MD AT

I spent the first weekend of May hiking the Maryland section of the Appalachian Trail with my cousin's husband, and his dad and uncle.  The earlier generation only hiked with us for the first day; the father just wanted to get on the trail and test some gear he's taking to the Grand Canyon in June, and the uncle's shoes suffered catastrophic failure less than three miles from our starting point.  However, their departure allowed us to make better time for the rest of the trip,and ended up finishing our planned four-day trip in three.

Map data by Google and Spot

We started just north of the Mason-Dixon line, barely over the Pennsylvania border.  Bored thru-hikers sometimes attempt the "Four State Challenge," pushing hard from just south of Harpers Ferry to set foot in West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania in under twenty-four hours.  Our schedule was not nearly so grueling.

We had different opinions on ideal pack size and weight.

Less than three miles into the first day, a complete footwear failure befell one hiker.

A boot malfunction (and consequential ceaseless search for more duct tape or a cobbler) kept us from reaching our intended lunch stop at Raven Rock until three in the afternoon, when we pulled out our more substantial snacks and the last of the cookies I had made two days earlier.

I will take any opportunity to climb a tree.

The Girl and I had hiked Old Rag the previous weekend with a couple friends far more skilled in wildflower identification than we are, and I practiced as much as I could on this hike.  I realized that learning lots of plants now could give my brain something to do next summer as I slog through 2,000 miles of wilderness, eyeballing plants and trees.  I think I did pretty well, though there were a couple I had to look up from my pictures when I returned, and a few that just weren't in my book.

Wild Geranium

We spent our first night in our tents at the Cowall Shelter.  I knew from a previous trip that I loved my new tent (though I have ideas to reduce its weight: there are four guy lines I never use, and on this trip I set it up using only six stakes), but I had other gear to test.  This was the night I decided my Jetboil is going back to the store.  If all you want to do is boil water, it's fantastic, and magically fast, but I can't afford five months worth of pre-packed boil-in-bag backpacker meals.  When I tried water with a little powdered milk, it boiled over quickly because I couldn't reduce the flame or remove the pot from the locking base.  The water stayed hot enough to finish cooking the noodles I added after making a mess of the picnic table, and I had a prefab meal for the next night, but I decided that I needed simmer control on my stove.  This also may put to rest my curiosity about alcohol stoves, though at least in that case I can hold the pot a little above the flame to reduce the heat.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

I considered taking this bike on GOBA, but it seemed like a lot of weight to pack..

The woods really are lovely, even if neither dark nor deep.

My cozy den, which turned out to be plenty big for me AND my new pack!

I also learned something else I need to fix.  On both nights, it was cold outside my sleeping bag, but hot and clammy inside.  I need to find a better method of climate control.  I have some ideas, but they will cost me.  Still, if they get me through the trip and keep me happy, I can accept that.  My tent was a little pricey, but I'm crazy about it.  My pack was not the cheapest option, but it was the one that fit me best, and on this trip I learned that it's thoroughly fantastic.  It rides well and comfortably, keeps things out of my way but well in reach, and carries exactly what I need with room to spare for more, should the need arise.  If I can find a cooking solution and sleeping option that make me as happy as my tent and pack, I'm golden.

This was my favorite of the several violet varieties we saw.

We left camp just after 7, with two hikers staying behind to drive home.  The trail is often flat and wide in Maryland, and we spent most of the day hiking side-by-side, talking about our respective trip plans.  Mine is documented; he is taking four days to go rim-to-rim in the Grand Canyon with family and a friend next month.  We discussed gear choices, food plans, and what to do in Vegas to use up capital.  The miles slipped quickly past, and I never resorted to playing geography games in my head.

Black Rock Cliff

Redbud tunnel

The first Washington Monument

We had reached our intended overnight spot by 11:30, and knew it would be silly to stay all afternoon.  "Let's go a little further," he kept suggesting, and I kept agreeing.  We soon realized that if we pushed to Rocky Run shelter, it would only be about 17 miles for the day, leaving us 15 miles to finish our trip the next day.  We kept hiking.

I think these are Virginia Bluebells, but I'm not sure.

We came into a clearing behind an old chapel, and I immediately recognized the distinctive shape.  I was certain I'd seen it from the opposite side, driving past on my way to somewhere, and still haven't figured out when  or where I was going.  We took a few pictures outside, then a gentleman came out and offered us a tour.  The Dahlgren Chapel had been built as a family chapel, and consecrated because the wife was friends with the archbishop of Baltimore.  She and her daughters were interred in a crypt there, but it later fell into disrepair, and was at one time used as a barn.  When the Central Maryland Heritage League took over, vines covered the interior walls.  They've made remarkable progress since then, and now make it available for weddings and memorial services.  Check out the website; the chapel's story is fascinating.

We stayed the night at Rocky Run shelter (the new one), and decided to skip the tents to allow for an earlier departure in the morning.  We met a section hiker named FedEx and a young thru-hiker named Sunnie Falls. We confessed that neither of us had trail names yet. It's a little embarrassing.

The original shelter at Rocky Run, with raised tulip beds and a porch swing.

We rose and ate breakfast before either of our bunkmates, and left as FedEx found his way down the ladder from the raised sleeping platform.  We knew he would later pass us, because he had the day before. We had told him over dinner about the lady slippers we had seen, and on Monday he left us large arrows scratched in the dirt to show us that he had found some, too.

May apple bloom

One of FedEx's Lady Slippers

Shortly before lunch we met a group of five ladies out for a day hike.  One of them reminded me of a great aunt who likes to watch the Iditarod.  Another was using the unscrewed handle of a Libby broom as a hiking stick.  All of them were fascinated by our gear when we stopped at the Ed Garvey shelter for lunch.  We had been telling them about our multi-day trip, and one of them asked, "you mean you haven't had a hot meal since Friday night??"  My hiking partner crowed, "I had one this morning!"  They didn't believe us until we showed them our stoves.

Not a mountain goat, but still a goat on the mountain. 

I have no idea what this is.

Our speed dropped a little towards the end of the hike, and the final two miles to Harpers Ferry were on the canal towpath, which was dreadfully boring after the rest of our weekend, but we were still in high spirits.  "If it weren't for my feet," he told me, "I could keep going into Virginia."  The day before I had had a similar epiphany.  We had just left the Dahlgren Backpacker camp, where clean water and hot showers are available, and I let him gain some ground on me, knowing I could catch up later.  I looked around at the forest, aware that I'd been smiling for several minutes with no apparent reason.  My feet hurt, my shoulders were sore, I hadn't really slept the night before, and I was very, very happy.  I was having a great time running myself into the ground.

I knew I'd be ok next year.

Training Days

A couple weeks ago, I went on my first backpacking trip in... a very long time.  I've carried heavy packs on a lot of hikes, usually because I was preparing for a lot of bad things, and often carrying extra gear, water, or food for other people on the trip, but this was the first time I had gotten to do real backpacking since sometime in college.  I'm happy to report that it still went very well.

The forecast was a little foreboding, but I wanted bad weather.  Not a lot of it, because who wants terrible conditions for the entire trip, but I didn't want gorgeous, warm, sunny days because it's easy to handle that.  I wanted to know I could handle bad stuff happening, because next year I'll have no choice.

I think I nailed it.  Both nights were pretty cold, but the days were fine.

I started in Harpers Ferry at 10 AM Friday morning, and headed south on the AT.  The first steps I took on the AT in about twenty years were on a highway bridge over the Shenandoah River, but I was soon climbing the steep hill on the Virginia side of the water.  As I switchbacked my way up the incline, I followed an old stone wall, which I suspect was a continuation of the ramparts built across the river at the stone fort on Maryland Heights.

It was easy to tell where they had gotten the stone for the wall; the trail in this area is made of it, despite nice, soft dirt on either side.  It's good for soil and plant conservation, but it's a little hard on your feet, and it makes for slow hiking.  By this time I had gotten my trekking poles out of my pack, and I was glad to have them.  I had never really used them for hiking before, but I had them out after maybe an hour on the trail, and I used them for the rest of the trip.  They made me feel more aggressive on climbs, they helped when I was descending, and they made me feel like an enormous, hunchbacked stick insect.  Three good reasons to keep using them.

No kidding--this is the trail.  If you click on this photo to enlarge it, you can see a white blaze on one of the trees.

The more I hiked, the better I felt about my decisions.  Both the decision to thru-hike the AT, and to wait until next year to do it.  I had spent the two weeks leading up to this little trip bubbling away in a little stewpot of anxiety seasoned with concerns about calorie acquisition, pack weight, gear choices, and my own physical abilities.  Struggling to come up with good lunch ideas, I eventually decided to just snack all day between breakfast and a bigger dinner.  The day before I left, I read an article that said that was actually the better way to do it, anyway.  Over the course of the weekend, I learned some good things about my gear (I want a lighter pack), got suggestions from other hikers (trail runners, not boots), and was reminded more than once that even though I'm essentially wandering in the woods, I'm not alone out there.  As for my own ability, I don't think it was ever really in doubt--just one of the secret fears that snuck in when everything else weighed down on me.  I am indefatigable.  I may be tired at the end of the day, but tomorrow is another day, and I'll keep hiking then.

Boardwalk through "the swamp," a seasonally wet area which was dry during my visit.  I met one of the volunteers who helped build this, a guy who says he's probably logged two thousand AT miles, but they've all been here, during his daily walk with his dogs.

Looking south from Buzzard Rocks

I took a look around the James Lesser Memorial Shelter on my first day, but I had already decided that I was in pretty good shape so far, and hiked another 3.6 miles to the Blackburn Trail Center, a surprisingly large complex built and maintained by the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club.  In addition to the caretaker cabin and the larger house (available for rental), which features a "sleeping porch" for summer hikers, there is a pissoir, two latrines, solar shower (seasonal--it was not in season during my visit), and the Hiker Hostel, a pretty swank shelter that's really a cabin complete with wood-burning stove.  I ended up wishing I had started a fire in there for warmth, because it got down to freezing in that cabin overnight, but the smoky smell when I first entered made me nervous, so relied on my sleeping bag and a foil blanket wrapped around my feet.

Hiker Hostel at Blackburn Trail Center, my home for the first night.

Snowdrops at Blackburn

Not many hostel guests that night.

I learned a lesson from that night (one of the goals for the weekend was to figure out how to handle some things, like cold nights, and I did learn): a foil blanket inside the sleeping bag just makes you clammy and sticky.  Not warm.  On the second night, I wore wool socks and was much happier.  My cold feet kept me awake often, and by 4 AM I realized I wouldn't get any more sleep that night.  I gave up, had breakfast, and stood outside, watching the dawn eat the stars until it was light enough to find the trail and start hiking.  I saw two meteors, and the lights of a nearby town.  Dark, darting shapes flickered in the trees; I'm pretty sure they were bats, but the shadows of branches obscured their forms and flight paths, and I never saw one clearly enough to be sure.

I used my headlamp for a while, until there was enough light for me to see the blazes on my own.  I could have sat in camp longer, but I knew that hiking would be the best way to get my body warm again.  It was just after 6 AM when I crested and rejoined the white blazes going south.  My feet crushed tiny cities risen from the frost heaves.  When I returned this way hours later, my footprints would be gone, blurred by melting mud and trampled into oblivion by the troop of Boy Scouts who followed me from Blackburn.

Many years ago, my mom's uncle through-hiked the AT, going southbound.  It's an uncommon choice, but he's pretty bad-ass.  He drilled holes in his toothbrush handle to reduce weight, but he carried a skillet so he could make pancakes every morning.  One day he realized he didn't hear any birds, then backtracked to where he had shaken out his tent to find his hearing aids laying on the ground.  Several times during my own little hike, I thought about how I was literally following his footsteps, and reminded myself to pick his brain about advice for a long-term AT adventure.

Guess how far this tree is from Springer Moutain?

Looking southwest from Crescent Rock

I turned around at Snickers Gap, staying long enough to have a snack and try (unsuccessfully) to send a waypoint to The Girl, who was determined to call search and rescue, the FBI, and possibly Yogi Bear if she didn't hear from me all weekend.  Genuinely concerned about the costs of an unnecessary rescue operation, I sent a waypoint every time I ate anything.

signs of spring

I spent my second night, after an 18 mile day, at the Lesser Shelter.  I set up my tent on one of the provided pads and laid down on a bench with bare feet for a little while before refilling my bottles at the spring and making dinner.

the view from the privy

buds on the trail to the spring

I met a man and his dog who run a backcountry resort in the Adirondacks.  He had hiked the north half of the AT before, and was section-hiking the rest of it.  He was on his first or second day of a three-week trip. The dog lay silent on a Z-Rest while the man made and ate dinner, and later had his own bowl of kibble before they retreated to their tent.  I never heard the dog make a single noise.

After I finished cleaning up my dinner, I hung my food bag from the provided pole and laid out my bed and clothes for the next day.  I hung up my pack in the picnic pavilion and looked around the campsite; I wasn't really ready to go to bed, but there was nothing left for me to do, and it was too cold to sit outside and wait for darkness.  I crawled into my tent at 7:30, stretched as much as the small space allowed, and went to sleep.  I was awake and alert again by 4, but I had slept much better than the previous night.  As quietly as I could, I made some oatmeal, tipping in some of my nut and berry trail mix for flavor, texture, and fuel, packed up my tent, and started hiking north.  I watched the sun rise to my right, changing the sky from to black to gray with a prolonged display of oranges and pinks, eventually granting me enough light to turn off my headlamp.  It had been clear the night before, but Sunday was cloudy and gray, and I was glad that I'd be back in the apartment before things got really messy.

This committee of three was waiting for me when I crossed the river.

I knew that night hadn't been as cold as the first because the frost heaves weren't as crisp and crunchy when I stepped on them, but ice still formed in my water bottle.  It was cold on my toothbrush, but tasted good to drink.  I'm already planning my next trip, and yesterday I bought a new pack, three pounds lighter than the one I've been using.

Can't wait to test it.

Highacre Haven

During the spring and fall, we work with a group that volunteers in one of the local parks doing outreach work with hikers and park visitors.  This weekend was the winter gathering, which mainly consisted of renting a place for some of us to stay and stuffing ourselves silly for two days straight.  Good times.

This year (my first with the group), the gathering was held at Highacre House in Harpers Ferry, WV, which I recently visited for the first time.  Oddly enough, we saw the house when we visited a couple weeks ago, and had no idea we would be staying there this weekend.

The Girl and I arrived Saturday morning, after the first night of eating and games had already happened; work, traffic, and baking a loaf of Cheesy Sexy Bread prevented an earlier arrival.  Our group started the day with a stroll through a portion of the town on top of the hill.

Driveway gate

Same driveway, same wall, same great stonework

car boots are sometimes unnecessary

Highacre house sits at the foot of the historic cemetery crowning the hill.  It has a great view of where the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers meet, and of the ruins of the St. John's Church, which was built, burned down, and rebuilt before succumbing a final time.

After lunch, a few of us headed across the river, and up the trail to Maryland Heights, diverting before the viewpoint to go up a very steep path to the old stone fort that once commanded the area with gun batteries and scores of troops who had to haul everything--water, food, supplies, and enormous, heavy cannons--up this road.  Not horses.  Troops.

Even though some of the cannons had a range of over a mile, the fort itself was still built to handle a direct attack.  Two long stone walls protected two long rifle trenches.  Originally, these walls extended well down the mountainside, and the top third of the mountain was clear-cut to provide wood for charcoal works, and to allow a clear line of sight in all directions.

The second day started early when I learned that it's hard to get a good sunrise shot from a valley.

However, I did get a better close-up of the sign on the cliff (I still can't read it) and a pair of climbers working their way up its face.

Harpers Ferry

I'll be honest.  (That's rare, so hold on to your cookies)  For some reason, I always thought Harpers Ferry was somewhere near the coast.  Maybe it's because The Girl had always talked about "going down" to Harpers Ferry.  Turns out it is in no way "down" from where we live.  It's west, and uphill.  Oops.  Of course, I also thought there was an apostrophe somewhere in Harpers Ferry, and that wasn't right, either, so I learned a lot when she finally took me on that very educational field trip.

Our National Parks Pass (a sound investment for any adventurer) gained us access to the upper parking lot.  There's a nice trail leading down through the woods and along a local road to enter the village of Harpers Ferry.  Before you actually reach the village, there are plenty of historical markers and informative signs telling you about things like this old pulp mill, which received logs floated down from upriver and processed them for lumber and paper products.

Harpers Ferry was the site of repeated Civil War battles for the valued strategic ground at the juncture of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, and a commercial battleground in the fight between canals and railroads; railroads won.  Today it marks the point where Maryland. Virginia, and West Virginia meet, and the unofficial midpoint of the Appalachian Trail.  It's a popular destination for hiking, climbing, whitewater, fishing, and mountain biking.  Naturally, there's also plenty of shopping and tasty food.  We had some lunch before taking the AT across the river to the Maryland Heights trail.

I made several attempts to get a good picture of the sign painted high on the cliff face above the rail tunnel; this was my best result.

 The hike to Maryland Heights isn't particularly long, but it was pretty steep.  We gained about 800 feet to get to a viewpoint at the top of the cliffs looking straight down to the river.  In the view below, the AT crosses the bridge on the left.

The village itself climbs up a hill so steep that roads climb from the first story of a building to the second by the time they reach the other side of the building; several buildings were built against cliffs, and steep staircases provide access for the tenants.  One set of stairs was cut into the rock over one hundred years ago, and grooves have been worn into the steps by the hundreds of feet that have since used them.  It's a great place to visit, and we got back early enough to get an early dinner at a local barbecue place!