Spending the night in a hammock with temperatures hovering around freezing? Definitely use the bathroom before you crawl in, and hope that nature will not issue a call in the middle of the night 😬.

Fellow Travelers,

If you ever wanted to try "bikepacking", there's probably never a better season to do it than the one right in front of us.

What is bikepacking? It's like backpacking, only the gear is strapped to the bike, and not to your back. It differs from traditional bike touring in that it often incorporates more rugged, off-road routes, and forgoes conventional touring gear --such as racks and panniers-- in favor of smaller bags fastened directly to the bike, which tends to make your vehicle more nimble in tricky terrain.

​But don't let not having the perfect gear stop you. The glory of bikepacking is that you can often get away with what you have, and getting off the beaten path with an improvised setup can feel like an adventure, even if you only have a a day or two.

The inspiration for our fall overnight bikepacking and camping trip last year came from this story on Bikepacking.com. We knew that we wouldn’t be able to carve out the number of days necessary to do the entire journey, so we decided to see how much we could squeeze into 24 hours.

We were heading “up North” to close up our island cabin on Lake Huron, and we began exploring options for overnight riding and camping en route, ultimately settling on the scenic network of trails between two northern Michigan towns of Kalkaska and Traverse City.

Although that region of Michigan attracts a fair number of off road cycling enthusiasts, and is in fact the location of the venerable Iceman Cometh Challenge winter bike race, finding reliable trail maps proved to be its own challenge. I even reached out to a local blogger who highlighted some of the routes we were considering (her site is no longer active), but she only confirmed that maps were non existent, and recommended following Iceman routing on GPS.

I did not have a dedicated GPS device, and previous experiences have taught me that the phone is just about useless when it's out of power or signal range, so I made a valiant effort to print at least rudimentary maps before we embarked. Although we were never close to actually being lost, on our return trip we got considerably off the planned route, and ended up inadvertently retracing more of our outbound route than we originally planned. But it was all par for the course, and part of the adventure.

We arrived in Kalkaska on a late morning in October, planning to be on the trail no later than 1pm, so that we would be assured of arriving at the campsite before dark. Since this was was meant to be a warm-up ride for further adventures up North, our route wasn’t long —only about 15 miles one way— but rolling fat-tire bikes loaded with camping gear on overgrown singletrack is definitely a slow paced activity. And with possible stops to check routing and refuel, we needed plenty of leeway.

Our route incorporated a tiny section of the mammoth 4,700 mile North Country Trail, which is generally very well marked, but in this particular region it intersects a dense network of local trails that don’t have similarly consistent markings, so staying on course required constant vigilance.

The routing took us through beautiful, gold-speckled birch thickets, soaring pine woods, across open grassy prairies, and under stately old-growth forests.

We traversed a section of the woods where a massive logging operation left enormous, mud-filled tractor tracks in the sandy soil that proved too much even for our fat tires bikes, and we resorted to pushing them over at least a mile of trail, skirting ankle-deep mud.

After this vigorous workout, amid lightly falling rain, we emerged onto hard pack dirt roads, and stopped under the flame-orange tree canopy for a bit of hot tea. These rolling country roads took us most of the rest of the way to Gurnsey Lake state campground where we planned to spend the night.

Talk about seclusion!

As we arrived under receding storm clouds, we found the entire state campground completely deserted. We had it all to ourselves, and had our pick of several beautifully situated sites overlooking the lake, framed by the drama of the fall sky and changing leaves.

There was still plenty of daylight left, but with the sun at a lower angle, temperatures got perceptibly cooler. Since there was nowhere to get firewood, we had to scrounge logs left over on other sites, and spent over an hour traipsing around the campground, pulling in half-charred firewood and fallen branches along the roadways.

Did I mention we were hammock camping?

We’d never hammock-camped in anything resembling wintry temperatures, and we had barely tested our gear prior to taking this trip.

We used hammocks we already had, skipping the bug nets because of cooler temps, but adding rain tarps to ward off moisture. We hung the hammocks at right angles to each other on the tree-sheltered banks of the lake, stretched the tarps low above them as instructed.

You can do what we did, or use a complete hammock system, which will have everything needed for a single camper.

For mid-to-late fall camping, you'll want to use an underquilt, which attaches under the hammock to provide additional insulation, as it doesn't get compressed by your weight.

We stuffed the sleeping bags inside so that everything would be ready for (hopefully) a good night’s sleep, and —since we were seriously starting to shiver at this point— set about building the fire and heating up some food. With rapidly falling temperatures, dinner was a pretty utilitarian affair, and after stashing our plates to protect them from any marauding critters, we huddled around the fire, and uncorked a small flask of bourbon brought for this occasion.

I was cozy inside my 20 degree sleeping bag , and grateful for the hammock underquilt wrapped around the whole thing like giant eggroll. The tautly stretched tarp provided good protection from the wind, and I got more or less restful sleep.

In the morning, we reluctantly crawled out of our cozy lairs to a light cover of fresh snow coating the campsite, our bikes, the picnic table and tarps.

The first priority was coffee. We made it using water from the lake filtered directly into the pot using a hand-held filter.

Since fall temperatures are unpredictable, and chilly evenings and mornings may not encourage languid meal preparations, we opted for ultimate convenience.

• Supper: Ready-made veggie curry and rice packets from Trader Joes, which we heated in their own bags in hot (not boiling) water.
• Dark chocolate (and the already mentioned bourbon) for a treat.
• Breakfast: Chunks for cold smoked Polish sausage and hard boiled eggs.
• ​Pour-over coffee packs. They are seriously good, and strong enough to brew a nice 12 oz mug. (We brought real cream, because --in cold weather-- you can!)

After more warming up by the fire and a hearty breakfast, we packed up our camp, and headed back to the trail for the return trip.

We finished our ride in early afternoon, changed into fresh, dry clothes outside our car (you don’t know your clothes are clammy until you change into dry ones!), and headed out in search of a hot meal on the way to our island cabin.

Since we had several hours before our scheduled ferry, we turned that time into a mini road-trip, with some stops and short detours along the way.

• For road snacks and fresh local produce, our first stop was Cherry Street Market right in Kalkaska.
• Further north outside the town of Elmira, we stopped at Deadman's Hill Overlook. We didn't have time for more than a quick look-see, which was well worth it, especially since the fall color tree spectacle was unfolding in full glory. If you have more time, this spot is another trailhead of the North Country Trail, and there are also a couple of trail loop options to take in more parts of the Jordan River Valley Pathway.
• After the strenuous, damp ride and a cold night spent outdoors, a hot fresh burger with fries and a delicious beer in a warm, log cabin restaurant overlooking Mullet Lake was the most luxurious and memorable meal.

Hungry for more adventure tips?

• Check out this post on the little-known history of bikepacking and the solid DIY ethic behind it
• For quick, bring-along camp food alternatives, here are our top ten foods most of which will hold up well on cool-weather outings.
• No time for an overnight? Try tarping as a super-minimalist alternative.
• And, if you've been thinking about setting up that dream bike, there's no time like the present to build your adventure rig.

As always, thanks for being here. Happy (almost) fall!

​ See you next week for another dose of --Justyna