For starters, the Georgia Brass Band competed in – and won – the Honors Section at the 26th annual North American Brass Band Championships. In spite of a rather lackluster performance at Louisville’s Christ Church Cathedral on the eve of the competition, we rocked and rolled through Eric Ball’s Journey Into Freedom and Philip Sparke’s Endeavour when it really 
mattered and squeaked by the Central Ohio Brass Band by a little over 3 points. Those of you who are really paying attention may remember that COBB beat us by about the same margin last year. There is still a great deal of uncertainty about our competing again next year. About half the band wants to do it, I think. About a third doesn’t. Whatever percentage is left over (count me in that group) really doesn’t care one way or the other. It’s a fun thing to do, but it tends to become the focus for several months and our performance calendar takes a hit. It’s still nice to be champs.
Julie did indeed move in sometime in late March. I was away at NABBA at the time, so I didn’t have to help move anything heavy. I’m smart that way. She’s been having a ball hiding my kitchen implements in various places, getting to know the cats, playing the piano and grilling things on the deck. And giving me money, which is always nice.
My car went nuts on me yet again a few weeks back, prompting me to start looking for a new (used car). The repairs weren’t as bad this time around – a sensor or something had to be replaced for $600 – but I’m tired of fixing it and I don’t want to have to worry about it when I head north in a couple of months. The leading candidate right now is a Subaru – either an Outback or an Impreza, either of which will allow me to camp. Four-wheel drive and all that.
Those of you really on the ball might remember me mentioning that a friend of mine was getting married soon. She did so on April 19th. To commemorate the happy occasion, I spent the afternoon hiking up a mountain with a buddy, where both of us nearly froze to death. In spite of that minor setback, we had a great time and I’m looking forward to going back when the weather is a bit more accomodating.
The mountain in question is called Huckleberry Knob and it’s located in western North Carolina (almost Tennessee). At just under 5,600 feet, it’s the 4th highest peak in NC and was – except for the freezing part – a delightful place to attempt to set up a campsite. “Attempt” is key here.
We reached the summit in probably 20 minutes ( the hike is steep, but it’s only about 1.5 miles or so) and were immediately confronted with a grave. Seems that, a bit over 100 years ago, a couple of buddies got lost on the mountain, drank a lot, and died of exposure. Not a good omen, considering that we had packed in, basically, tents, a tarp, hamburgers and bourbon.
But we’re (relatively) young and brave, so we laugh at omens.
The summit itself is known as a “bald,” a fitting name because there are no trees at the top of H.K. There is only a very large meadow. It contained one huge section of a log that some previous hiker had managed to drag up to act as a windbreak for his or her fire pit and a couple of other logs that were apparently to be used as fuel for the fire.
Windbreaks are important up there, as we quickly learned. The wind never – and I mean never – stopped. It rarely went below about 30 miles an hour. You’re following me so far, right? No trees. No rocks. A strong and steady wind. And we’ve got a tarp.
About an hour later, we had indeed managed to string up the tarp by standing the two “fuel” logs 
on end, triangulating one with tent cords, anchoring the other with the firepit log, and using most of our tent pegs to get half of the tarp nailed to the ground. That gave us about 3 square feet of relatively non-windy space in which to sit.
The bourbon, remember? We were done hiking by this point!
We spent the afternoon taking pictures and insulting each other before I decided it was time to get a fire going upon which to cook the hamburgers (not to mention the fact that it was getting a bit chilly by this point and I wanted a fire). Brett and I had both assumed that the winds would die down as the sun went down. Bad assumption. The winds picked up.
Not a problem. I’m Joe Camper. I’d packed in a third of a firelog, which is basically the most combustible material on earth. We’d scavenged below the tree line and hauled up a huge amount of kindling, a good amount of mid-sized sticks, and a couple of large (and very heavy, I might add) logs. And the fire pit was behind that enormous log already. I could light a fire.
Wrong. Even when I did manage to keep a lighter going long enough to begin scorching the firelog, the wind blew out the resulting flame in seconds. Time to rethink things. I brought the firelog under the shelter that we’d built and lit it there. Got it flaming good.
By the time I’d rushed it back to the kindling (all of two feet), the wind had blown it out. I spent 30 minutes fighting this fight before grabbing a beer (did I mention that we had beer, too?) and going for a walk instead of pummeling Brett, who probably deserved it for something.
Along my walk, I stumbled on an abandoned rodent trap, about the size of a can of cheeze whiz. Being a devout Survivorman watcher, I figured that I might be able to use it for something; so I picked it up, continued my walk and eventually ended up back at the shelter.
Inspiration hit! I grabbed a few chunks of the firelog, put them in the rodent trap (which was metal and could be closed) and got them lit under the shelter. Closed the trap, rushed to the kindling, shoved the trap under the kindling, opened it, and watched with great satisfaction as the kindling caught the flame, flared briefly, and then was blown out. Along with the flaming trap.
You may not realize the new and colorful curse phrases you can invent when you’re freezing and hungry on top of a mountain and you can’t get a stupid fire going, but they’re proof that man is at his most imaginative when in peril, I assure you.
Still didn’t have a fire, and Brett was now becoming interested in the project.
He grabbed a box of previously-cooked bacon that I’d brought along and started eating it while playing with the rodent trap. I saw the box of bacon and thought it might make an excellent burnable box in which to drop bits of firelog. And Kleenex (thinking back on it, I hiked in a lot of stuff, huh?). While I stuffed the empty bacon box full of anything that I thought would burn, Brett shoved some firelog and a piece of bacon into the rodent trap. We both managed to get our contraptions burning at the same time and we simultaneously dove for the fire pit, shoved our home-made ignitors under the kindling and fell on top of the whole pile.
That was not poetic or metaphorical or anything like that. We literally draped ourselves over the top and around the edges of a flaming pile of tinder in order to keep it burning. The general rule of thumb was, “If your shirt is on fire, stand up for a second. It’ll go out. Then, block this damned kindling!”
Amazingly, it worked. We used most of the bacon to build up the flames, then got the bigger sticks on board, then dropped on the logs. By now, the wind was so strong that the fire was basically a blast furnace. A log with an 8-inch diameter was consumed in a matter of minutes. Our burgers could not have been cooked faster in a microwave. And – naturally – the wind blew the smoke, sparks, ashes, and occasional bacon grease straight into our shelter.
Brett reacted by wrapping himself completely in his sleeping bag and crawling under the shelter. I thought it more prudent to wrap my extra tarp around the windward side of my tent, stake it down, and get in the tent for the rest of the night.
The wind continued to increase all night. At its height, I’d guess it was gusting at between 50 and 60 miiles an hour – no joke. With the tarp flapping around my tent, it was like I was being attacked by bears all night long.
The temperature, which had been predicted to be in the mid forties, dropped to the low thirties. I, being prepared for mid forties, had a wool blanket. Brett (who crawled to his own tent shortly after I gave up) had a light summer sleeping bag. Neither of us slept well, although he didn’t wake up when our work-0f-art shelter tore loose of its moorings at around 3AM, creating a sound like 15 highly-flatulent giants in a competition until I got out of my tent at first light and hastily staked it down.
Brett woke up shortly thereafter and discovered that he was in agony. He has Raynaud’s Disease, which disrupts the circulation in his hands in 
cold weather; and his fingertips were nearly black. We opted not to bother with coffee, tore everything down in a matter of maybe 5 minutes, and were back at the car 20 minutes after that.
I got some great pictures, though. and you can see all of them at http://www.uffp2.com/tompix/albums/2008/Camping/JoyceKilmer.
All told, I had a fantastic weekend and can’t wait to go out into the woods again. I’ll just bring extra bacon the next time.
TWD