sli74
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- Sep 3, 2003
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Last year during the month of May, I got together with 2 hiking buddies JohnS and Meri for a mid-week trip to Galehead Hut during the short self-service season for that Hut. We did that trip as a “Gourmet Hut Trip”. All of us were either unemployed or between jobs at the time. The trip was such a success that I decided it would be fun to give it another shot this year.
With all my weekends pretty much filled up till October, I began to wonder if a Gourmet Hut Trip would be possible this year since work was going to keep me from a mid-week trip. The only possible weekend that was still during self-service and that didn’t already have a graduation, wedding or training planned was Memorial Day Weekend and I had initially promised my VERY patient boyfriend that I would reserve that weekend for just him and noone else. He thinks I do too much and has been so very patiently waiting for me to actually give him some alone time.
Well no matter what he thought of me taking away that one “free” weekend he said “Okay” and that was all that I needed to get the ball rolling. Thank you Brian
So, I booked the 16 spots available at Greenleaf for Saturday and Sunday nights of Memorial Day Weekend and sent out my usually mass email to those on my email lists. I figured I’d cancel any spots left before the deadline. Surprisingly, all 16 spots were booked up within a week and all we had to do was wait for the weekend to arrive.
In the following few weeks I began to put together a menu for the meals I’d prepare (I collected money from all involved to cover grocery costs). An Indian meal was a given but when I mentioned that, Darren (the troublemaker/moderator) challenged me to a tougher meal . . . he claims cooking a full Indian meal is not a challenge for an Indian woman so he asked for a Thai night. Well, I am never one to back down from a cooking challenge SO I began using Brian as a guinea pig for my Thai recipe experiments and finally a menu came together for the 2 nights at the Hut.
Much agonizing and shopping ensued and this culminated in a 10 am meeting time on Saturday morning at the Trailhead to the Old Bridle Path where I proceeded to hand out the individually packed grocery bags to each person going on the trip. Everyone was in great spirits and had plenty of spirits packed in their packs. By 11am, most everyone was on the trail up to Greenleaf Hut in groups of 3-4.
Brian and I brought up the rear after making sure all the food was safely on its way up. Once at the Hut, the laughing and joking and drinking began in earnest. The weekend brought great hiking with the group splitting into 3-4 smaller groups and hiking both left and right on the ridge meaning we had hikers bagging everything from Liberty to Garfield and all in between. I spent Sunday taking a long nap and being lazy because I was exhausted from the cooking on Saturday and still had Sunday meal coming up. I am sorry I missed meeting Guy who had stopped by the Hut but I was safely tucked into my sleeping bag . . .
As far as the non-hiking fun we had a Thai night on Saturday with Shrimp Tom Yum Soup and Chicken and Shrimp Pad Thai followed by cookies and chocolate and lots of wine, I believe I don’t remember all of the night. We had so much food that we must have fed atleast another 10 hikers in the Hut, in addition to our 14 person group.
On Sunday, we had our Indian meal with Onion Sambhar (Indian lentil soup), Biriyani Rice, white rice and Chicken Tikka Masala. Once again plentiful quantities allowed for us to feed the ENTIRE Croo and volunteers and still leave them with enough food to keep them happy for lunch the next day.
It was a fabulous weekend . . . I can’t THANK everybody enough for helping and making it such a GREAT success . . . I already have requests for next year
I will leave the others to give trail condition updates and post pictures which I know are plentiful. THANK YOU guys for making this so much fun and THANK YOU Brian for being so understanding and sharing our alone weekend with 12 VFTTers and numerous strangers
-sli74
With all my weekends pretty much filled up till October, I began to wonder if a Gourmet Hut Trip would be possible this year since work was going to keep me from a mid-week trip. The only possible weekend that was still during self-service and that didn’t already have a graduation, wedding or training planned was Memorial Day Weekend and I had initially promised my VERY patient boyfriend that I would reserve that weekend for just him and noone else. He thinks I do too much and has been so very patiently waiting for me to actually give him some alone time.
Well no matter what he thought of me taking away that one “free” weekend he said “Okay” and that was all that I needed to get the ball rolling. Thank you Brian
So, I booked the 16 spots available at Greenleaf for Saturday and Sunday nights of Memorial Day Weekend and sent out my usually mass email to those on my email lists. I figured I’d cancel any spots left before the deadline. Surprisingly, all 16 spots were booked up within a week and all we had to do was wait for the weekend to arrive.
In the following few weeks I began to put together a menu for the meals I’d prepare (I collected money from all involved to cover grocery costs). An Indian meal was a given but when I mentioned that, Darren (the troublemaker/moderator) challenged me to a tougher meal . . . he claims cooking a full Indian meal is not a challenge for an Indian woman so he asked for a Thai night. Well, I am never one to back down from a cooking challenge SO I began using Brian as a guinea pig for my Thai recipe experiments and finally a menu came together for the 2 nights at the Hut.
Much agonizing and shopping ensued and this culminated in a 10 am meeting time on Saturday morning at the Trailhead to the Old Bridle Path where I proceeded to hand out the individually packed grocery bags to each person going on the trip. Everyone was in great spirits and had plenty of spirits packed in their packs. By 11am, most everyone was on the trail up to Greenleaf Hut in groups of 3-4.
Brian and I brought up the rear after making sure all the food was safely on its way up. Once at the Hut, the laughing and joking and drinking began in earnest. The weekend brought great hiking with the group splitting into 3-4 smaller groups and hiking both left and right on the ridge
meaning we had hikers bagging everything from Liberty to Garfield and all in between. I spent Sunday taking a long nap and being lazy because I was exhausted from the cooking on Saturday and still had Sunday meal coming up. I am sorry I missed meeting Guy who had stopped by the Hut but I was safely tucked into my sleeping bag . . .As far as the non-hiking fun we had a Thai night on Saturday with Shrimp Tom Yum Soup and Chicken and Shrimp Pad Thai followed by cookies and chocolate and lots of wine, I believe I don’t remember all of the night. We had so much food that we must have fed atleast another 10 hikers in the Hut, in addition to our 14 person group.
On Sunday, we had our Indian meal with Onion Sambhar (Indian lentil soup), Biriyani Rice, white rice and Chicken Tikka Masala. Once again plentiful quantities allowed for us to feed the ENTIRE Croo and volunteers and still leave them with enough food to keep them happy for lunch the next day.
It was a fabulous weekend . . . I can’t THANK everybody enough for helping and making it such a GREAT success . . . I already have requests for next year
I will leave the others to give trail condition updates and post pictures which I know are plentiful. THANK YOU guys for making this so much fun and THANK YOU Brian for being so understanding and sharing our alone weekend with 12 VFTTers and numerous strangers
-sli74
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