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!)

Almost Shenandoah

To be specific, it's less than a week until we depart for our boys' long weekend hiking/camping trip to Shenandoah National Park. As Brother Eric notes in his recent blog post, we've done basically nothing in terms of planning. But that's okay, a trip like this doesn't need a lot of planning.

It's a car camping trip, and we've done this often enough that it's pretty much a matter of tossing our gear in a duffel, throwing it in the car, and off we go. Between Phil (who won't be there this time) and Eric (who, thankfully, will) we always eat very well on these trips. They both enjoy making good meals, and I'm grateful. Left to my own devices, meal planning for camping would be a very simple thing: one jar of all-natural peanut butter, one jar of raspberry jelly, and one loaf of bread. And I'd honestly be fine with that. But having actual meals in the evening is a wonderful thing.

We'll leave Thursday night after work, drive to the vicinity of SNP, and get a cheap motel room. Friday morning we'll plan to be up early and hike Old Rag Mountain. This is one of the signature hikes of SNP, and none of us has ever done it. It's a 7 mile loop with 2,500 feet of elevation gain, and the scenery and the vista at the top are supposed to be among the finest in the area. Hike descriptions are here and here.

We want to spend Friday and Saturday nights at Big Meadows campground in the park. I looked at the park's website, and the campground opens on March 27, but it's first come/first served (i.e., no reservations) until May 5. So we'll hope for the best. It's Easter weekend, and I hope that will keep some people at home.

A hike for Saturday is still to be determined. I have some rough ideas, but I have to get out my big map and my trail guides and come up with some more specific ideas. That's my project for this weekend.

I think Sunday we'll go to Stony Man - the vista that was the destination of all our youthful trips to Shenandoah. We can spend the morning there, then think about heading for home.

I'm purposely not looking at long-range weather forecasts. First of all, anything more than 2-3 days out is little more than a guess. Second, it doesn't matter. We're going, and it's going to be fun no matter what the weather. Getting away with the guys is always a treat. We'll be prepared with clothing and shelter for whatever weather we get.

Did I mention that I can't wait?

Shenandoah Planning

In my late December hiking year in review, I said that we were going to try to plan a few long weekend getaways instead of one big hiking trip. We've talked about this a couple of times, and all agreed that we need to put something on our calendars as soon as possible - otherwise normal busyness will fill up every weekend, and our trips won't happen.

A flurry of e-mails went around in the past week, and I'm very happy to say that weekend getaway #1 is written in stone on the family calendar. Four of us will camp and hike in Shenandoah National Park the first weekend in April. We'll leave Thursday after work, get a motel room in the vicinity of the park - which will give us three full days of hiking and two nights of camping in SNP. We'll be home Sunday night, so we'll only have to take one vacation day.

I'm very excited. First of all, we're currently in the midst of the coldest weather in over 20 years, with daytime high temps in the single digits (F) - so it's nice to have thoughts of Spring and getting outside. Also, I simply adore Shenandoah N.P., and we've barely scratched the surface of the hiking trails there.

Eric refers to the many many weekend trips we made to SNP in the post-college years - and he's right, we drove down there many weekends. But none of those trips involved any serious hiking. We drove Skyline Drive, got out at the overlooks, and did the one-mile bunny trail to Stony Man Peak. They were wonderful trips - but they weren't hiking trips.

We *have* done a couple of hiking trips to SNP in the past decade - but we're in no danger of running out of new trails to hike in any of our lifetimes.

Darling Wife was quick to point out that early April could mean cold nights, rain, or both. She's right, of course, but that doesn't dim my excitement. We'll hope for the best, and bring gear to deal with whatever comes.

I can't wait.

Susquehanna S.P., 1/1/15

John and I talked over Christmas week about the possibility of a New Year's Day hike. That's something we've done before, and I always like when it works out. It's a nice feeling to be up and out early on New Year's Day when no one else is out, and it feels good to start the year active and outdoors.

We had both agreed that we were free and wanted to hike, and tossed around some ideas as to where we'd hike, when I texted Eric to see if he'd also be interested. He was both interested and available, so we just had to settle on the question of "where." One place John mentioned struck my fancy - Susquehanna State Park, on the Maryland side of the river, and just off of I-95. I'd never been there, and it looked to be about an hour away (i.e., not *too* far), and I like hikes that go along the shore of a body of water.

250+ year-old oak tree

The map on the park website showed a number of trails which could be made into a loop of 6-8 miles. I suggested it to the guys, and no one had any objections, so that became our plan.

We met at Eric's at 9:30am on a bright, sunny, and very cold morning. Perfect hiking weather. I had a few light layers with me, but I knew that I'd be plenty warm once I got moving on the trail. We found the park and the trailhead with no trouble.

We hiked north along the banks of the river. The water views were beautiful, and Conowingo Dam was visible in the distance. We'd been going for a while when someone (I don't remember who, just that it wasn't me) realized that we'd missed a turn we intended. We were off the state park loop and on a trail that would take us all the way up to the dam. We backtracked, found our turn, and continued on our intended route.

Stream crossing

We made a big counterclockwise loop, with a bit of up and down - though nothing overly punishing. We got back to the car, and my GPS track had us at about 6.8 miles. I decided that it should be a 7-mile day, and hiked a tenth of a mile south up the river bank. Silly, I know. :-)

Beautiful day, great hike, great companions, great start to 2015.

(Brother Eric's take on the day, with pics, is here.)

Distance: 7.07 miles
Elapsed Time: 3:20

Hiking Year in Review

I just took a look at my hiking year in review from one year ago, and I'm struck by how similar this year was to last. I simply didn't do a lot of hiking. There weren't any impromptu "take a day off and go" days, and no "get up at dawn on a Sunday and drive to a day-hike" days. I didn't do a fall day at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary either last year or this. That's not a problem, it's just a change from years past when I did that fairly frequently.

There are a number of reasons, some motivational, some logistical. I enjoy hiking and the outdoors as much as ever.

There were two main highlights this year:

• Our boys' West Virginia weekend. Since we couldn't do a big trip this year, we did long weekend at Seneca Rocks and the Dolly Sods wilderness area. We left on a Friday night and got back late Monday - so we had 2 1/2 days away for the price of one vacation day. The hiking, the scenery, and the camaraderie were fantastic.
• The overnight trip in April with Eric and John to Ricketts Glen State Park. The Falls Trail at Ricketts Glen has been on our lists for years, and it was great to finally hike it. It has a reputation as a "bucket list" hike, and it lived up to its reputation. The Sunday drive up to the area with Eric was also a lot of fun - we meandered around the countryside in search of geocaches and pretty scenery.

Our intention for 2015 is for more trips like the West Virginia weekend. A few of us have life commitments that will make a big trip impossible again - but the three- or four-day weekends are very possible. There are countless great hikes in a 3-5 hour driving range, and we just have to get some weekends on our calendars. If we don't, the calendar will fill up, and it won't happen.

We need to make it happen. That's my resolution for the New Year.

Marsh Creek S.P., 12/27/14

John told me about hiking plans he and a few buddies had for the Saturday after Christmas - a day trip to one of my favorite place, Harper's Ferry, WV. That's a long day trip, with 3+ hours of driving each way, but there's so much great hiking and scenery there. I was enthusiastically in.

Unfortunately, I felt very unwell Friday night, had a terrible night's sleep, and was unable to answer the bell on Saturday morning. Very disappointing. But I slept all morning and felt a good bit better by noon. It was a beautiful warm sunny day, so I looked for a nearby place to get outside - and settled on Marsh Creek State Park.

I parked at the west-side boat launch, and took the trail that follows the lake, crosses the dam, and continues on the east side. The trail was a muddy quagmire in many spots, but it felt great to be outside and on a trail.

Total distance: 5.50 miles
Elapsed time: 1:42