SNP: Old Rag

Friday's hike of Old Rag Mountain, in diary format.

8:46am
We're in the Old Rag parking area, making final preparations to start our hike. I slept well and feel good. We were up before 7:00, had the motel breakfast, then checked out and hit the road. We had a 30-40 minute drive to get here.

The forecast is calling for showers this morning and possible thunderstorms this afternoon, and we drove through a steady rain on the way here. It's still misty/foggy, but it's pretty much stopped raining. We're planning to do exactly this. The weather means I won't be documenting this hike like I normally do. I'm not going to take my phone and risk getting it wet, so that means no GPS track and no pics (though others may have a camera, and Eric may have a GPS.) The parking lot, which we've heard can fill up completely on nice days, is pretty much empty - likely a combination of it being Good Friday and the weather forecast.

9:05am
The first 0.8 miles was along a rural road to the real trail-head. It's fairly warm and feels good to be moving.

10:10am
We've taken a rest, and Eric says he's not feeling well and is going to turn back. We feel badly, but it doesn't make sense to continue on if you don't feel up to it. The trail so far has been a gradual though steady climb. We'll gain 2,500 feet of elevation in about 3 miles, and there's a section of "challenging rock scramble" - though we're assuming that, as with most hike write-ups, they've over-exaggerated the difficulty. There's a very light mist, but it's not really raining.

10:50am

We've continued climbing, did a very short stretch of easy rock-climbing, and we're at the summit. At least we think so - we're pretty much fogged in, but the trail seems to go level or descend ahead. We stop for a drink and a sandwich and feel good - though we have zero visibility at a spot that famed for its vistas. This makes us reminisce about other supposedly spectacular vistas that we got to with zero visibility - our first climb of Mt. Marcy in the Adirondacks, and Charlie's Bunion in the Great Smokies.

11:10am
Rest break is over, we're ready to continue hiking. Conditions are the same - maybe a very light mist, but it's not raining, and we're grateful.

11:12am
What do you know, that wasn't the summit. After a short stretch of level ridge-line, we can see that the real rock climbing is just beginning. We wouldn't have made that mistake with better visibility...but we still feel plenty foolish.

12:15pm
Okay, now we're at the summit. Yes, really. The last hour was very slow and difficult rock climbing - the trail description wasn't exaggerated at all. None of it was *horribly* difficult, but it was slow going. We pretty much had the trail to ourselves on the lower part of the mountain, but we caught up with some groups on the rocky stretch, and there's nothing to do but wait your turn - kind of like playing golf on a busy day...you hit your shot, then wait for the party in front of you to clear, so you can hit your next shot.

Happily, the mist has stopped, and it's even clearing some - enough to see some of the spectacular views. It really is gorgeous and worth the climb.

2:31pm
We're back at the car. As the guide said, the descent was much easier - longer in distance, but no rocky sections, just a gently descending trail, and then a fire road. At one of the junctions, we found Eric waiting for us. He's feeling okay, but still not great. He hiked on the lower trails, took some pics, and had a good time (his trip report is here.) We hiked the last 3 or so miles with him, and now the hike is complete.

We'll clean up, change out of our sweaty hiking gear, and make will make what's probably an hour drive to Big Meadows campground. We lucked out with weather - conditions may not have been ideal, but they were much better than the forecast. We didn't hike in any real rain, and we actually saw some vistas from the summit. We did the 8 miles in just over 5.5 hours. I feel great.

(Continued here)

SNP: Getting Away

Our Shenandoah National Park long weekend has now come and gone, and it was mostly a success. There were a couple of hiccups, but overall I had a great time.

Thursday came quickly, and I decided to take a half day of vacation (to do the packing and preparing I hadn't had a chance to do more in advance.) There was e-mail discussion among the guys about departure time and travel route. The shortest route from here to SNP is south on 95 to the D.C. area, then west on 66. But D.C. traffic is nightmarish anywhere around rush hour (which in my limited experience seems to be from 6am-9pm.) The longer-distance/lower-traffic route is straight west on the PA Turnpike, then south on 81.

Our choices were depart at 7pm and go 95 to D.C., or if everyone could get out of work early, we could leave at 4:00 or 4:30 and go west on the turnpike. That was my preference, and it's how things worked out. Everyone met at my house, we loaded up two cars (John's and Eric's) and hit the road. It's unfortunate that we couldn't all fit into one car - but as we painfully learned on last June's W.V. trip, that requires renting a full-size minvan - which doesn't make financial sense for a 3-day getaway that's 3.5 hours away.

The drive was uneventful. We stopped for a Wendy's dinner in Carlisle, took 81 South, then got off the highway and set the GPS for the last half hour to Culpeper, VA. It was dark by that point, and there was a bright moon and plenty of stars visible - I watched Orion for a while as we drove.

John had given us the reservation he'd made at the Comfort Inn, Culpeper - but when the GPS told us we'd arrived, there was no such thing. We drove around for a bit, then we pulled into a motel parking lot, and I went in to ask. Apparently between the making of the reservation and now, it changed from a Comfort Inn to a Quality Inn. So we had arrived.

We had two rooms, and Eric and I settled into ours, then went to John and Ted's room. I had my travel guitar with me, and we watched some TV and some YouTube while talking, and I took some requests on the guitar.

Tomorrow morning's plan has been to get up early and do the Old Rag hike. It's supposed to be a fairly strenuous hike - and also such a popular hike that it's recommended to get to the trailhead early, as the parking lot can fill up on nice days. The weather forecast isn't good - rain in the morning, a chance of a thunderstorm in the afternoon. We talked it over, and there aren't any good options for rescheduling it - so we're planning to do it, barring absolutely terrible weather. I'm fine with that - I don't mind hiking in rain, and it's supposed to be warm.

Bring it on. (Famous last words? Stay tuned and find out!)