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Frontier House
Posted on | June 1, 2009 | 28 Comments
Recently I mentioned that I was about to embark on my own version of Frontier House, and that little adventure began last Monday.
Memorial Day morning, SB, the boy and I drove to Swan Cabin near the Joyce Kilmer Wilderness area in North Carolina. We knew the forecast was for 50% chance of rain for the first two days, but we were optimistic and excited to be spending a week in the woods, away from cell phones and television and, of course, work!
Despite exhaustive research, we had not read anything about the road to the cabin. I use the term “road” loosely. The road quickly went from blacktop to gravel, and when we turned off (and up) the cabin road, it became a deeply-rutted narrow gravel/dirt road, with steep drop offs on one side (waterfall!) and muddy hillside on the other. We were driving a Civic Hybrid.
We bottomed out once and had spinning tires but made it to the cabin, unloaded the car and relaxed for a couple of hours before it began to rain.
No problem, we thought, we can’t have a campfire tonight, but we’ll have one tomorrow night. We explored the cabin and I noticed quite a few mouse droppings in the loft upstairs. I had pretty much expected that – if you stay in a cabin built in 1931 in the middle of the woods, you have to expect a few visitors.
We did not expect the bats.
Around 4:30 in the morning (after a fretful night of wild storms, squeaky floors, mice scrambling overhead and actually waking up and finding a mouse dropping on my pillow, SB whispered to me that something was flying overhead. And then they all came. I wasn’t actually counting, because it’s difficult to count flying bats when you’re hunkered down with your sleeping bag pulled up over your head to protect your hair (wives’ tale or not, I wasn’t taking any chances!), but for the next half hour, I watched probably 30 bats fly into the cabin, circle around the loft overhead and then settle down – somewhere. It was kinda freaky. I could hear their high-pitched calls, it was like I was in the middle of a nature show.
There are no bats in this picture of the loft. I love you guys, but not enough to get out of my sleeping bag and fetch my camera with bats flying overhead!
I got up shortly thereafter, sleep no longer being an option, sat on the porch and read and thought about spending the rest of the week cohabitating with mice, bats and lord knows what else was going to show up. The sky threatened rain, and it had stormed all night. SB got up and we discussed the very real potential that if it rained a lot over the next few days, we would be stranded at the cabin, wouldn’t be able to drive to the hiking trails we’d planned to hike, couldn’t have a campfire (the boy was mostly depending on roasting hot dogs for his dinner) and could cause very real damage to the car if the road got worse with the rain. I struggled with feeling like a quitter and worry over a potentially dangerous situation. I tried to call the ranger station but the signal was too weak to hold my call. I could access the internet, however, so I looked up the forecast for Robbinsville, NC, and learned that it was 70% chance of rain for the next two days and nights, with some periods of heavy rain (up to an inch per hour). That pretty much sealed the deal. We packed the car and began the treacherous trip down the hill, which was actually a bit easier than going up. The sun came out and mocked us – called us big sissies.
We ate breakfast in town and discussed our options. Renting another cabin or a hotel room (with paved-road access) was the obvious solution, except for the forecasted rain. If we couldn’t hike, and we were stuck in a cabin or hotel room, we might as well go home! So, that’s what we decided to do – go home, regroup, check forecasts for other destinations and try to salvage what was left of our vacation. Before we left, we hiked the two-mile Joyce Kilmer Memorial Loop, which was lovely.
Many of the trees in the area are over 400 years old and 100+ feet high.
My family likes big trees.
We ended the vacation on a good note, but this post is long enough, so I’ll come back tomorrow and tell you how we finished out the week!
Comments
28 Responses to “Frontier House”
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June 1st, 2009 @ 10:15 am
What a bummer! I’m glad you made the best of it at home, though.
June 1st, 2009 @ 10:25 am
Yeah, yuck to the critters in the cabin, but why can’t you hike in the rain? (It may be a dumb question, but when you get less than a foot a YEAR, you do whatever it takes to enjoy the little bit that you do get, so hiking in the rain seems like an obvious choice.)
June 1st, 2009 @ 10:40 am
My dad was a couple days into the Appalachian Trail and had to spend an entire night with a skunk curled against him in his sleeping bag. That will teach him to leave a packet of saltines in his pocket. Better luck next time!
June 1st, 2009 @ 11:05 am
What bad luck, but spending a week in the rain and complete with bats would have truly been a damper. Glad you were able to salvage your vacation. Nice photos of those trees! Looking forward to the rest of your week in posts.
June 1st, 2009 @ 11:23 am
Not so hot on the bats. Or the mice. You aren’t quitters, just realists.
June 1st, 2009 @ 11:43 am
Oh darn! Hope the rest of your week went better.
I vacationed in Belize once, and there was a bat in the thatched-roof hut one night. We decided there wasn’t much to do besides pull the mosquito netting around the bed and ignore it. Fortunately, it was only that one night.
June 1st, 2009 @ 11:46 am
Aww… that’s too bad! I hate it when everything conspires against you like that. I hope you had a good rest of the week anyways.
I love bats, just not when I’m trying to sleep. I’m a really light sleeper, so the noise bugs the crap out of me. It’s not the fact that bats are there, just the noise.
June 1st, 2009 @ 11:50 am
Oh, dear! The cabin sounds an awful lot like a house we rented in the wilds of France once upon a time (though it was a few hundred years older and we had rented it for a month…).
June 1st, 2009 @ 12:25 pm
It looks like a fabulous spot, but it had just too many strikes against it. Rustic, without bats, is bad enough. Good move!
June 1st, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
I really hope the week improved for you.
Love the trees!
June 1st, 2009 @ 1:06 pm
Holy cow! That would have been a bit much for me, too. In fact, I would have rather been in a tent in the rain rather in a cabin with all the creepy crawlies. That said, one of the houses I lived in during college had a bat problem and now I’m almost used to them. Not mice, though!
June 1st, 2009 @ 1:36 pm
1931?! I can’t believe it’s not older than that (but I checked, and you’re right). Our house is older than that!
June 1st, 2009 @ 1:49 pm
I’m glad it wasn’t the Val Kilmer Memorial Trail. That would have been veddy interesting.
Sometimes the best vacations are the ones at home. And you weren’t being a sissy. Bats + indoors where I sleep = no-brainer to leave ASAP. The rain was just icing at that point.
June 1st, 2009 @ 4:59 pm
Looks good from the outside. Glad you survived!
June 1st, 2009 @ 7:11 pm
Best… post… ever… :)
Wish you got the bats though! ;)
It did rain! We were completely rained out Sat. afternoon and all of Sunday in Banner Elk, NC!
Thanks so much for sharing!
June 1st, 2009 @ 8:57 pm
Ohmygawd, I would have slept in the car. On my list of things that skeeve me out, Bats are in the top three. *shivers* Kudos for sticking it out ’til the morning!
June 1st, 2009 @ 11:41 pm
you’ve got tons more courage than I. I don’t think I would have made it past the poor road! Hope the rest of the vacay was good.
June 2nd, 2009 @ 4:49 am
Yikes! I’ve done a lot of camping, but never with bats before (that I was aware of). I’m glad you came out OK. Here’s hoping the rest of the vacation was critter free and fun.
P.S. Love the tree hugging pic.
June 2nd, 2009 @ 6:03 am
Years ago my husband and I took a week long canoe trip into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The first day was beautiful and we paddled and backpacked for miles into the wilderness.
The next day the weather turned. The temperature dropped, it rained and the wind blew. And the next. And the next. We lasted 6 of the seven days and then left for the pickup point a day early.
He still remembers it as the worst vacation ever, I still think of it as a big adventure.
For all of that, I would have been out of the cabin when I found the mouse dropping on my pillow!
June 2nd, 2009 @ 6:23 am
a memorable adventure if nothing else, and the trail looks very lovely–
Good that you left the place to the critters–mouse droppings + bat guano= health concerns! Where is the dept of health??
June 2nd, 2009 @ 6:54 am
OMG! Rain killed our vacation too, but at least there weren’t any bats! I can’t believe you made it to the porch – I wouldn’t have left the sleeping bag without lots of coaxing and possibly drugs.
I look forward to hearing how the rest of the vacation went!
June 2nd, 2009 @ 7:05 am
I love the look of the cabin and could’ve dealt with the mice, like you.
But unlike your cool, calm, collected reasoning and dealing with the bats, I would’ve FREAKED!!! :)
Kudos to you and the boys. Much respect.
June 2nd, 2009 @ 8:39 am
I’d really like to think that I would have stuck it out, but truthfully? The rain wouldn’t have bothered me–but mice droppings on my pillow and bats at night–I wouldn’t have made it either.
June 2nd, 2009 @ 9:02 am
You are a braver woman than I am!! Mouse droppings on the pillow? I would have been in the car…..headed to the nearest hotel! LOL!!
Sorry the weather was bad….hopefully ya’ll can make it back another time!
June 2nd, 2009 @ 6:14 pm
Sorry you had a crummy cabin experience. I did no know I hated mountain roads until I moved to here. We are house hunting a little out from Asheville. Being stranded on a mountain is real no matter the time of year. don’t get me started on the bear thing.
June 2nd, 2009 @ 7:59 pm
Okay, really, I’m trying not to laugh, but I’m failing miserably. :-) This is one of the best vacation posts I’ve read in a while. I don’t blame you for leaving, though. When I was a teenager, I went bat watching at Sauta Cave in Jackson County. Tons and tons of bats poured out of that cave at dusk and I remember what the ground looked like at the entrance to the cave. I would NOT want that on my head. lol
June 2nd, 2009 @ 8:07 pm
I could have (sorta) lived with mice, but bats? I’d worry about RABIES!!! That’s scary stuff.
June 2nd, 2009 @ 8:10 pm
Forgot to mention that I LOVE Joyce Kilmer forest. It’s been WAY too long since I’ve been there.
My one backpacking trip (solo, with dog) was taken near there, near Robbinsville. It’s lovely country.