We woke up this morning feeling more
refreshed than probably any other time we have been out camping. The
gentle breeze that we had during our campfire last night turned in to
some pretty strong, sustained winds throughout the night. This ended
up being some pretty effective air conditioning and made it a very
comfortable night (although as usual, Amy was cold).
The “only” thing on the itinerary
for today was a hike up to the top of Old Rag Mountain. I say “only”
because this is a 9.2mile hike that the National Park Service
describes as “extremely strenuous”. The hike begins on the
valley floor and climbs the almost 3,000 feet to the top of Old Rag.
But in addition to being a fairly taxing climb, making it to the
summit also requires a significant amount of scrambling over, around,
through, and even under massive granite boulders. Thrown in
temperatures in the upper 80's with 6,000% humidity and we knew we
were going to have our work cut out for us.
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| The view of Old Rag from the valley floor. |
The first three miles or so were a
fairly steep hike through thick forest up the side of the mountain.
There was a nice breeze and the thick canopy kept it comparatively
cool. Unfortunately the thick forest also blocked all views of the
surrounding area. The thick forest gave way to smaller vegetation as
we made our way up. Here we got some brief glimpses out towards the
park's other peaks, but overall we were still pretty blocked in. But
that all changed once we got to about a mile from the summit. From
here on out it became a full-body workout. We had to chimney up,
slide down, squeeze through, and jump between massive granite
boulders. At certain points we had to take our backpacks off just so
we could make it through the small opening that the path followed.
It was tough. In fact, while this wasn't the longest or steepest
hike we have done, it was probably the most difficult. But it was a
lot of fun and the views from the top were incredible.
The rest of the hike took us down a
different side of the mountain, then looped back to the parking area.
The only real excitement on the way down was coming across a
rattlesnake in the middle of the path. He had found a nice, sunny
spot and was hanging out there sunning himself. He didn't seem too
concerned with us – he didn't even give us a rattle – so we gave
him some space and he moved off into the bushes.
We got back to camp and were going to
make dinner, but we found that the picnic table was still drenched
from a rainstorm that had rolled through earlier and the bugs were
terrible. So we decided to drive through the park a little to see if
there was a picnic area that would work better (not sure why we
thought other spots in the park wouldn't have bugs or be wet, but oh
well). We stopped at a picnic area a few miles south on Skyline
Drive from where out campground is and started getting things out for
dinner. As we were doing this, a hiker came out of the woods to tell
us that there was a mama bear and some goods just a ways down the
trail. We started talking and he told us that, while he has hiked
the entire Appalachian Trail before, this summer he is only doing a
1,300 mile stretch. He started in late April and has a few hundred
miles to go still before making it back to him home in Asheville,
North Carolina. We invited him to join us for turkey sandwiches and
oranges and had a really nice dinner. His name is Matt, although his
“trail name” for the summer is “I am”. His previous trail
name from the last time he hiked the AT was “Wicked”, due to a
bandanna he wore that said wicked on it. Apparently this is something
that all through-hikers do. But he was a very interesting guy who
had done a lot of really cool hiking before, so he was nice company
to have for dinner.
We also had an interesting wildlife
moment during our dinner. As we were eating, a deer came to the edge
of the woods by our picnic table. For a while, she just stood there
and looked at us. But after about a minute of doing that, she
started to stomp her front hoof in the ground, as if to let us know
that she wasn't real happy about us being there. I then made a
comment about how it was a good thing that we were eating turkey and
not venison and she licked her lips, which was a bit weird. Then
after stomping a bit more, she started to yell/snort at us through
her nose. I honestly had no idea that deer could make noise. She
took a few giant leaps sideways, repeated the stomping and snorting,
and then retreated into the woods. A few minutes later we saw her
crossing the picnic area to the opposite side, closer to the ridge.
We're not sure if we were between her and her fawns or if she was
spooked by the bears in the area, but she was not happy about
something.
We were both too tuckered out from our
hike, so we decided to pass on the campfire and instead just
read/type in the tent for a while. Tomorrow we are horseback riding
and then taking a hike to some waterfalls.
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