Trip Report: Blueberry Backpack in Dolly Sods, West Virginia
By Sydney
My name is Sydney, I am 8 years old, my favorite color is green, I live in Washington DC, and I love animals. I started camping before I could walk and I still love camping, hiking, and backpacking and I am an AMC member. I also like arts and crafts using leaves; I have a younger brother and a dog. My favorite place to hike is Yellowstone and my favorite place to camp is Dolly Sods.
I am going to share what I love about backpacking and about my first AMC backpacking trip.
What I love backpacking is having a nice laughing scene and seeing all the cool trees, mushrooms, and creatures. I enjoy seeing the leaves that fall from the trees. I love listening to the birds in the mornings, hearing the last few bird songs at dusk, and watching the stars at night. It’s just fun being with friends in the woods and being in nature and having lots of responsibilities like finishing your dinner, collecting water from the stream, packing food in bear cannisters, and preparing a bear bag line by throwing a rock over trees.
On my AMC backpacking trip to Dolly Sods, we went on a blueberry hike where we hiked and picked and ate blueberries. We had to cross the stream and we hiked through lots mud! I even took off my shoes in the mud for a bit. We camped out for two nights and the weather was cold but beautiful. On the first night, we went down to the stream to collect water, but our filter didn’t work so my mom and I had to fix it. The water in Dolly Sods has lots of tannins in it and is red. It’s very hard on the filters!
The other night I got to spend a lot of time playing in the stream next to our campsite and explored with the other kid on the trip. We found an egg that had fallen out of a tree and the next day when we checked on it, it had cracked!
My favorite parts of the trip were the blueberries, that it wasn’t a super long hike to our campsite, and so much responsibility for backpacking in a wilderness area. The number one highlight was the blueberry peach crisp. I carried the peaches from the car, and we all helped pick blueberries. It was amazing! I loved the hike and I especially loved spending time with my mom in the wilderness.
