Bushwacking or Survivor? Camping Trip Day 1

This past weekend all of the AmeriCorps members had the opportunity to go camping at Samsing cabin about 20 minutes away from Sitka off the island by boat. We all packed up and met at Crescent Harbor, which is one of about 5 harbors in Sitka on Baranof Island to load all of our things on to the boat that was taking us to the cabin. It was an early morning with everyone in the house up at 8am to be at the harbor ready to go by 10. So sleeping in on the weekend was not going to happen. I mean it sort of is…I am usually up at 5:45 to be ready for school during the week. After we all loaded on to the boat, it was a quick ride filled with see otter sightings and mountain views that take your breath away. When we got to the shore that lead us to the cabin, we unloaded all of our things and the kayaks to use for the weekend. The cabin was a nice little place with pallet beds(elevated wood) and there was a ton of floor space. I decided to just sleep on the floor. That ended up being the wrong decision as I was freezing all night being on a wooden floor. In the middle of the forest. with no heat in sight. Once we were all unpacked, the group decided that we wanted to make the mile and a half journey to pirates cove where we could go in the water. So after this weekend, I have swam in the pacific ocean, Atlantic ocean, and the Mediterranean sea. The pacific is much much colder than east coasters think, it was like participating in the polar bear plunge for an hour with no towel to dry off and then having to walk back a mile for dry clothing. Julia, Kristen and I were the lucky ones who got to kayak to the cove, which took about 30 minutes in the open water with the current going in the opposite direction that we were heading. Nevertheless it was still amazing to kayak knowing there could be whales and sea otters swimming below us! When we finally got to the cove, we had beaten all of the other who decided to hike to the cove. There was a family with a dog there and we were able to hang out with the cutest dog until the rest of the group showed up. Since the tide was also low, we were able be to walk from one side of the cove to the other in only about 10 inches of water. By the time the rest of the group arrived, we had explored a little and were happy just to sit in the sun on a white sandy beach. We were there for about an hour and a half just hanging out, walking on the rocks looking for sunny spots and conversations. It was really nice and peaceful, until were were all cold. Julia, Emma, Colin and I all decided that we wanted to walk back to the cabin to dry off and put warm clothes on. After some consideration about the tide, we all decided to hike in the woods as close to the shoreline as possible to avoid bears. To go 1.5 miles, it took us about 2.5 hours since there were no trails for us to follow and we were all literally crawling through the woods hoping we were all going in the right direction. After a lot of bushwhacking, tree branch whacks, falling, mud, losing shoes in the mud and water, we finally made it back to the cabin. The entire adventure back Julia and I kept joking that we were really on an episode of survivor and/or the Even Stevens Movie. I now will never understand why people don't do well on survivor or The Amazing Race, if you just keep tracking you will eventually get to where you need to be. Bushwhacking...just another thing to add to my resume. Once we were all in dry-ish clothing, we decided that waiting for the rest of the group to arrive at the cabin was not happening and we all wanted food fast. I decided to have some apples and oatmeal, the perfect camping meal. By the time we all were dry it was about 7pm and the rest of the group had not gotten back from the cabin yet. Which in all fairness was a possibility since the hike back was a monster of a trek and with a lot of people, they were bound to take a long time. After about another 30 minutes to rest of the group got back and the kayaks also got back which was a fun sight to see granted that some people came back soaked after falling into the water. After all of that we started a fire and just hung out until midnight. It was a really nice night. Then at 3am I had to go outside after Kristen was attempting to unlock the cabin door to go to the bathroom to do bear watch…………Rough night sleep you ask....no way.