looking over overlooks

I didn't get to backpack at all during June, so I was already behind in my goal of taking a trip each month this year (starting in April).  I had new gear to test, and I was itching to get out, even if only for a couple days, so I contacted someone who I knew had easy access to a substantial portion of the AT and suggested we go for a hike.  Later, I found out that he was so excited at the prospect of a backpacking trip that he blew off a shorter hike with someone else.  Sorry, Other Hiker.

Friday night we pulled in to an Italian restaurant to get a pre-hike dinner, only to discover that the storm that cropped up just after my arrival killed their power.  "We can still make pizza, though," they assured us.  "The oven's gas."  We had pizza, and got dropped off on VA620.  The rain had stopped, and the trail here was dry, as though the rain hadn't made it that far.  We joked about how--despite the forecasts--the wettest we would get was the run across the parking lot to dinner. (cue foreboding music)

Unofficial caretaker of Pickle Branch Shelter

We spent our first night at Pickle Branch.  My cohort had just hiked the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim, and had grown fond of alpine starts, so we set an alarm for 4:30, with plans to be hiking well before 6.  The next morning offered us a few glimpses of the valleys on either side, and the one to the north flowed with a wide river of fog that never materialized into the rain we expected.

A little before 8, we found Dragon's Tooth, where two large triangles of rock pierce upward from the ridge.  Usually there's a great view of the valley there (I was told), but on that morning we could barely see past the teeth themselves.

Dragons' Tooth.  And a couple packs.

The descent north from Dragon's Tooth is pretty well known; there are two sets of steel rungs placed in the rock to facilitate the climb while wearing packs.  Later, there's a flank of rock that looks like a cliff face from below, but actually has a set of thin ledges to climb.  Having some experience with Asterisk Pass and packs full of climbing gear, I was able to laugh at this obstacle, and had fun scrambling down over it.

Come to think of it, it looks like a cliff from up here, too.

Most of the rest of the morning was spent climbing stiles, walking through fields, and checking almost constantly for ticks (I had one; he had five).  There was also a box turtle sitting just beside the path.

The trail wasn't always marked well, but it was pretty clear anyway.

I got the feeling that the area, like Dad's yard, had gotten lots of recent rain, because the quantity and variety of fungus was stunning.  There were also more Indian pipes than I can remember seeing anywhere, occasionally in groups large enough to form an entire Indian horn section.  (although they are not fungus)

I like that you can see how they forced their way up through the leaf litter.

fungus humongous

these were less than a quarter-inch in diameter, and very plentiful

We finally got to McAfee Knob much later in the day.  We had expected crowds (it is reported to be the most photographed spot on the AT), but thanks to either the humidity or the threat of storms, we had it pretty much to ourselves.  It was easy to see why it's so popular.  A parking lot four miles away makes it a very accessible day hike for locals, and the view is spectacular.  Plus, you can get the obligatory "I'm standing on a big crazy overhang" picture.

This is the overhang everyone loves.  The two ridges in the background are the section of the AT we hiked the next day.

Different overhang, same place.  Still a great view of the valley.

We spent that night at Campbell Shelter, a scant tenth of a mile from the Pig Farm campsite, which shares a water source with the shelter, but was pretty full by the time we arrived.  Our nearest neighbor was Guy, one of the tireless volunteers who maintains the trail and shelters in the area.  Like many of the volunteers I've met, he has hiked only a limited portion of the trail (many, many, many times), proving that the AT is not just a thru-hikers pursuit.  Some of the people who are most dedicated to preserving and maintaining it have only seen a fraction of it.

Sunday sunrise.  The water in the valley is Corvin's Cove.

Two hours after another 5:30 start, we arrived at Tinker Cliffs, visible from McAfee Knob.  The trail here follows the cliff edge for quite a ways before ducking back into the forest.

Seriously.  Right along the edge.

This is also where we met a couple other hikers who had some trouble with their bear canister, but that story's so good I'm saving it for a separate post.

golden morning light near a snack stop

I saw a beautiful boulder begging to be explored and managed to drag myself away without even approaching it.  Later, an even larger slabby boulder overhung the trail, and I decided I could allow myself a brief diversion.  My cohort was happy for the break.  From the top of the slab, I got a great view of the Cove, found a snake, and saw a fence lizard.

Either a milk snake (my guess) or a copperhead.  Either way, a good reason to check all handholds before sticking your fingers in blindly.

fence lizard

More impressive than the reptiles on the rock were the three box turtles we saw that day.  We had seen one the day before in a meadow, near a stream, but each of these were on top of the ridge, a mile or more from any water at all.  I was fascinated by that, but couldn't help but wonder: if we saw that many right on the trail, how many others were nearby and unseen?  The top of that ridge could have been full of turtles.

This was the least gregarious turtle we met.

About 1 PM, we got a little rain.  I put on my pack cover, and we both moved our cameras into plastic bags, but otherwise we didn't bother protecting ourselves at all.  I had a new rainshell and pants in my pack, but it was still far too hot for extra layers, and we knew we were within two hours of the car by then, so we didn't care how wet we got.  The rain cleared shortly anyway, but while crossing under sizzling, buzzing power lines, we looked down into the valley and saw the storm that was still coming our way.

You probably can't see it in the picture, but we could see the rain glistening on the roads below us.

That was about when the thunder got close, and we knew our only option was to forge on to where the trail finally dropped down from the ridge's summit.  It poured on us the whole way down.  We were so wet so fast that I laughed when I realized we were still drying to step on the higher parts of the trail, as though that would somehow keep our already-saturated shoes from getting too wet.  That was about when I gave up and just stuck to the center of the trail for most of the rest of the hike.  There were a couple especially soft portions where I sought firmer ground, but otherwise I had accepted that acting as though I were trying to keep my feet dry was moot.  That was lucky, because Tinker Creek had breached its banks, formed a new, parallel creek, and continued to expand outward until it had swallowed part of our trail.

In the upper left portion of this shot, you can see the blaze that proves we really were still on the trail, even though the trail is nowhere to be seen.

The rain had stopped by then, but its impact was still clear.  I was laughing enough by then to convince my friend that I had lost it.  "Just think," I told him, "next year I'll get to do this for days at a time."  I hope my mood holds as well then, because I had a great time on this trip.