I Spy: Old Rag Edition

Our Shenandoah volunteer group does a couple training weekends each year, and we spend lots of time on the mountain talking to visitors, teaching Leave No Trace ethics, and (very occasionally) assisting in rescues, but we also have one designated Fun Weekend a year.  This is an official thing, in addition to the two or three times smaller subsets of the group get together for cabin trips, snowshoeing, game nights, and the completely unrelated but jaw-dropping annual cookie swap.  In the past, I've never been able to attend the Fun Weekend, due to various schedule conflicts, and missed out on things like rappelling and the zip line, but last November we had a scavenger hunt.

I rock scavenger hunts.

My teammate and I not only found the most items on the list, but we did well enough in the Skills portion to firmly cement a first-place finish.  Some of our list items are shown below.

A bearbag, incorrectly hung.

"We were told to dress up." "I dressed up as Batman."

A stick insect. Remarkable camouflage!

Christmas fern (see how the individual leaflets look like stockings?)

A dog. (They are not allowed on Old Rag, but you're guaranteed to see them, because people ignore that rule. We saw at least four dogs that day, but only one in a pack)

We were told to find a phone booth.  There is no phone booth, so my teammate and I improvised.

A bear.

"Can you make a bear face while wearing the bear hat? We'll get extra points for that!" Not true, but worth it to get this picture.

Old Rag autumn

We volunteer on Old Rag in Shenandoah National Park, and we work on a two-season schedule.  In the winter, the rock scramble at the top of the mountain is often coated in ice and snow, and besides being dangerous, it's just not very popular in the coldest months. Springtime brings new leaves, lots of flowers, hordes of visitors, and our volunteer group.  We take a break during the summer, when high temperatures and thick humidity keep most visitors off the mountain.  Fall is a pretty big deal on Old Rag.  Cooler temperatures reduce the bug population, and the bald, rocky summit affords incredible views of the autumn colors throughout the surrounding valleys.

As I try to alternate between working on my book and posting about food and playing outdoors, I find old sets of pictures, which is why you're just getting fall colors posted here now, as we look toward the spring season on the mountain. Forgive me; the book has been a bit of an obsession of late.

The Girl was very proud of the lunch she packed for the day, and insisted it be recorded for posterity. This is what comes of me taking pictures of my new recipes. (those are sour cream chocolate chip cookies in the back)

Shenandoah panorama from the west side of the mountain.

I took some Legos with me to make an Announcement photo, for anyone who didn't already know.

A few trees provided bursts of color in the rock scramble.

With skies so clear, I can't resist a shot looking up through vivid leaves.

The Girl gleefully demonstrates wind strength at the summit.

The Ballad of Kenny Fauquing-Smythe

The following story is true, and contains a lot of colorful language.  If you're not old enough to buy an "Explicit Lyrics" CD without an adult, go read something else.  If you are easily offended, you probably don't spend much time with me anyway, but go read something else today.  Names have been changed to protect me.

It was late, it was dark, and it was raining.  The Girl and I decided to just stash our stuff in the car instead of trying to hang a bear bag.  The trees in our area didn't even have limbs below thirty feet, so it was much easier and, we believed, more expedient to just walk the three-quarter mile trail to the car.  The rest of our party was either engaged in bear-bag hanging efforts, had already crawled in their tents, or had given us their leftovers to stash in our car, "since you're going down there anyway."

I had just lifted the hatch of my car and started to load our things when a slightly younger man careened up the dirt road and into the parking lot, winded and wide-eyed.  Jay told us his story in a rush of clipped sentences which didn't quite mesh until much later in the night, after I had heard corroborating and supplementing accounts from his friends.  Jay and his wife, on their way to a camping weekend with two other couples, had come across a crashed pick-up truck with two men standing beside it.  They had offered the strandees a ride, being charitable on a rainy evening.  One of the men had begun threatening his saviors.  "He had knives," Jay told us, "But I took them away."  Despite his story, I had already surmised that Jay was not our generation's Bruce Lee, and I wasn't sure how he had managed to disarm the man.  "Well, he gave me his knives," he explained.  "I put them over there," he added, pointing to a large rock at the corner of the parking lot.  "He said I should take them, because he was afraid of what he might do.  Then he told me he was gonna cut me, so I took his knives."  Since arriving, Jay hadn't gone near that rock, which tells us that this was his second trip to the parking lot where we now stood.  This parking lot marked the terminus of a single-lane dirt road in, relatively speaking, the middle of nowhere.  The fact that he came back to the same lot looking for help tells us something else about Jay: he was really, really lucky that we happened to be there (you thought I was going towards a different conclusion, didn't you?  That's ok--they're both valid).  Jay added that he had left the guy who had offered his knives with two friends.  I looked behind him and saw three figures approaching at the outer limits of my headlamp's beam.  "Is that them?" I asked.  Jay spat out a panicked noise and dashed past me.  I told The Girl to get in the car, and to be prepared to go find help.  She expressed concern over my own safety, and I reminded her that numbers were on my side.

Then I met Kenny.

Kenny was accompanied by Jay's friends, Adam and Brad.  As Kenny reeled drunkenly around the parking lot, Adam and Brad introduced themselves and filled in some holes in Jay's story, much more calmly than he had.  The three couples (Jay, Adam, and Brad had each left a wife/fiancee/girlfriend in cars somewhere down the road in order to deal with Kenny) had planned to go camping in the area until their evening was interrupted by the discovery of the wrecked truck and the two drunks it had contained.  "Where's the other guy?" I asked.  "Oh, he's still with the ladies. He's not as bad as Kenny."  By this time, Kenny had made it back to our little circle, swaying gently in a breeze the rest of us couldn't feel, and the party really got started.  Until this point, I still thought the highlight of my day would be the bear I had seen that afternoon.

"Whoer yew?" he asked, scowling at me.  "I'm Ryan.  Who are you?"  He slapped clumsily at my shoulder.  "Man, don't you know I am, man?  I'm Kenny Fucking Smith!  I'm Mike Smith's son!"  Clearly, the Smith Dynasty were a locally famous clan, but I had never heard of them before.  He squinted at me.  When we had walked away from the tents, the rain had almost stopped, and I had gone to the car in a lightweight tech tee.  Since that time, the rain had picked up again, and the shirt clung to me.  Water dripped steadily from the hair clumping wetly above my forehead.  Hairs on my arm stood on end, beads of moisture capping each one.  "Man, whire yew all wet?"  I looked to Adam and Brad, each wearing dripping raincoats, smiling quietly, and avoiding eye contact.  I got the feeling they had already met the extents of Kenny Fucking Smith's (Mike Smith's son) conversational range, as I soon would.  "Because it's raining, Kenny.  It's been raining for hours."  "Whut?!"  He looked skyward to check my data, and I thought about the story of turkeys drowning when they look up to the rain.  "You're wet, too, Kenny."  Now he looked at his own wife-beater-clad chest, still dubious as to the verity of my information.  "Huh," he replied, and stepped away from us, considering the new hypothesis.

Adam and Brad consulted for a moment, their eyes on Kenny, and I took the opportunity to talk to The Girl, who had so far remained hidden in our parked car.  "He's drunk, but he's not a threat," I assured her.  I filled her in on everything Adam and Brad had told me, including how at least one of their wives was heading back out the road to look for help.  "You know the area better than they do," I told her.  "See if you can find some sort of Law Enforcement Professional to deal with this guy."  She agreed, and started the car as I went back to Adam and Brad.  She backed the car from the space and pointed it toward the lot's exit just in time for Kenny's drunken bird-mind to see movement.  When he staggered toward her, arms outstretched, beseeching her to stop, it looked to her like a scene from a zombie movie.  A lurching figure approaching in the rainy night, the headlights glinting off its shiny, wet surface as it gargled unintelligible syllables.  The tires threw gravel as she sped past him, hoping she wouldn't veer too far to the left and hit one of the large rocks at the lot's entrance.  As Kenny Fucking Smith (Mike Smith's son) slapped at the hood of my rapidly exiting car, I just hoped he wouldn't scratch my baby.  This was about the time I looked off into the woods surrounding the lot and saw what I still believe was Jay, lying prone in the bushes, fervently hoping Kenny wouldn't find him.  Truly, a hero among men.

Adam, Brad, and I spent the next forty-five minutes to an hour (maybe longer) having the same handful of conversations over and over with Kenny Fucking Smith (Mike Smith's son).  The first, and most prevalent, was his introductory speech, transcribed above, exactly as it went every single time we had it, with one exception: one time, when he asked if I knew who he was, I told him, "No, I don't know anybody in this area.  I'm from Oregon."  He leaned back so far I thought he might topple over, then uttered in stupefaction, "Oregon??"  I might have told him I was from the Moon.  A little later, he grabbed my arm to ask me again whether I knew who he was, man, because he apparently had forgotten relaying this information to us thirty times already, and suddenly froze.  He squeezed my arm again, then slapped at my chest, another frequently-repeated Kenny Fucking Smith (Mike Smith's son) gesture.  "Man, you work out?  They make 'em strong in Oregon!"  Sure.  Oregon he remembers.

Our second conversation revolved around his continual surprise that we were all wet, and his continued disbelief that it was raining.

The third went like this:  "Man, you got any smokes?"  "No, Kenny, none of us smoke."  "Man, man, you got anything to drink?"  "No, Kenny, we don't have anything to drink."  As if he needed anything to drink.  Considering his options, there was usually a pause before his third question.  "You got any pussy?"  "No, Kenny, we don't have any pussy."  As luck would have it, the women each of us held dear were far away, in locked metal boxes, their feet on the accelerators.  "Well, what fuckin' good are ya??"  We would shrug at this.  Clearly, we are no good at all, and no fun, either.  Perhaps you'd like to go away now?

In between our Kenversations, the three of us discussed our options and swapped our stories.  At one point, Kenny wandered off to consider the informational sign near the entrance to the parking lot, and stepped carefully over the chain gate which blocked unauthorized vehicles from the Forest Service road beyond.  A couple moments later, we heard a WHUMP! and looked up to see Kenny Fucking Smith (Mike Smith's son) face-down in the gravel, the chain swinging wildly behind him.  "Should we check on him?  Is he ok?" asked Adam.  I put my light on the drunk's carcass and watched carefully.  "Eh, he's breathing.  He'll be fine."  A minute or so later, he managed to stand up and wandered over to us to inquire whether we were aware of his identity.  Never one to wait for a response to this particular question, he would push one of us at the shoulder and proclaim, again, "Man, I'm Kenny Fucking Smith, man!  I'm Mike Smith's son!"  Years later, a gathering of friends recounted this story to three others who didn't know it, and wondered for the first time whether Fucking was not an exclamatory adjective, but the maiden name of Kenny's mother, Her Ladyship Eveleyn Penelope Von Trapp Fauquing; this led to further consideration of Kenny's dynastic heritage, and whether Mike Smith used the British spelling of "Smythe" on his family crest.  Perhaps Kenny's surname was hyphenated?

Probably not.

I convinced my sober companions that Kenny would stay wherever he had an audience rather than leave us alone, and that our best option was to move the audience where we wanted Kenny to go.  Namely, away from the campground we planned to inhabit for what remained of the night.  We started walking, and naturally, Kenny Fucking Smith (Mike Smith's son) followed, asking us again why we were so wet, did we know who he was, man, and did we have any smokes/drinks/pussy?  We had made it maybe half a mile from the parking lot when Kenny Fucking Smith (Mike Smith's son) realized he had to pee, and somehow managed to make it all the way to the edge of the road before dropping his fly, at which point he began to assure us that his dick was bigger than any one of ours, and possibly all three combined.  We allowed that this was likely, mainly to avoid the collection of empirical data.  This was about when he slipped and somehow managed to fall underneath the log he had sprayed with his own piss.

Again, Adam and Brad asked if we should help him.  Again, I assured him that he was fine.  I felt that any extra effort Kenny Fucking Smith (Mike Smith's son) expended would be progress towards a sober state.  They caved, feeling a pity I lacked, and it took both of them to get him to his feet.

Ten minutes later, a local sheriff's cruiser approached us.  We stopped, relieved that our part in this play was approaching the end, but Kenny was eager to go meet his new friend.  "Sir, stop right there!  STOP RIGHT THERE!  DO NOT APPROACH THE CAR!!"  For a brief, exhilarating moment, I was certain that I was about to see a drunken moron get tased, but instead the officer deftly turned Kenny Fucking Smith (Mike Smith's son) toward the hood of the cruiser and into The Position One Assumes.  Adam, Brad, and I stepped into a small drive on the side of the road and chatted for a few minutes, watching the show and getting mildly annoyed that we were left to stand in the rain (now a legitimate downpour) while Kenny Fucking Smith (Mike Smith's son) sat in the front seat of the cruiser, still struggling against a wind nobody else could feel.  Eventually, the officer approached us and asked some questions, never writing anything down or even getting our names.  "Is he a regular?" I asked, already certain of the answer, and was surprised to hear the reply, "No, not really... but he usually has a gun."  "Did you give him a breathalyzer?"  "Yeah, he blew a point-two-four."  (three times the legal limit.  If he could be that drunk and not dead, I can't possibly imagine how he wasn't a regular)  I remembered the pocketknives, and told him where he could collect them as an SUV pulled up from the direction of the parking lot: Park Rangers.  The two agencies spent a few minutes discussing where, exactly, they were, in order to determine jurisdiction and custody of Kenny Fucking Smith (Mike Smith's son).  A third car approached behind the cruiser, and Adam and Brad left to catch up with their wives.  All three drove away without a single offer to take me back to the parking lot, but I ran (mainly to stay warm--by that time everything I wore was soaked to the bone) and arrived in time to show the sheriff's deputy (who had won custody) where to find the knives which had so thoroughly terrified Jay: three or four of the cheapest, shittiest, gas-station check-out line quality pocket knives I've seen in one person's possession.  Jay's wife arrived, still chauffeuring Kenny's buddy, who was nowhere near as drunk as Kenny Fucking Smith (Mike Smith's son), collected her husband from wherever he had been hiding, and left again, presumably to drive Kenny's buddy home.

The Girl arrived when the cruiser left, and we both watched the Rangers' SUV drive away up the same dirt road that ran past our campsite, again with no offer of help.  We saw toad's eyes gleaming in our flashlight beams on our walk back to the tents.  Everyone else in our group was already asleep, and had no idea we hadn't returned within minutes of delivering our food to the car.  I told her my side of the story.  She said that she had found the truck, and that it had stopped on its way down a steep bank towards a river when it hit a tree.  "One foot to either side," she told me, "and he would've been dead.  Roll over, crash in the river, drown."  Just before midnight, we peeled off our clothes outside the tent, trying to keep the inside dry, but that was the night I discovered my tent had sprung a leak, directly above my forehead.

Someday, I'm going to rewrite this as a country song.

in the dark

Camp was still almost three miles ahead of me, and the sun was already dipping below the treetops.  That happens much sooner in the mountains, because the roots of the trees are sometimes well above your head.  You lose daylight quicker when you're below the horizon.  I've been out in the dark an awful lot on camping and hiking trips, and I take a certain pride in might night vision, so I wasn't worried.  Besides, I felt like I could use the practice, in case my headlamp batteries died at some inopportune point next year.  That was the point of all my training hikes: to help me prepare for whatever might happen during my thru hike, often by carrying more than I knew I needed for a short trip, or changing my menu plan.  Walking in the dark was just another useful thing to practice.

While it was still dusky I startled two deer who were almost close enough for me to take a bite out of them.  When they launched through the brush, I saw a third join them, further from the trail.  I was a little startled, too, but I was more focused on closing the distance between me and a campsite before it got prohibitively dark.  Most of the leaves were still on the trees, so I couldn't count on much light from stars or the moon to guide my way.

In daylight, the Appalachian Trail is generally very well marked.  You'd have to try really hard to get genuinely lost.  At night, you have to be more aware of context clues, because you can't always see the next blaze.  If the trail is fairly straight, it's easy.  It gets more difficult when you start switchbacking down a mountainside.  A gap between trees straight ahead can distract you from the sharp dogleg to your right, and unless you realize the footing just changed from beaten path to sticks and leaves, you're in trouble.  After a couple moments when I had to look around me, squinting in the darkness, to be sure which way I needed to go, I gave up and put on my headlamp.  Maybe ten minutes later I gave up again, and switched it from red to white light.  The brighter beam let me see much more, but it ruined any chance of retaining my natural night vision.  However, it also let me move much more quickly.

I was clipping along pretty well, having had a calorie-packed snack I knew would replace my cooked meal in camp, when I heard a grunting noise ahead of me, slightly to the right.

I know the word "literally" gets thrown around an awful lot these days, often improperly used, and it makes me crazy, but I literally skidded to a stop.  Whatever that noise was, it wasn't something my brain could immediately identify, like a treefrog, or an owl, or even the demented laughter of a pileated woodpecker, and that gave me pause.  Immediate pause.  A pause which locked my legs in position, leaving my feet no option other than dirt-skating until all momentum was lost.  My headlamp caught eyeshine about fifteen feet ahead of me, and once the critter moved a little and I saw the second eye, I knew I was ok.  They were far enough from the ground to make a large animal a possibility, but too close together to be anything that bore me a serious threat.  When I got closer, I managed to surprise him with the light just long enough to tell it was a raccoon, as I suspected once I saw both eyes.  I laughed at myself, and kept going.  After the scare the raccoon gave me, I wasn't fazed at all by the skunk I saw fifteen minutes later.  Sure, I slowed down and waited for him to get out of range, but he didn't manage to spook me like his arboreal friend.

The shelter was full when I arrived, and the whispering people eating dinner told me the people sleeping in there were already asleep when the diners arrived.  They said there was still room for me and my pack, but I knew there had to be tent sites nearby.  I kept my light low on the ground, so as not to disturb any tent campers already asleep, and found a good site between two guys I met late the next next day.  I made camp quickly, hung my food bag, and went to bed.  It was dark.  What else was I going to do?

I always have trouble sleeping through the night, but it's different in the woods.  In town, I wake up to hear traffic or people.  In the woods, I wake up to the chirring chorus of bugs.  Later in the night, when even the bugs had gone to sleep, I heard a conversation between some treefrogs (I didn't mean to eavesdrop--I just like the sound of their voices).  Much later, I heard a barred owl reciting soliloquies in the dark.  Just three reasons I love being in the woods at night.

SNP AT

In the spring, I had an (obviously failed) plan to get in one backpacking trip every month until at least October, to make sure I had the right gear, familiarize myself with said gear, and spend some time on the trail mentally cataloging shelters, water stops, and resupply points.  I have been backpacking four times this year.  Whoops.

I also had a goal of getting at least one week-long trip, because I felt like the weekend getaways weren't taxing enough to give me a good idea of what I was starting.  I nearly succeeded.

My route, roughly, through Shenandoah National Park

On a recent Sunday afternoon, after the second half of a two-day Ultimate tournament, The Girl drove me to Front Royal.  (On the way, we took the Jubal Early ferry across the Potomac.  Not that Jubal Early.)  The Appalachian Trial passes a few miles outside of town, and I was able to start hiking at about 3:30 that afternoon. The problem was, to make my schedule for the rest of the week work well, I'd have to hike about fourteen miles that afternoon, which meant finishing in the dark.

Chicken of the woods?

The Girl hiked with me almost as far as the Tom Floyd shelter.  On her way back to the car, she met Skurks, a southbound thru-hiker who I didn't meet until Wednesday night.  Skurks and I didn't realize he had met someone I knew until Thursday night, and I admit being pretty proud that I was able to maintain that much lead for at least a couple days.  I didn't meet any other long-distance hikers that day, but just outside the park boundary I met a family of five (there was a sixth member who was sick, and stayed at home) and their three cats who had followed them on the mile-long walk from their home.  The mother of this group has a southbound thru-hiking cousin on the trail this season; the father works for a tree-trimming company whose trucks I've seen in our neighborhood.  It was neither the last, nor the most striking example of "small world" that I encountered that week.

The Gravel Springs shelter was full when I arrived that night (about 8:30), and the picnic table was full of people cooking and eating their dinner as quietly as possible.  I slipped past them to find a tent site, and was glad that my late lunch and heavy trail-snacking left me full enough that I didn't feel cooking dinner that night was necessary.

Monday morning sunrise

There was a tent on either side of me that night; Handyman rose from one and greeted me on his way past the next morning.  I later learned that Cakes ("as in Johnnycakes") was in the other.  I packed quickly, and was the first to leave the shelter area that morning.  My proof?  Spiderwebs in my face, all morning long.  For a while, I considered the trailname Webwalker.  But being early has its advantages, too.  A few miles from camp, a side trail led to a spring, where I saw my first two bears of the week.  I'd never turn down an opportunity to see bears.

Not a bear, but still neat to see so close.

Later that day, I started to feel the effects of skipping dinner the night before, but I had plenty of snacks to sustain me.  Knowing it could be my only big training hike, I had filled my pack with ten days' worth of food, just to make sure I could carry that much next year, should the need arise.  I know now that I can, and that I don't want to carry that much food again if I can help it.

The view from Mary's Rock is not usually blocked by blue buffoons, but it was that day.

I spent Monday night in my tent, pitched behind Byrd's Nest #3 shelter (there are at least three more structures in SNP called Byrd's Nest; one is a picnic shelter relatively close to the trail, one is on Old Rag, and I still haven't found the last).  Handyman and Cakes both passed through on their way to a nearby campground, and Big Island stayed in his hammock two tent sites away from me.  Boulderdash had the shelter to himself until a late arrival joined him.

Tuesday sunrise

I found Cakes and Handyman the next morning as they were wrapping up breakfast, and exploited the running water to brush my teeth, fill my bottles, and "camel up."  The three of us hiked together from there to Skyland, talking variously about Boy Scouting (it was the nineteenth anniversary of the day I became an Eagle Scout), job searches, and the possible impact on our hike of the impending government shutdown.  Truth be told, it had been a popular topic among everyone I saw on the trail that week.

I was slow with the camera, but this bear started closer to me than any other that week.  It was pretty exciting.

For a while, I was in the lead of our little group, and it was during this portion of the morning that I had my second most exciting encounter of the week.  I heard some noise to my left, and scanned the hillside, but didn't see anything.  Usually, those noises are just squirrels int eh leaves, making noise vastly disproportionate to their size, but the previous morning I had heard the thuds of the bear's paws as I approached the spring, and I was still keyed up at the idea that I might see another.  I kept walking once I failed to see anything--even a squirrel--among the fallen leaves, but as I passed a tree, I heard more scrambling noise, and a crashing thud as a bear hit the ground coming out of the same tree.  Moments earlier, Cakes had been complaining that he hadn't gotten to see a bear yet, and this one nearly fell on top of us.

View from a morning snack break.

I sent a couple postcards from Skyland, and Cakes and Handyman decided to stay for a hot breakfast, but when we arrived, we had found verification that the government--and the national parks--had been closed.  We had 48 hours to get out.

Knowing that I would one day write about that hike, I had a moral dilemma.  But I'm going to be honest here: I kept hiking.  I wanted to go as far as I could in that 48 hours, and I'd like to add in this paragraph that I was outside the park boundary by Thursday afternoon.  In the meantime, I stuck to the trail, practiced Leave No Trace, packed out my garbage, and avoided park services.  Later, I learned of several people who went on day hikes in national parks during the shutdown, and one group in Maine who ignored the closure and then required a rescue, thereby taxing the park's skeleton crew.  I do not condone any of those activities.  I felt bad for the rangers who had to tell people to leave; that's not how they want to spend their day.  On the other hand, most of the people I met (and all whose trail names I have mentioned here) were one-way, long-distance hikers, and didn't have the option of getting back in the car and heading home.  We all did the best we could to get out of the park by the posted deadlines.

An hour after I sent a postcard to my nephew telling I had seen three bears, I saw a fourth wandering down the trail ahead of me.

Looking west between Skyland and Big Meadows

A fawn eating either an apple, or a hickory nut.  After I finished taking pictures of her, I turned around and saw her mother on the trail, watching me.

I shared a campsite with Handyman that night, and learned that his son volunteers in the same park group as The Girl and I.  I also learned that he had talked to a ranger who had told him that they weren't going to bother the thru-hikers; we had official legal sanction to continue our hike, and I relaxed a little.  I am not accustomed to living outside the Law.

Looking north along the trail Wednesday morning, just before I caught up with Boulderdash.

Wednesday afternoon, I stopped in Simmons Gap for water, and met my first ranger on the way out.  "You know the deal right?" he asked after some introductory questions.  "Get out of the park as fast as I can?"  He nodded, checked my backcountry permit, reminded me to stay out of park campgrounds, and sent me on my way.  I felt better then, because I had personally gotten clearance from a ranger.  That night, I found out that Handyman had left the park in a ranger's truck.

Marbled Orb Weaver. I saw an awful lot of these along the trail, and felt bad when I had to tear down a web to get past.  They are a beautiful species.

I spent Wednesday night at Pinefield Hut, where there is no field, and I had to look around a bit to find a pine tree.  It was still a beautiful spot, and I arrived early enough to pitch my tent on the hillside above the shelter, rub my sore feet, stretch, and spend some time sitting quietly and listening to the forest before I made my dinner.  I think it was the most relaxing time I had all week, and it made me really happy to be there.  I forgot how much my ankles hurt, and the worrisome starts of blisters I was developing, and how I hadn't slept very well all week. I didn't care about any of that--I was just happy to be out in the woods.  That night I met Slim, a thru-hiker who was carrying a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, and Skurks, who had met The Girl Sunday afternoon.

I gotcher mobile home right here.

Thursday was my longest day on the trail.  Depending on where you got your information, I hiked between 26 and 28 miles that day, with plenty of climbs, and only one reliable water source.  It was also the day of the best sunrise all week.

Hello, Thursday.  So nice of you to join us!

I could have gotten water at park campgrounds, but after the ranger's warning, I decided it was best if I avoided them entirely.  It wasn't easy.

Black Rock summit, 3,092 feet

Halfway between Pinefield and Calf Mountain shelters is Black Rock Shelter.  I figured that would be a good opportunity to refill my bottles.  Luckily, I didn't guzzle everything I had before I arrived, because there was a boil advisory at Black Rock, and I didn't know whether that meant I had to boil it in addition to filtering it, so I left without any new water.

hiking down from Black Rock summit

By the time I got to Calf Mountain shelter, I felt pretty bad.  Not dehydrated, but exhausted and sore.  I was also hungry, because I knew most of my food would make me thirsty, so I had skipped my last snack break and stretched the time between the others.  When I arrived, I chugged a liter of water, refilled both my bottles, and ate something.  I felt better immediately.  I also felt better when Skurks, the sandaled bad-ass southbound thru-hiker, arrived and declared that day was "a rough hike."  If it took a toll on him, I didn't feel so bad about feeling so bad.

Gecko and Mule (British citizens with nice accents and warm spirits) were already at Calf Mountain when I arrived.  Later, they let me use their cell phone to contact The Girl and tell her that I would be at our designated meeting point a day and a half early, and would she please come rescue me, and bring something cold to drink?

I saw stick insects Thursday.  I like stick insects.

tractor seats on top of a hill, arranged in a ...viewing area? near a communications tower.

Friday morning was a relatively quick hike, when you consider I was averaging close to 20 miles a day the rest of the week.  I got to our rendezvous by 10 AM, talked to a Coast Guard retiree who was disappointed that he and his wife wouldn't get to see Skyline Drive, and waved to Skurks as he went to meet his ride into town.  The Girl arrived about forty minutes after me, cold drink in hand.  But the highlight of the week was just before 9 that morning.  I was climbing, and saw some motion at the edges of vision.  From the size, shape, and color, I guessed it was some sort of raptor; then I realized I hadn't heard it, and wondered if it was an owl.  Then it flew back towards me, and landed less than twenty feet away.

my friend the Barred Owl

Twenty feet away and almost directly above the trail!!

It's hard to tell with all the leaves, but the trail goes right under the owl's limb.

I had hear them earlier in the week, and loved listening to them at night, but I hadn't seen one.  This was closest I'd ever been to an owl without a cage or handler involved, and I was captivated.  We spent close to ten minutes staring at each other.  I took almost twenty pictures, just hoping a few would turn out well, and he occasionally looked over his left shoulder, to show me he wasn't nearly as impressed with me as I was with him, but I was happy just to spend the time with him.  It was a great end to a great hike.

Old Rag

At the end of April, we hiked Old Rag with a couple friends from Maryland who both knew more about plants than both of us put together.  But we're learning.  It was completely overcast that day, and even sprinkled for a while in the middle of our hike, but it never really rained like it meant it.  Like those days when you get out of bed and get dressed, but never bother to put your shoes on and really do anything, because it just doesn't seem worth it.  That's how the rain felt that day.  It showed up, but it wasn't going to make a big deal of it.

Showy orchis, a member of the orchid family.  It tends to show up in the same places as morels, if you're into that sort of thing.

water drops on maple seeds

fungus among us

wild ginger.  See the little brown bloom laying right on the ground?  It's pollinated by beetles, instead of more flight-motivated insects.

I forget what this is called.  Like I said, we're learning.
EDIT: Pennywort (Oboloria virginica)

Mother's Day Mountain Mushroom March

My Mother's Day was perfect.  It was exactly what I think Mom would have liked.  The Girl and I hiked Old Rag with another friend, and before lunch we got a good reminder about being aware of your environment.  A couple hikers were just ahead of us as we approached an area called Trillium Hill for reasons so obvious that we won't go into them here when I heard a sudden noise in the dry leaves to the right of the trail.  When I looked, I saw a bear--and her two cubs!  The hikers who had spooked them continued, oblivious to the ursine presence in the woods, and we scrambled to get our cameras out before the family moved too far away for our zooms.  Luckily, the cubs got distracted by a tree and scampered up the trunk.  They spent the next ten minutes climbing up, calming down and descending, then climbing up again while the mother waited at the base of the trunk, unwilling to leave without her young.  The best pictures I got follow; the resolution may be a little thin on some of them, because I had to crop to compensate for my zoom, but I'm still very happy with what we got.

The mother is watching us; if you look very closely near the top of the frame, you can see one of the cubs through the leaves.

Both cubs are visible here.

The Girl got this excellent shot of a cub's face.

The Girl also got this shot of the mother and one of the cubs.

There was also a mouse, but who cares?

A broad-headed skink at the false summit.  I didn't bother to crop this one; I think he shows up well enough in full screen (click the picture to view).

I was frequently distracted by large spreads of bluets; they're tiny and pretty, and I like them.  Sue me.

Flat Teddy at our "office" on top of the mountain.

The view from Old Rag's summit.  If you look closely, you can see White Oak Falls past that ridge of rock.

I have no idea what this fungus is, but it looked neat.

For most of my childhood and adolescence, I can remember hunting morels in the woods.  For a long time, Dad had a patch in a stand of trees in his back yard.  Mom would soak our haul in salt water, then cook them in a little butter for dinner.  Honestly, I was always more interested in the treasure hunt of finding the mushrooms in the first place.  Towards the end of the walk, our friend led us to a spot he knew, and we both ended up finding about 7 each.  Two or three of mine were pretty dry, and they were all laughably small, but as I write this, they are soaking in brine.  Dinner tonight is a sausage pizza, and I plan to cook them in the skillet of sausage juice as a side dish or appetizer, even if The Girl is afraid to try them.