Wolf Rock and Cedar Rock, Stone Mountain State Park

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
4/16/62022	3 miles				245.5

Parking: 

• Lower Trailhead Parking

Maps:

• STMO_2019_4C (nc.gov)

Directions:

• Start on the trail at the right side of the parking area. Turn right onto the Stone Mountain Loop Trail. Turn right onto the Wolf Rock Trail. Take side spur on right to Wolk Rock overlook. Turn right onto Wolf Rock Trail. Turn right onto Cedar Rock Trail and visit the Cedar Rock overlook. Turn left onto Black Jack Ridge Trail. Pass by homestead. Turn left onto Stone Mountain Loop Trail. Turn right to continue back to parking lot.

I spent 4 days visiting Stone Mountain State Park, attending a wilderness skills class given by Wild Forces. It was a chance to revisit existing skills and learn some new ones. I'm always looking to learn new things about the outdoors. One woman said it was like boy scouts for mothers lol. It was nice to spend time with like-minded women. One woman had actually done agility training before. I told her how I got into software development by building dog agility course design software. She brought out some course maps created by the software :)

Another benefit was to test out various sleep system options. I sleep colder than anyone I know and am just trying to figure out something that works so I can backpack in the early spring and fall. On the first night, the nighttime temperature was around 39 degrees. I used my 20-degree bag and put a Nalgene full of boiled water into it. It made climbing into my bag super toasty. I did have to find a spot to put it without burning myself though. In general, this worked well, except by 3 am or so, it lost most of its heat, and I was cold again. I put a 0-degree sleeping bag on top of my sleeping bag yet was still cold. 

The next night was warmer, and I tried out a 0-degree synthetic bag loaned to me by one of the instructors. It was huge, but it did the trick. I was comfortable for most of the night. 

The third night was also warmer, so I tried my 20-degree bag with 4 hand warmers inside. So, some of my hand warmers were expired by a few years, but still managed to work somewhat. I found the problem with hand warmers was that they moved around. I move around a lot at night, so it wasn't like I could keep them in strategic locations. I've heard of some people who use foot warmers, which have a tape backing.

I just got a couple more things to try, though I don't know if it'll get down into the 30's again for a while.

On Saturday of our class, we went for a hike and practiced map & compass skills. I'm familiar with orienting a map, and taking a bearing, but I haven't done triangulation on a hike before, so it was good to try that out. It's not something I remembered how to do. 

This was my first time at Stone Mountain State Park, and it has some very cool cliffs. The MST runs through the park, so my guess is that Glen and I will come back another time to do some hiking here.