Well, that was a bit further than I thought 🙂 That will teach me not to try and eyeball distances along ‘crinkly bits.’ My Little Brazil Creek lunch stop is at the top left of the above map. From there it’s a 200 ft. climb over around three quarters of a mile to the top of the ridge.

What the above USGS map omits is a newish forest road (they were putting it in when we hiked the original trail in 2011), which runs up the ridge and joins FR 2436. Who knows why, but the forest road is also called Berryman Trail… One thing about the USGS map is that it shows the original route of the Berryman Trail, so you can see how it has been moved and extended.

I keep several different map versions in my Gaia GPS App, including older and newer less detailed maps, private property, and sometimes geological maps for times when I need more information than is provided by USGS.

I started slogging up to the top of the ridge at two-thirty, and the noise of the ATVs/Side-by-sides was increasing. By switching and overlaying maps I was able to find the road they were on and could see that there were four places where the trail crossed the forest road. I sped up so that hopefully I’d get across the first two crossings before they did, and then they’d be in front of me, and I’d have the remainder of the afternoon to myself.

I beat them to the first two crossings, after which the trail runs close to the forest road. As they filed past, I discovered why so much noise had interrupted my lunch. There were twenty of them in a convoy, complete with colored lights and music blaring. Oh boy, but it’s not a wilderness, and they can have their fun too. I just wasn’t prepared for around $400,000 of noisy recreational vehicles to be in the same bit of the Mark Twain National Forest that I happened to be in. The next two road crossings were a fair way ahead so, I was hoping they’d be well on their way by the time I got to them.

The noise suggested something different. They’d ground to a halt. I thought a downed tree across the road might have temporarily slowed them down. Nope. they were parked two abreast, bumper to bumper blocking the point where the trail crossed the road. I maneuvered my way between the vehicles, in the process making friends with a couple of dogs who were very interested in my hiking poles. Finally, I had to ask someone to stand aside so that I could get through. Once through I hoped they wouldn’t move on before I made it to the final road crossing. They didn’t. I met another south going day hiker and wished him luck getting across the road 🙂

I carried on towards my goal, arriving at the point where I wanted to leave the trail at three forty-five, leaving me about 90 minutes of light to find a spot to camp and then set everything up. There was wind and rain in the forecast, so I’d need some trees that would let me set up my tarp across the wind. By four I’d got to a good spot and was getting everything ready.

As for the ATVs/Side-by-sides? Well, I could still hear them driving through the forest at seven p.m.

At two forty, I passed the 6.5-mile marker and arrived at the Edward Beecher Campground just after three. I filled up with water for the night from the spring. With four liters in hand, I backtracked a couple of hundred yards down the trail to a low ridge to the east of the trail I’d noticed on the way in.

It looked like a good spot, and I found some trees that would let me set up camp with my hammock across the wind. While I was making camp I heard an ATV stop at the spring and then continue up the forest road that passes through the abandoned campground. I was glad I’d decided to camp well away from the road and spring.

The “Bad Decisions make Good Stories” patch on my backpack was silently mocking me

Camp sorted, I ran an ECG, which informed me I was in AFIB. It must have been very mild bout, as I could hardly feel it, but it confirmed my suspicions. I immediately took one of my pills, and then the extent of my potential problem dawned on me. I usually pack a couple of extra pills to cope with a bout of AFIB. But this was Day One, if I had AFIB every day, I didn’t have enough pills with me to keep it in check — assuming it responded. Also, I’d somehow managed not to pack enough of the coated Aspirin tabs I take each day to reduce the risk of a stroke from AFIB (I don’t take more aggressive anticoagulants because of the amount of scratches and gouges I get backpacking).

This was a dilemma. Should I turn around and go home in the morning? Carrying on would take me further from the trailhead.

The “Bad Decisions make Good Stories” patch on my backpack was silently mocking me. I decided to sleep on it and see how my heart was behaving in the morning. If I was to carry on, I would have to come up with a way of mitigating the risks.