I was supposed to be waking up in a camp site beside Mirror Lake this morning. Instead, I’m back at home doinking around on the internet. Not the four-day weekend I’d hoped for.

(Disclaimer: that’s a photo of Lake of the Clouds, although if you squint you can see Mirror Lake in the distant background.)

The short explanation for my early return home is that I froze my butt off Thursday night because I’m inexperienced about early summer weather in the Porkies. And/or I’m stupid.

The longer answer: The high temperature Thursday afternoon was 56 F (13 C) and got down to 43 F (6 C) Thursday night. I expected that. Those are the temps they forecast, so I packed my summer-weight quilts because I’ve slept comfortably in my hammock at those temps using those quilts. I thought I’d be fine. I was not fine.

Ferocious winds blasted through the trees all night Thursday, and I mean BLASTED. I’ve been at rock concerts that were quieter. OK, maybe I’m exaggerating just a tiny bit. But the crazy winds added a few critical data points to my hammock camping experience. Cold temps + high winds = I freeze my butt off, even if I wear my thermal underwear, a polar fleece jacket, a wool beanie, wool gloves, and I bundle up in quilts. FROZE MY BUTT OFF. Literally. I have no butt.

I had a lot of time while I laid cold and miserable in my hammock Thursday night, not sleeping, to think about what I would have to do to not spend all night Friday on the edge of hypothermia. And when dawn finally broke and I checked the weather forecast, they had added a better than even chance of rain. As much as I wanted to stay in the Porkies all weekend, I really did not want to not sleep through a repeat of Thursday night with rain added to the experience. When it was light enough to move around camp without tripping over things, I packed up and headed back down the mountain.

And that’s how my four-day visit to the Porkies turned into an out-and-back sleepover on the escarpment. Better than nothing, but heart-breakingly short. If I could have figured out a way to stay, I would have, because I had been looking forward to this trip for months. But I had a very long, sleepless night to think about it, and I couldn’t come up with any ideas to keep me warm at night using the gear I had. That was the deal-breaker.

Besides the lightweight quilts, I made a couple other rookie mistakes that I would have avoided if I’d used a checklist while I was packing. Why did I not use a checklist? I was being a big old smarty-pants who thought I could pack without a checklist, but obviously I was so very wrong because I made a few really stupid mistakes:

I didn’t pack a beanie cap or a pair of gloves. A beanie cap is absolutely necessary to keep my head warm at night. And I like to wear a pair of gloves in the morning until I’ve had a chance to move for a while and get warmed up. After I set up camp, and I realized I didn’t have a beanie or gloves, I hiked back to my van to get the extra beanie cap & gloves that I happened to have brought along. And a good thing I did, too. I would have been so much more cold and miserable Thursday night if I hadn’t had either.

I forgot a spoon. I had no way to eat hot food. I could have gotten by eating dry food or packaged food I didn’t have to add boiling water to, but it would’ve been better if I’d been able to eat hot food. Of all the dumb mistakes I made, that was probably the dumbest.

On the up side: I saw a bear. He was a couple miles outside the park on the shoulder of the road as I was driving home, but I think it still counts.