Down on Passage Creek

(sung to the tune of The Band’s “Up on Cripple Creek”)


Passage Creek is the stream that drains the northern section of the Massanutten Mountain ridge, including Fort Valley and the areas between the folds there. There is a lot of beautiful forest scenery along its banks, and quite a few excellent trailheads start from there – and there are some great campsites sprinkled here and there alongside.

With Chris visiting Saturday we took a drive up to Edinburg after breakfast at the Southern Kitchen – coming back through the woods in the area of Scotthorn Gap, which is one of the routes we’ve taken to Duncan Knob. Since I love to take a look at Passage Creek whenever I am in this area, we stopped and took a walk down to the creekside to take a look at it.

It’s late summer and it has been a month since we’ve had any rain to speak of, so the stream is practically dry. We found some trapped pools among the rock strata that cross the stream, and they were loaded with minnows and a few larger fish – nothing big enough to catch, really. Passage Creek is a stocked trout stream during fishing season, so seeing it at this seasonal low was a surprise for me.

One thing that I did find in abundance was acorns – there is a large crop from the white oaks that crowd the bottom here. In keeping with my theme this weekend of reflecting on the cultures that once populated the Shenandoah Valley region, I thought of the Native Americans – the first people – who would’ve gathered these and made foodstuffs with them. (There are quite a few elements of this environment that remind me of that past culture…more on that another time.) I gathered a handful of acorns and took this photo of them on a rock in the dry stream bed.

Speaking of bounty from trees – the apple tree in our front yard had a bumper crop this year, despite taking it on the chin last winter and the loss of two of the three trunks it had. I’m guessing we have a full bushel scattered around in the front yard, keeping our little deer herd well-fed. The last photo here are of some apples that fell from the tree while I was sitting out with my morning coffee on Sunday morning. I later tossed them into the yard with the others.