Our 1st Attempt at Bikepacking

Early May of 2017 my friend Dan and I attempted our 1st bikepacking trip on the Manistee Trail in Manistee, Mi. All did not go according plan, the trail wasn't what we expected at all, it was totally a hiking trail, being that the trail from the trailhead went straight up hill. This was a STEEP and long hill climb, that we were pushing our loaded bikes up hill to a point it was so steep we couldn't push any farther and we also couldn't see the top of the hill from where we were.

The original plan for the trip was to see how our bike set-ups worked, what gear worked or didn't work. We ended up walking the bikes back down the hill, loaded the bikes up in the van and headed for another trail. We ended finding a motorcycle trail near Caberfae Peaks in Cadillac, Mi. Again, the trail wasn't we were hoping for, a lot of whoop-Dee-Do's, gear coming off the bikes and definitely not having a good time. We only put on something like five miles and that is all we were going to deal with this weekend.

We did learn a lot from this experience though, which is always a plus. Need better planning and possibly trying things out closer to home before venturing out to something that got our hopes up and ended in disappointment.