It’s Raining It’s Pouring. The F.D Rossevelt Park Trail (Part 1)

So I’ve received a lot of questions about my name TippinTaco. And the question usually is where did it come from and how did I get it. So Just like Owl and others in the OBN community, I want to explain where the name came from.

A year ago, several of us decided to hike the back-country F.D Rossevelt State Park Trail: Pine MTN Trail. This trail was 24 miles of switch backs and pure terror on this particular weekend. We arrived that Friday morning at the visitor center, and made our way to the large trail map. Our job was to detail map our route and time frame in which we had planned to hike. After countless warnings from the lady at the front desk about rain, we shrugged her off and made our way out the door to be greeted by the one and only: Thundering and rain

We had previously called the Trail Angel that wold take us to the very last foot of the trail to park our car and then drive us clearly straight across the mountain to the start of the trail. Remind you it’s raining as hard as it could possibly rain in Georgia, for those who don’t live here, it was hard and fast enough to drench your clothes in the matter of minutes. As we watched our car disappear and the trail head slowly come into sight, it hit us like a ton of bricks, there’s only one way back. the moment we all stared at each other while standing in the rain, all we could hear was tires squealing and the Trail Angel SCREAMING GOOOOODDDD LLLUUUCCCCCKKK…. as he pulled off to not be seen again.

Man what a lonely feeling. To be standing in the edge of the woods, raining pouring down, dirt turning to slippery slides of mud, and no way to get back to our vehicle except sucking it up and starting the hike. Ironically even though we were standing near a tower, none of us had any cellphone coverage what so ever. We covered our bags, covered our heads, and off we went on our 3 day journey through the F.D. Rossevelt State Park.

Hiking isn’t a skill to take lightly, short trails of 2-3 miles isn’t something to worry about but when trekking over 7-10 miles a day, carrying 30-40lbs of gear and trying your best to survive is the technical part of the sport. It takes planning and adjustments that honestly some can’t ever comprehend. It can be the most amazing experience you’ve ever had, or the worst and the verdict is based on your ability to make the best out of the worst situations.

the first few hours we had to trek some of the worst parts of the entire hike, it included creek crossings and switch backs up the side of mountains that honestly aren’t wide enough for a hike and their bag. To add to the thrill it was obviously coming a typhoon and the creeks became rivers and my wife accidentally became one of the fish. She somehow managed to miss the sign: Welcome to Slippery Rock… Well she slipped down the rock, into the creek river. Her Lekki Treking poles went floating and she laid on the ground laughing about what just happened, as I found A LOT of humor in the situation I couldn’t help take the fact her poles were floating away more seriously than her falling. At this very moment I knew that this would become one of the biggest adventures in my life.