning am i correct it's it's broth call it by the proper name please i fully endorse this you know captain janeway will drink vegetables yeah captain catherine janeway captain under the starship voyager that is good i'll be it spicy the moon hung over us as we enjoyed the rest of the morning and now i was heating up water to cook up a dehydrated breakfast those look like the scrambled eggs you'd get at like summer camp let me just try one dried i'm just tired that's surprisingly good it's got bacon flavor because there's bacon bits in here but maybe maybe i'll wait for the hot water i said to put a whole cup but that seems insane i'd put less than the recommended amount of water but it still seemed like slightly too much it also doesn't seem very fully rehydrated just a pointered it's not deep rehydrated enough but that tastes good i'm hungry but um yeah you're not missing much you literally look like a character design out of ghost of tsushima yeah andrew's new trail name is jyn you just need a samurai sword and you can just be a wandering npc we should bring brian's walking kane slash ninja sword you have a ninja sword khajiit has wares if you have the coin you gotta get those over the shoulder shots to the face where it's like now we set off into the rugged wilderness we continue down the rocky ridge and now in the sunlight we plan to explore the rocks that were this trail's namesake a small path veered from the main trail leading to a large cluster of unique looking boulders we scrambled up the rocks to satisfy our inner explorer looks like thomas found a much better way to get up from atop the rocks we were treated to an amazing view of vast valleys surrounding us now we continued on the trail and found some more interesting things wait there was a campsite here we've been complaining about our lack of luck on a campsite last night but it was literally like the difference between an a plus campsite and an a campsite ahead on the trail we found another intriguing rock formation wow whoa these erosion swept rocks there's a dog this feels like an exhibit at a museum look through here hello man if i were solo camping i would just lay my mat like right out here sleep on these soft pine needles oh man we returned to the main trail which led us through more surreal-looking rocks growing from the sandy soil i spotted a plant and made thomas give one of the leaves a whiff i don't think i can smell anything here tear it in half oh my gosh that's peppermint all of this just growing out of this like lichen and rock is some sort of a wintergreen mint oh my gosh that's crazy it's actually not in the mint family but it produces a similar sort of smell not just similar it's yeah it's just like gum or something yeah yeah oddly enough wintergreen is distantly related to blueberry i said i would definitely not want to hike this place in the height of summer it would be painful it would be a trial got perfect weather today though parts of the trail were shrubby others revealed still more majestic rock faces that dwarfed us these large sandstone and quartz rocks have been given a unique look thanks to the forces of nature wind smooths them over while water and ice cuts divots into and splits the rocks turning them into nature's own abstract sculptures ahead of the trail we were treated to another amazing view then we found an area nestled in the trees perfect for a snack break so i've got these shiitake mushrooms they're like dehydrated it's kind of like a mushroom snack which is totally up my alley so i've got the separate bag that i haven't even touched yet you know those snyders yeah you know the butter snyder's bits like the pieces here some of that only mushroom yeah there's actually no real mushroomy flavor like if you've ever had shiitake mushrooms there's not none of that i get a hint of mushroom when i eat it but it tastes like those asian rice cracker snacks you know these are delicious i am thoroughly surprised i know someone also described it as like a salty meringue that's good though now we continued on we hiked past several more huge boulders which revealed more amazing views behind them okay i'm gonna have to downgrade our campsite yet again it was a b-minus at best compared to this wow that this trail was as amazing as it was on top of the already incredible landscape of dalai saads was a testament to how beautiful nature can be and this beauty can be found atop a hill peering out of vista or at the bottom of the forest floor okay so this down here is a russella mushroom one of the characteristics that are common rustlers is this brilliant red color on top and gills that you can almost see from the top side of the mushroom this isn't universal among all russell is by any means but it's something that um will definitely stand out and i've never been great at distinguishing species of russella that means i don't ever try to eat any because there are some that are edible but there are very similar looking species that are very poisonous but either way they're a nice pop of color in the forest thomas is out of water and we're not going to see water for a while besides this at least according to the map like a guaranteed source of water is not for a while and a small trickle of water like this might be questionable sometimes but i actually think it's perfectly fine the main reason being that it's flowing through a bunch of like sphagnum moss which is a plant that will purify water at least to some extent obviously we'll still filter it and everything but okay to be fair though this water does have the same color as bear grylls favorite drink all the survival books say just because water is clear doesn't mean it's safe to drink i'm pretty sure it's fine to drink on my last trip i drank water that was more colored than that so yeah and i'm fine yeah i don't think there's any actual correlation between color and like giardia got a slight like naturey taste but it really doesn't taste bad at all like maybe a little muddish you can obviously tell there's a very very slight taste but it doesn't taste like something that you know would be bad with a bit of extra water we continued on and came by another beautiful campsite and a grove of spruce trees whoa that is a campsite yeah shane we can't stay here it's got a bed one person could sleep there other person could sleep here look at this there's a ritualistic korok seed somewhere here yeah my mom's always big into fairy gardens and that looks just like it what do you think's here come on okay we should continue to go right yeah this is beaver view trail no dobbing grade okay we had come to another junction took a moment to get our bearings and continued on and along the trail i had come across some ripening huckleberries joining us on the path was some sort of a caterpillar likely a sphinx moth as we hiked the afternoon sun was bearing down on us and the cool morning air was long since gone one nice thing about yesterday was that we didn't get here until four so all of the heat had already died off i'm definitely feeling it more than i did yesterday i'm actually trying to pace myself i feel like as long as i pace myself i won't get too tired or too sweaty and uh that'll probably be better in the long run the last campsite we saw had two chairs this one has three so now we gotta find them with four we don't need to find one before no yeah i'm sure we can make somebody stand the trail took us up an open hill where we saw some impressive cairns that somebody had constructed this is like the stonehenge of dolly sods or something that's actually like kind of cool but it was taking a while to make that wait there are cairns going here i wonder if this is actually a trail i don't know i love whenever you're at the top of a crest of a hill and you just feel that mountain breeze all over you it's like one of the best feelings in the world so according to the gps this is the valley view trail and we can take it parallel to the rocky ridge trail which is what we are on and i mean the view looks amazing so we might as well take it with a name like valley view um after enjoying the view we were on our way all along there were magnificent views of the valley below and the trail went right up against the edge of the wilderness do you feel like this is definitely the time of day where all living creatures should just be napping you know what i mean whenever you're hiking this is always when the sun's just beating down on you and wiping you out you know i can kind of see it in all of our faces it's kind of dragging so down here is one of the first plants i ever identified on adventure archives and it's sheep sorrel it tastes a lot like wood swirl in the sense that it's kind of this like mild but sweet and sour kind of taste it has these little prongs coming off at the base of the leaf that kind of look like the horns of a sheep they taste really good though there's lots of clumps here eventually we made it to the cut-through trail that would take us back to the rocky ridge trail and on the way andrew had an interesting find so i keep seeing these shrubs everywhere they have a nice like humble of berries and if these are poisonous i can see how people who are starting in the wilderness would want to poison themselves because they look nice and juicy they look like little mini apples oh yeah you know i i actually think this is it looks like something that might be in the apple cherry family based on what the leaves look like but as per usual the narrator will fill us in turns out it was actually wild raisin or viburnum newton which is in a different plant family okay rocky ridge let's do it we got off the rocky ridge trail and headed on to the harmon trail we passed by an interesting looking karen has that thing glued together it's like oh that's pretty crazy harmon trail is 1.4 miles i say we try to get as far as we can to blackbird knob but if we see a good campsite before then we just take it especially on s rank camp so you know we're not skipping any s-rings shrub surrounded us on the trail and cicadas tripped loudly we all walked at our own pace as we set into our afternoon tiredness okay well somehow we're all hiking alone again brian and andrew are back that way thomas is up ahead with sierra let's just keep going this trail has been thick and shrubby and really narrow like like this for several several minutes now but i feel like we're getting into a lower land area now and i'm hoping that means we'll find some nice pine forests or or at least grassier campground somewhere around here but on top of that the footing is not great because it's just a bunch of like rocks scattered all around it's kind of like dizzying hiking on this for a while we kept hiking surrounded by laurels striped maples and flowers like this flat-topped white aster eventually we caught up with robbie i think thomas just bolted for the exit thomas is just gone i've been keeping up a fairly decent clip absolutely no sign of them yeah this trail is unending i'm thinking as we get lower we'll find some good campsites soon though we noticed the environment subtly changing around us as we continued hiking all right finally we're getting out of all this scrambly stuff and there's some actual trees and forests and i a little spidey sense of tingling i feel like we might come up on a uh campsite i hope so at least we soon caught up with thomas at the next junction we got here at 2 38. that's a while ago 254 how do you hike so fast just downhill your dog looks beat there's a stream up ahead excellent fill up and then next stop campsite no matter what yep there's actually a campsite right up there oh let's go take that that's what google maps says at least our journey is over already thank goodness there's a whole swath of pine trees over in that direction well spruce technically but i feel like that is a promising area for everything we're looking for come to think of it the first time we came here that's how we found water is we looked for pine trees we're like oh if there's a bunch of pine trees over there there's got to be like a water source nearby off in the distance we could see some firings and the stream running through the forest i remember this and i do think there are some good sights here cool we descended the hill leading into the pine forest already we saw other campers setting up and cooling off by the river we kept our eyes peeled as we entered the comforting grove of spruce trees there's not a beautiful campsite in here then i have no faith in the universe anymore shall we yes we shall wow this is beautiful dude right next to the lake what rating do you give this i feel like a solid a yeah this is not a s tier but it's definitely a tier finally we unburdened ourselves and relaxed as we took in our surroundings then we started setting up our shelters it was perfect weather to sleep under my tarp to stake down my shelter i whittled down some sticks lying around camp i'd be sleeping in a tent but in the meantime i was setting up a hammock to relax him with our shelters set up we followed sierra to the river so sierra's energy definitely came back once she had a chance to cool down in the water and she was filled with a playfulness that matched her surroundings who has cold are you not cold here sarah oh my god this feels so good good to be back here comes after waiting in the river and humoring the dog with some tug of war and fetch we started to fill up on water so we didn't have any lube for our pump but fortunately we found a good system teamwork makes a dream work it was an incredibly peaceful late afternoon we all milled around camp relaxing before settling into the evening and while we rested brian came up with a unique way to luxurify his camping experience brian's like a newborn baby as the evening went on it was time for dinner so we needed to boil some water we usually boil water that we've already filtered but since we got a water source right here there's no reason to waste all that effort especially since pumping was so hard this is kind of steep though getting the water was the easy part getting out okay i don't know how this happened exactly so if you're worried about the water being dirty first if you have a bandana you can use that as a filter initially for like large particles if you put the open side facing downstream then that means the water won't flow directly into it so you can also avoid a lot more sediments that way so just some tips to keep in mind for dinner i'd be enjoying some unique noodles that our viewer shin chan gave us now for the sauce it says adjust amount of sauce according to personal preference so all of it oh nice this is like it looks like den den noodles or something like simple noodles to a ridiculous degree really smell the sesame oil in that oh yeah yeah whoa these are interesting noodles they just wrapped themselves around how was it besides hot it was real good let me love you dog okay so since we're all eating our own meals i went easy with the instant noodles and this one is tempura udong noodles this is clearly not udon noodles on the cover though this is just ramen isn't it nice udong flavor little bits of seaweed in there too so here are the two and a half tempura bits that came with the noodles timber's kind of spongy it's good though the broth is really good actually it's very like clean and clear kind of broth flavored green onions had a nice touch too is this your only dinner for tonight i've got one other cup noodle well so you went full cup noodle this time yep you know what's funny is that the saddest part about this pandemic for me really is not being able to share food so many times i've wanted to throw this sandwich at bro so the saddest part about the pandemic isn't sharing food it's throwing food and i would be having some sweet and spicy sausage pasta from hawk vittles i'm gonna give it a shot here it's actually really good got a lot of spices and i think that sweetness is coming from like the onion i probably could have cooked it with a little more water but it's actually really good i'm hating even more that we can't share we all rested in the cool early evening light it was great to just have the free time to do nothing without a care in our minds a simple pleasure not afforded to people often enough especially these days this kind of living can seem so far away but since our first time here we felt how nature can give you a glimpse into a better way of living stress and anxiety and an obsession with work are not natural the peace that you feel in a forest is as the evening rolled in some friendly hikers visit us at our campsite uh mike mike here so i'm just glad to see you guys out on the trail that's awesome it's good to see you i mean like celebrities to the youtube all right well you guys have a nice night and then we ran into micah and josh two other viewers of the show shout out to lyle we're we're meeting up with lyle for our our three day trek shout out to mom and dad but no i just wanted to say love you guys channel um thank you thank you it's nice to see like people doing exactly what i'd be doing okay so we've got little packets of wasabi green peas i'm a little wasabi green pea right now so i'm sure you are after enjoying that snack we decided to make a small fire to warm us up this evening and a previous camper had left some wood nearby so these were just sitting here yeah they seem wet some of them are okay i mean i'm i'm thinking of using the big pieces for a base with the help of a bit of fat wood and birch bark we ignited some flames after that we added some dry kindling which is especially easy to find in conifer forests for a moment it looked like the flames would die out but eventually the wood caught fire there you go okay oh man it's so good to be back with you fire almost didn't want to start but then it remembered who was starting it it thought it was me at rise the fire brought warmth as late evening air cooled us down we enjoyed the sounds of its crackle amid the babbling of the nearby stream soon dusk fell upon us as the clouds rolled through the sky tonight we would be enjoying a traditional chinese treat a moon cake this one was filled with lotus paste and a salted egg yolk cheers happy lunar festival it's called dongchoji by the time this episode airs it's going to be the harvest moon festival or mid-autumn festival is actually what it literally translates to it happens around october on a normal on the normal calendar but the lunar new year it's like august i think and there's usually a uh a full moon these moon cakes there's all sorts of different kinds there's some that have like lotus paste in them some that have uh red bean paste but these ones have salted egg yolk i think technically a duck egg yolk and these are the best kind because the saltiness mixes with the sweetness but what do you guys think i'm about to try oh he shoved the whole thing in his mouth man i had these before when i was a kid and i wasn't a huge fan of them but that tasted way better than i remember these are really rich i love these are really good i was surprised by how salty that was yeah in no way shape or form was that like a creamy custardy experience that i was saying that was just a hard hard yoke thank you so this is actually really important to me that i got to try this because when i was a kid on pbs there was a show called sague the chinese cat and they kept on trying to find the moon cakes and the moon cakes were like the whole like the topic of the whole episode that's funny that you lived next to us and never had them you said the name was sague i think it might benefit saguaro saguaro right like that means like um some sort of idiot yeah that's what my dad calls my sister we have to thank my mom for these she went out to like a chinese store and got some really good ones thank you thank you mrs lin for letting me live a childhood fantasy which is again kind of funny it took this long when you lived i was spoiled the biggest thing i i miss is uh not being able to go to your parents place for days we let the fire flicker away for the rest of the evening it would soon be time to head to bed but before that someone needed some comforting sometimes sierra just wants me to hold her paw i'm not quite sure why she'll just kind of pat at me and i just hold it and then that calms her down you're being serious yeah wow she'll get bored after a while and pull it back but before heading to sleep we sat around the fire for a little bit longer so yeah i do most things like by myself no problem but this like experience like you don't realize how much you miss it until you don't have it you're like oh my god yes but i just miss being able to like be in a completely different place and meet people and talk to strangers at like a bar or restaurant or something like that being in the buzz of other people you know there's something to be said when we do our post-hike meals and we find a local restaurant and we yeah the food is important but at the same time what's the atmosphere like what are the people talking about what are they like that really kind of gives us a sense of that travel culture that you get and sadly we just can't get it these days because of everything but yeah it's like there's been periods of this trip where it's like you just completely forget about all the things going on kind of sink back into that part like back when we used to hike and we didn't have to worry about like anything like that it's nice and it's also a good reminder everything in the natural world is just carrying on which is actually something that struck me the first time we ever went backpacking was like the realization that there would be a deer in the forest or or squirrel or whatever and no matter what personal stress you were having in your own life the universe just continues on without any care about that and it's kind of comforting in a way so this campsite is this did this reach s tier or was it yeah i'd say this is a tier i would put yesterday's campsite if we got there a little earlier on asked here it's a good metaphor for us talking about traveling while we're on an amazing camping trip it's like we should really be here now and be thankful for what we have i'm quite thankful that's true yeah yeah that's good times good good times sierra are you ready to go to bed yeah she's sleeping right here i think it's time to go to bed it was a quiet cool morning one by one we all woke up to warm sierra up i tossed around her tennis ball good girl drop andrew looks like a slug that's like slowly escaping like a hole or something and i had my own means of warming up do you feel warmer or do you want to die now i just feel one degree warmer eventually the sun came out and we let ourselves thaw in its life-giving rays it's a good sun and in the trees nearby i noticed an interesting sight we woke up this morning and walked around and i saw the spider web here it's got this gnarly looking uh configuration where nothing really makes sense when i used to live in california we saw these a ton this would be indicative of a black little web can't see any black widow spiders around here might have left or might be hiding somewhere but just keep on the look at i guess i've never seen a spider web look like that before yeah that's what a black widow spider up looks like crazy either that or a orange orb web weaver had too much to drink it's not a real sweater we could all feel ourselves perking up as the morning sun continued rising giving everything around us an ethereal glow i collected some water from the river for a morning brew i had some hot water while andrew drank spruce needle tea it's gonna be a bit of a ramen flavor here too i'm not going to hold on to that other are you sure you're going to burn yourself no i know what i'm doing look at that the master it's really almost still burns you smells like vitamin c why is pine needle tea so mild now first time i ever had it it was so strong yeah it was it's weird maybe we needed a dog to pee on it and what's uh you guys breakfast options for today a granola bar i started the meal with a nice powdery mashed potatoes paired that nice with some pretzel nut bar and for the finish i'm going to end with two leathery fruit ropes for breakfast now we broke camp and got ready for the day's hike along our hike i saw this woolly velvet polypore as we hike through forests and out into open meadows the fresh crisp air lifted our spirits it feels like heaven out here sounds like heaven too i still can't get over just how perfect the weather is like literally again like fairly cloud in the sky it's a big factor in making a trip enjoyable the trail had brought us out into an idyllic meadow in the grass we saw an old bone we also saw some distinctive trees so these are quaking aspens and i believe they have that name because just like eastern cottonwoods or big tooth aspens their leaves will shake in the wind really really distinctly anytime i see a tree like this it just makes me think of like either the west or the far north and it just adds to this like heavenly kind of feeling that this environment already has up ahead we saw a cousin of the quaking aspen so this is another type of aspen and the leaves kind of quake in a similar manner but if you look closely at the leaves they have these large serrations in them which is why it's called the big tooth aspen we kept hiking and the trail took us through tall meadows and beach forests so we came across the junction and we could take a detour to see the blackbird knob but we've already seen some great views and some people here said that they saw pictures on the internet it wasn't like spectacular so we're thinking skip the detour and just keep going on our trail so that would take us straight and the knobs to the left all right so earlier i saw some parchment fungus and growing on this log are some orange mycenae mushrooms i actually see these growing on beechwood a lot and there's a ton of beech trees this is definitely a beach branch gives the forest a really unique look and i just love how they have this super bright orange color and especially in the sunlight it especially pops and if you touch them sometimes that pigment will rub off on your fingers it's not known to be edible but every time i do see it i want to eat it we also saw some young striped maple saplings and some mushrooms including these colorful wax cap mushrooms so there's a bolite mushroom growing here it's still pretty young but i believe it's elitist bi-color but i'm not 100 sure one way you can tell though is by cutting it and seeing if it'll change colors and you can see this is rapidly changing into a blue color as soon as the air hits it but on the outside it's got like this yellowish reddish orangish color wow so my understanding is that because it changed into a blue color so fast it's actually not balitis by color i believe bi-color does stain blue but much more slowly and if it stains this quickly then there's a chance it's not a very edible mushroom it's eye candy though that's for sure there was also clavelina crestada or white coral fungus growing from the pine needles we emerged out of the woods and came to another junction yeah we're gonna go up to the red creek trail and thomas took note of more quaking aspens growing here this whole area reminds me of the eastern sierras because of uh how these leaves would change color in the fall time in fact that's the namesake of sierra in the fall they turn this brilliant golden color that's like i think one of the most beautiful things to see dude those leaves are like nothing else yeah the way they shiver and shine i really associate dolly sods with the color yellow and a big reason is because of all these golden rod but they're all very very beautiful also if you find a dried up dolk you can use that as a hand drill for friction fire more and more goldenrods and brack and fern surrounded us as the trail wound us through more vast open meadows the bright sun and beautiful landscape seem to perfectly capture how we all felt on the inside we came to another grove of young aspen trees then we entered a forest and encountered some soggy muddy ground this is on the secret trail avoided all this mud yeah it's pretty soggy over here good work sierra yeah andrew there's a trail to your left up here that sierra discovered avoids all this mud good dog before long we were back in the sunshine this is my favorite aspect of dolly saws is that you come up to these big open areas and suddenly you feel like you're an entirely different landscape it was this sort of landscape that made us wish we could stay out here another night found this perfect little campsite which first of all the feeling i have with this weather and this openness and being at a campsite like this is the best feeling in the world but not only is it nice campsite with a nice firing they even have like your tinder they've got some dry grass some birch bark some kindling whoever was here last was leaving a gift for the next campers i hope the next people who stay here appreciate what the last people left behind more aspens with their distinctive white bark greeted us as we approached a lower lying area here we stopped at a creek to fill up on water and cool off and we all shared in some fruit leathers before moving on we continued through the fields of tawny cotton grass which made the landscape all that more whimsical all right so this whole trip robbie's been going on about how this is his favorite place to go and the only time i've ever come was in the middle of winter and it was still a fun trip but with this kind of weather and these views this is definitely the time to go and now i can see why you know the first time you came here you would say this would be your favorite place in the world this is beautiful we passed by another junction and soon found ourselves in the infamous stream where we had dunked in significantly colder weather i remember it well yo i'm just going full solo dolo i'm going for it andrew and i took different but more deliberate approaches to crossing the stream it seems faster wow this they added the cheating platform that's new yeah ain't no cheater i kind of still want to just dunk that'd be great but we'll keep going i'm down all right for old time's sake you ready i'm ready wait am i going face first no i'm going back first are you ready too much too much that is great the dip in the stream left us feeling ecstatic and we weren't the only ones yeah you're a happy dog now we continued on to the trail which led us up a hill okay this section of the trail was not looking familiar to any of us we checked the gps this is a trail but it's not marked on any of the maps we got to go back down and i'm pretty sure we're about to get very soggy even more than i already am sure not a hundred percent sure no that muddy path is the path yeah this is it this is it yeah if memory serves this is going to be real muddy it's possible that's a new trail so that you don't have to take this muddy trail anymore but i don't know where that would lead to if anything it probably leads to the road but way further south than where we want to go so i mean we probably could have saw it through but here we are given just give in oh i gave in the bog nearly got the best of brian i think brian just went like knee deep the trail was incredibly muddy some areas were nearly impassable especially for a short dog the views were beautiful here but we were too distracted making sure the swamp didn't swallow us whole the trail had become even muddier since last time we were here before long it was getting the best of all of us yes it's like with this trail when you first start out you're like oh i don't want to get foot deep in this and you're like well i'm not waist deep that's pretty good now you're just like i want to get through this eventually we decided to just head out towards another trail completely bypassing the mud yeah it looks like it rats around over here well this is definitely some sort of route around that people have started to forge still going in the right direction at least for whatever reason andrew decided to brave the main trail how's it look down there not andrew bad so far all right the other guys went up an alternate path that is supposed to bypass this mud so far this trail is not too bad but we will see of course not too bad was relative i'm gonna go over here actually it does sound like they've made progress a bit faster than i have though so if you want there's a path right up here i guess i might as well yeah dobbing grade i give it a a d minus it's like when someone does badly or something you're like you got a dobbin grade right all right having a dog with you it's like we were playing mario kart and they got the auto guidance system on she's like she knows exactly where the trail is no no question about it she just pulls you right where to go wow good girl this is one of those trails where it's like more mentally and emotionally exhausting than it is physically so you're using so much brain power to try and find a good way through look this this thing is pretty pretty clear yeah we continued on and came by a nice little campsite we finally reached the next junction where we all took a much needed break well the good news is it's only 0.7 miles back to the trailhead oh great wow really yeah well there is bad news we have to walk up to the car after that i'm not taking this trail again definitely not a good trail everybody had to experience it once some somewhere less three times but that was the worst yeah this is pretty good though good payoff now with our spirits raised we continued on our weary legs towards our destination henry david thoreau once said that in wildness is the preservation of the world seven years ago we came here seeking an answer to the question what is it that's lacking in our civilized lives that wilderness has to offer in this strange time this question is more pertinent than ever in the embrace of wilderness we find a special connection not just to nature but to our own humanity beneath the forest canopy and amid the fields we experience the kind of lifestyle that brings to us the highest highs existence has to offer we reenact ways of living that was a reality for our hunter-gathering ancestors for tens of thousands of years we experience a life of togetherness a peaceful communal way of living where resources are shared and everybody is taken care of tend to think destruction inequality and violence to be innate human traits we see the problems of the world as unavoidable flaws in human nature but for the vast majority of human existence we have lived peacefully among each other and the planet plenty of anthropological studies have suggested this to be true and when you camp out atop the grassy peaks of dalisads that truth becomes so tangibly felt it pours out of every stream radiates from every rock and shines out from the treetops in wildness is the preservation of the world it's time that we paid attention okay me and thomas are gonna go get the cars and swing back the hangar is at full force right now so 111 right now it's good that robbie and i are separating ourselves from the herd so there's two black cars up ahead on the right side all by themselves with any luck those are me and thomas's car and that's how far we parked initially a slight inconvenience at the start but a great help at the end first car that is definitely our car is on the right cars are a little caked still very happy to see the cars oh yeah this is will and sierra and they are going to give us some food recommendations this is very exciting aloha guys uh siriani's cafe let's get a big one and a half thumbs up to my adventure archives guys much love to you guys and i keep doing what you're doing this is what everyone should be doing right now stay cool guys all right thank you okay so we got siriani's pizza oh no we should have gotten mediums brian i don't know what thomas is a little bigger okay i don't care i'm so far beyond hungry tastes like a home-cooked pizza these ingredients are fresh what we also got lemonade milkshake factory oh yeah got my lemon linguini but also this lemonade is like a godsend right now oh man that is life-giving water these mushrooms are actually really good i mean of course i would say that but so me and brian got the triple x which just has a bunch of meat and stuff on it what did you get cheese so much cheese looks amazing this is like feta and all the other good true authentic cheeses distance what is a sierra's post-tech meal it was uh kibble but she ate all the kibble in the car i gave her some extra kibble because she was really good and she's just not hungry anyone want some garlic bread i can tear it like yeah yep the climbing wall we want to give a thank you to everybody because we have finally hit 100 000 subscribers it has been six years since we started adventure archives actually seven seven years the first yeah episode that was filmed and um we just want to say a hearty thank you to everybody out there watching we thought we'd do a little unboxing here of this special gift actually this is thomas's now look at this this is thick blinding oh my gosh we just want to give a thanks to every viewer and every supporter and anybody who's you know watched our videos because we couldn't have done this without you obviously i think we have like one of the best youtube communities out there i think we do definitely yeah yeah i mean this trip alone we ran three groups yeah and everybody's always just like so nice and like willing to like help this is as much your trophy as it is our trophy because it takes two to tango four hundred thousand hundred yep hundred thousand it's been a interesting trail metaphorically to get to this point but none of it would have been possible without all of you watching us just absolutely walking on a trail and talking so keep following us we'll get another good five years six years of content out of it i want to say like here's to one million but that number is so impossibly daunting that no i'm really safe okay yeah well here's one million all right let's go home all right it's really hot now hold it over your head like the triforce hi i'm rick steves today we'll be exploring the scottish town of dartmoor and viewing some of its lovely cathedrals this is europe through the back door this is the tom moore castle originally built in 1348 by dan vulcans legend has it that he was greeted by three cave trolls who fed him stew when he woke up he was inspired to build this castle on that very same spot nearby is the house of salvador gonzalez the spanish explorer who sailed here in 1533. europe through the back door is brought to you by the lynn chen foundation for the arts and viewers like you i've just received word there's been a battle the calamane is burning in space the invasion of paisan and mikko was successful don't believe you i want to see selena ruth there is no such person no one will ever know that you are here with us what must i do nothing really tell me how many lights do you see how many how many lights this is your last chance maryson cavendish and j ramondo on the way right now how many there are four lights why you want to kill me i don't want to kill you you complete me without you what would i do go back to thieving from mobsters no you and i we're a different breed where's liz bird if you want to find out where les bird is you're gonna have to break your one rule where are they where are they where are they where are they wanna give a special shout out to troy troy sent sierra a little present here so i thought we might open it up take a look inside see what troy sent us just want to thank you for sharing your experiences with the world and i my company created this sunset pattern i got them to include your logo and make a leash and collar for sierra oh my gosh sierra i hope it fits and serves her well troy thank you so much oh my gosh sierra look at this look at this what what this is so cool troy i wasn't expecting this at all troy look at this look how cool that is and it comes with a matching leash too this is fantastic troy you ready to try on your collars here good girl i will defeat you sanmar you can't possibly stand against my adventure archives live stream super fans aaron jones in order to beat samura i've got to believe in the cards just like my friends anne mcbride and charlie joe believe in me draw your last pathetic card so i can end this aaron jones jason bourgeois deck has no pathetic cards sanwar but it does contain the unstoppable dayton hikers dayton hikers it's impossible i've assembled all five pieces all parts of exodia dayton hikers take a hike jason i couldn't fit your shout out into my skit so please accept this video of my cat meowing for treats jason wants to give a shout out to carrie larson and the west coast eagles oh sam porter bridges i didn't think expedition research llc made it out this far listen john truett wanted to get a shout out to his wife lisa for helping him get healthy so he can go backpacking again also jasper copperata needs you to get a shout out to friends of njsoc organization for keeping the new jersey school of conservation alive for future generations you're the only one who can do it sam we're counting on order you sign oh you know what we're going to do is as soon as we can travel we're going to travel somewhere and we're going to share a pot of stew four spoons no spoons just lick it

Channel: AdventureArchives

Views: 142,303

Rating: 4.9395657 out of 5

Keywords: bushcraft, backpacking, hiking, camping, wilderness, survival, outdoors, travel, outdoor recreation, prepping, nature, 4k, wild, survival skills, ray mears, les stroud, Dolly sods, dolly sods wilderness, cranberry wilderness, dobbin grade trail, rocky ridge trail

Id: _l1cViunzP4

Length: 96min 12sec (5772 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 17 2020