"75 @ 75" Project - a Wrap

Selfie on one of the first 75 @ 75 hikes to
Overall Run.

Yesterday I needed to replace my dog walking shoes, and I really like the Patagonia Men's Drifter A/C Hiking Shoe.  As I browsed the hiking books at REI, I was reminded that my last post on the “75 @ 75” project was a year ago, and I never met my objective for this initiative.  I guess it is time to write some wrap up posts and move on.

I designed the 75 @ 75 project to be a series of hikes I planned to take as a way to honor the 75^th anniversary of the founding of Shenandoah National Park.  The hikes chosen were moderately strenuous, at least five miles in length and including a net elevation change of at least 500 feet.  Even though I have completed quite a few hikes in the park that did not qualify by this definition, my final status on the project (shown in the accompanying table) was seven hikes completed with total mileage of 54.8 miles. 

I simply ran out of time for the project, since these were all to be completed in the 2011-2012 timeframe to coincide with the park’s anniversary.  I plan to continue to check the box on the hikes from my original list, but since they will be done outside of the timeframe for the project, it’s time to put an end to 75 @ 75. I want the closure. 

Here’s one of the lists (sourced from the Heatwole guide, which is now out of print and not even available on Amazon at the moment) I compiled to identify appropriate hikes. The hikes in bold were completed during my 75 @ 75 attempt.

• Hike 1 - Bluff Trail/AT, mile post 17.6, distance 12.8 miles, altitude change 2,400.  Includes two summits and some views, and about 5 miles on the AT.
• Hike 2 - Piney Branch/Piney Ridge, mile post 22.1, distance 8.3 miles, altitude change 1,700 feet.  This one includes a mountain cemetery, old homesite, stream crossings, and a small waterfall. 
•  Hike 3 - Knob Mountain/Jeremy’s Run, mile post 24.1 (at the Elk Wallow Wayside), two versions either 11.7 or 14.0 miles, elevation from 2,600 to 2,800 feet.  There’s a stream with cascades and a falls, and a summit.
•  Hike 4 - Hazel Mountain, mile post 33.5, distance 5.3 miles and elevation change 1,070 feet (the easiest on this list!).  No summit here, but it is interesting for a combination of a falls, cascade, and a small cave.  Depending on when we go, maybe no spelunking – the snake scene in True Grit still creeps me out.

  

  Staircase on the Hazel Mountain trail.

• Hike 5 - Pocosin Mission and South River Falls, mile post 59.5, distance 8.5 miles and elevation 1,800 feet.  This combines the ruin of an old cabin and mission, and then takes in the South River Falls, which was one of Chris’s and my main training hikes for the Half Dome a few years ago.
• Hike 6 - Black Rock/Trayfoot Mountain Loop, mile post 84.8 or 87.4, distance approximately 10.0 miles and unestimated altitude change.  This trail is shown on one of the Park’s maps, which include distances but not altitudes.  This will take in the rock scramble at Black Rock, an old fire observation point on Trayfoot Mountain, and the hollow where the Black Rock Springs Hotel was located in the late 1800’s.
• Hike 7 - Riprap Hollow and Wildcat Ridge, mile post 90.0, 9.8 miles and 2,400 feet.  Includes the two Civil War lookout points Chimney Rock and Cavalry Rock, 3 miles of AT section, cascades and a falls.
• Bonus Hike (8):  Hannah Run and Hot-Short Mountain, mile post 35.1, 9.1 miles and 2,800 feet.  This one includes ruins of mountaineer cabins and a stream.

Hazel Mountain, a 75@75 Hike

I’m overdue for a post on the status of my “75@75” project – this was the effort I’d planned where I hoped to hike 75 miles to celebrate the 75^th anniversary of the founding of Shenandoah National Park.  I was going to get this done by May 2012, but I’m still working on completing it. 

Late summer of this year, Chris and I got together for a hike and he agreed we could try to take on one from the 75@75 list – Hazel Mountain.  Here’s the entry I wrote about this hike as I began to plan this project:

·         Hike 4 - Hazel Mountain, mile post 33.5, distance 5.3 miles and elevation change 1,070 feet (the easiest on this list!).  No summit here, but it is interesting for a combination of a falls, cascade, and a small cave.  Depending on when we go, maybe no spelunking – the snake scene in True Grit still creeps me out.

The day Chris and I took this one on, in September, I’d forgotten my Heatwole guide and other materials related to the hike.  So, what we did was a hike that was actually longer in distance – I’m estimating that we did about 6.5 miles on the route, but the elevation achievement was more on the order of 660 feet, just taken from the readings on my Casio Pathfinder.  Also, although there was a stream crossing, and it was clear we were moving through an area of second growth forest that had previously been settled and farmed, we didn’t see a waterfall and didn’t come close to anything resembling a small cave.

We used the map provided by rangers at the entry station to devise a hike. Of course, the map didn’t include the kind of detail that you find in the Heatwole guide.  Still, we had a nice day of it out there, and found the break from some of the more rigorous hikes we’ve done in this series to be very welcome.

Heatwole’s guide suggests that we may have passed the site of the old Hazel School somewhere along the way – he describes an overgrown area that I remember passing by and making a note of it to Chris on our hike.   It was one of several areas that we passed that had this appearance, as I recall; Heatwole says this area was one of the more heavily populated areas in the Park.

It was definitely a good time of year to be out on a hike – the forest was still very much a greenscape, and there were butterflies out all along the drive.  I’ve got a photo here of a yellow swallowtail we saw at the trailhead.  The hike qualifies on distance and elevation as moderate, by my standards – requiring five miles in distance and at least 500 feet of elevation change – but it is not particularly noteworthy as a physical challenge.  Instead, I’d give it high marks simply for the experience of being outside in the Shenandoah National Park, which is a kind of therapy in itself, and a part of what I’m seeking with all of these hikes in the first place.

On the way back, I made a point of taking a photo of Old Rag from the Pinnacles area where there is an overlook that provides a good view.  Seems a long time now since I’ve been on that mountain, but a summit from August 2011 is included in the 75@75 project.  As a note, here’s my progress chart on the project:

I’m posting this today to start the month of December – to date I have completed 54.8 miles out of my originally planned 75 miles.   Chris and I are tentatively planned to get in the Buck Hollow trail later this month – that’s 6+ miles; and if we have enough daylight we may summit Mary’s Rock from the Meadow Spring Trailhead, for a total of 9.1 miles.

If we are successful, this approach to the Mary’s Rock summit would check off another list for me – the 4^th edition of Best Easy Day Hikes includes the southern approach as one of the routes, and it is one I haven’t been on yet.  If we complete that whole hike, which is admittedly aggressive, I will still need to complete more than 11 miles to be able to report the completion of my project.  

I’ll keep working on it, even though in the end it is probably going to have taken me almost two years to complete!

April 2012 Update: 75 @ 75 Project

Looking through my notes, I see that I haven’t made a post about my “75 @ 75” project since last September!  Time has certainly flown by, and although I have done several hikes since my last one, none of them met the requirements for inclusion in the project. 

As a reminder, the 75 @ 75 project was designed to be a series of hikes I’ll take as a way to honor the 75^th anniversary of the founding of Shenandoah National Park.  These hikes by design are moderately strenuous, since each hike on the list must be five miles or longer, with a net elevation change of at least 500 feet.

My status on the project is shown in the table to the left.  I have nearly reached 50 miles in the project, or two-thirds of the goal of 75 miles.  My only excuse for not getting all 75 miles in on the project is how busy I’ve been since starting my new job in December.  I’ve had to extend my deadline to May 2012, although at first I thought I could get it all done during last year’s hiking season.

Chris and I have agreed to get out to the Park for the first hike of the season this weekend.  We hope to tackle the Buck Hollow/Mary’s Rock Loop, which can be found on Hiking Upward at http://www.hikingupward.com/SNP/BuckHollowMarysRock/

This trail is a 9-miler with 2,800 feet of elevation gain, so it easily qualifies.  See you on the flip!

Honey, What's a "Skolithos"?

In my travels throughout the Park, I'll sometimes hear a reference to the geology of the areas I'm visiting - I've even posted on that topic from time to time when I learn something new.  I'd often heard about this variety of "trace fossil" - the skolithos, and finally had a chance during the Wildcat/RipRap hike to learn how to identify them.

Referring to the website for Shenandoah National Park, there is a good article on Park geology at this link:
http://www.nps.gov/shen/naturescience/chilhowee.htm.  Quoting from that, here is the reference to skolithos:

"...the one observable fossil can be seen in the Erwin Formation, a preserved worm burrow known as skolithos, which appears as long, straight tubes within the white quartzite."

The quartzite, shown in the two photos, is a sedimentary rock that dates from 500 million years ago, an era  before any of Earth's complex life forms had appeared.  Wikipedia (search on skolithos) goes on to describe this particular type of fossil as being "usually associated with high-energy environments close to the shoreline."

As we walked through these areas, Dan mentioned that we were walking along an ancient beach, adding to the adventure of that day's hike.

Wildcat Ridge/RipRap Hollow: A "75 at 75" Hike



The famous swimming hole.

 For the sixth hike in my “75 at 75” project (check that label below for more details on the project), I chose the big loop at RipRap Hollow and Wildcat Ridge. In the introductory post on the project, I summarized the trail, drawing from Henry Heatwole’s guide, as follows:




Rocky formations in the hollow.

 “Riprap Hollow and Wildcat Ridge: mile post 90.0, 9.8 miles and 2,400 feet; includes the two Civil War lookout points Chimney Rock and Cavalry Rock, 3 miles of AT section, cascades and a falls.”

Early on, as I began thinking about the project itself, I mentioned it to my neighbors Dan and Sally, who both thought it was a great idea. They both work at the Park, and they’ve been generous with insights and inspiration about the place over the years. When I mentioned this trail, Dan was particularly interested and he ended up joining me.

Apparently, in his job as a GIS specialist, there were some details of the trail he wanted to check out better on his own – he’d done the one-way trail from the RipRap trailhead to Wildcat before, without the AT section; some colleagues had subsequently done the whole thing and given him some hints on things to look for. In any case, Dan being the only person I know who has walked every foot of Skyline Drive, I knew I was in for some interesting insights on this trail, and I hope that he (and Sally too) might be able to join me again on another of the hikes.



Here's a Google Earth view of the trail, with a fine blue line marking our GPS trace.

 We left our neighborhood at 8am and made our way via the Elkton entry to the Park, arriving at the trailhead at around 9am. This was something new for me…even though the Heatwole guide lists the route as taking 8.5 hours, it was very likely that we would complete the trail before darkness (for my regular hiking buddies, I kid because I love). We began the steady descent on Wildcat Ridge by 9:15.

Neighbor Dan down in the hollow.

I’d hypothesized that the name of this trail section had something to do with earlier residents seeing bobcats, or even pumas, here; or else, it was a reference to mining activities that had taken place nearby at Crimora (there are a couple of lakes there that were associated with manganese mining in the late 1800s). Shortly we came upon a series of small pits just off the trail, about 10 feet by 10 feet each, and up to six feet deep. The holes were enough to convince me that name’s origin referenced the mining industry, that the “wildcats” were people doing exploratory digs up here hoping to strike it rich; Dan has subsequently confirmed that there are some records of this type of activity in the area.

We went onward, finally reaching the hollow, where our destination was the swimming hole down here. Heatwole calls this the largest in the Park. The swimming hole is 50 feet or so in diameter, and during our visit, it probably reached depths of six feet. The water is crystal clear and spring fed, so too cold for a dip in mid-September. Instead we settled in for lunch.

While a couple of other hiking parties came and went, we broke out our lunches…Dan’s was much better than mine: moose sausage snack sticks and smoked salmon that he had acquired from an Alaskan friend during a recent trip out west. He invited me to share, supplementing my Clif Bar and raisins; I did pass along a Honey Stinger Waffle in exchange for his generosity.

There are a couple of mentions of an old picnic shelter near the pool. It’s been taken down, but the areas around the pool show a lot of wear and tear – this is a popular place during the summer, and it is near the Park boundary, so there is a convenient hike-in route.



Old beams in the stream.



Old masonry and more beams.

Making our way through the hollow, Dan finally gave me a little more insight as to why he was so interested in this trail. While the popular references I had drawn from for the hike have very limited information about the cultural aspects of the area, mainly because of few indications of post-Columbian activity here (the exploratory pits on Wildcat Ridge aren’t even well documented), a colleague of his had identified a trace in the stream where there are remnants of what appears to be an old sawmill.

We found the spot and made a short detour down to the stream edge. I have some photos of old beams in the streambed, and some masonry joined to the rocky cliffs that line the stream. As we looked, I tried to imagine what the work here would have been like, a few miles into the woods, a long track to the nearby mining activities. Not much of a challenge to hardworking mountain people, but pretty difficult for my “chairborne” lifestyle!

Me at a less crowded view point.

As we got back to the trail we headed next for Calvary and Chimney Rocks, two quartzite outcroppings that offer wonderful views of the Shenandoah Valley. The walk along this section of our route was interesting; Dan told me that during the summer of his arrival at Shenandoah National Park, this area had been in a fire and it was his first ever support of that kind of an effort. The hillside is still recovering with low, scrubby vegetation and numerous young pines (the variety in this area produces serotinous cones, which release the seeds after a fire).

Upon reaching the two viewpoints we found them crowded with visitors sitting on ledges and enjoying the look out over Paine Run Hollow and Horsehead Mountain, so we didn’t stay long. We continued on to the AT connection and did that 3 mile stretch back to our parking area; we were passed on the way by a south bound thru hiker, who’d been held up in the rains and tropical storms of late. “Beautiful day, much better than last week!” he offered as he passed us by.

We finished the route in about 7.5 hours, making better time than Heatwole’s estimate. After a quick chat with the ranger at the Elkton gateway, we headed on to Mamma Mia’s in Shenandoah for dinner, before heading home.

Doyles River/Jones Run: A "75 @ 75" Hike

Jones Run Waterfall - 42 feet.

Knowing that I had a big hike planned for the upcoming Saturday, and because I’d planned to take that hike with neighbor Dan, who not only recently had completed a half marathon and is a GIS specialist at the Park, but also is one of the few people on the planet who has walked every footstep of Skyline Drive, I went looking for a warm-up hike on Wednesday, September 7. I chose the Doyles River/Jones Run combination because of its length and elevation, and because all of the waterfalls on that trail would give an interesting destination. Incidentally, I’ve hike the entire circuit of this trail before, you can find it under the “Day Hikes: Moderate” label.

Google Earth route for this hike.

When I do warm-up hikes like this, they don’t necessarily have to meet the rigorous qualifications I’ve set for “75 @ 75” hikes, although this one, at 5.8 miles and 1,120 total elevation gain, certainly met the requirement (a combination of at least five miles in length and 500 feet of net elevation gain). I thought that two days of rest between the warm-up and the actual hike would be enough, but my legs still stung from the lactic acid on Saturday morning as we made our way to the Wildcat Ridge trailhead for the main hike – which I’ll review later this week.

Before getting to the details of this one, I want to make a note about how I calculated elevation on this one. Normally, I’ll just take an altimeter reading on my Casio Pathfinder along the way of any given hike, catching the highest and the lowest point s. When I make the blog post about that hike, I simply subtract the lowest from the highest for net elevation, and that’s what I report – which typically will vary, for several reasons, including barometric pressure variations or the fact I don’t count “pointless ups and downs,” or PUDS, in my calculations.

Casio Pathfinder check point.

Elevation reference point.

In this case, I knew I was in for a descent from the trailhead down to the confluence of Doyles River and Jones Run, and then another climb to the Jones Run falls. As shown on the photos of the park markers, the altitude of these three locations were 2,200 feet, 1,480 feet, and 1,880 feet, respectively, giving a total climb of 1,120 feet. For reference, the 580 meters read out on my Casio translates to 1,798 feet, 400 or so feet off of actual, which is a typical variance due to the barometric method used by the watch – by the way, the operator’s manual suggests taking this kind of reading for reference early in the hike.

On to the hike: I decided to start from the Doyles River side, since that was a section of the trail I had not been on, since Chris, Tom and I had cut back along the fire road on our previous hike. This meant my route would follow Doyles River most of the way to the confluence with Jones Run, then make a southwesterly turn to begin the climb up to the trail alongside that watercourse.

Doyles River lower falls.

Doyles River upper falls.

Three waterfalls are the feature of this trail, two on Doyles River and one on Jones Run – the Jones Run waterfall is among the ten highest in the Park, at 42 feet. Both streams flow down steep gorges, and there had been some strong rains recently, so the sound of many smaller waterfalls and cascades accompanied me on the walk on those trails. Both waterways are designated trout streams, so with your license you can enjoy catch-and-release and harvest fishing.

There is a PATC cabin not far down the route on the Doyles River side, there is a nice stream there also. I met a couple who were staying the Labor Day week at the cabin; their two lab mixes could not stay out of the water during the hikes. Later, coming back, there were three does drinking from the stream at this same place, I was downhill and downwind from them so they were surprised when I suddenly appeared only 10 feet away!

One of the plentiful cascades along this route.

“Shenandoah Secrets”, a PATC publication by Carolyn and Jack Reeder (Amazon link at the end of the post), mentions that there was a lot going on in this area before the Park was founded – lumber mills, two distilleries, and farms. There was even a dedicated rail line here to support the timber industry, but today it would be challenging to even find a trace of these, even though they are reported to have been located near the spring.

The Heatwole book speculates that Confederate General Jubal Early used this area for a strategic retreat to regroup and reinforce, since there were probably pastures in the area and the steep rocks cliffs would have made Union General Sheridan’s pursuit difficult. Heatwole acknowledges that this is conjecture, there’s no record at these locations; only the reporting that the events took place nearby.

While, this hike wasn’t one of the planned efforts from my “75 @ 75” project, it turns out that it qualifies, so I’ll count it; as of the last status report I still have about 25 miles to go before Thanksgiving to meet my goal…which I hope to exceed. The next hike I’ll review is the Wildcat Ridge/RipRap Hollow Trail; this trail was a warm-up for that one.

Amazon link to the PATC Shenandoah Secrets book:

Old Rag Saddle Trail and Weekly Hollow: A 75 @ 75 Hike

Old Rag as seen from Skyline Drive.

When I set out on the “75 @ 75” project, I didn’t include the Old Rag hike on my list, even though it is one of the most popular moderately difficult hikes in Shenandoah National Park, and in the greater Mid-Atlantic region. That popularity is exactly the reason I kept it off the list; besides, I enjoy a weekly update on that beautiful trail from Bob Look’s blog (see the blog roll to the right for “Old Rag Patrols”) and I did the hike four years ago (check the label “old Rag”).


Still, hiking buddy Tom asked if I wouldn’t mind doing this one again with him, since he hadn’t done it before, and I thought we could make a go of it as long as we didn’t try it on the weekend. Tom had an August reservation for a campsite at Big Meadows that ran Thursday – Saturday, so we chose that Friday to make a go of the trail. It was a good choice, as we only encountered about a half dozen hiking parties coming our way on the trail.

(Time is running out for Tom, as it has for my other hiking buddy Chris: Tom and his wife are expecting twins in November, so this may have been our last hike together for a while; Chris and his wife had a son in July, so he won’t be able to join us for the time being either.)

My request was that we do the trail in reverse direction from how it is usually done. Both of us are desk jockeys and I wanted to be sure we had a great experience, especially since I had some trouble on the hike the first time. I figured that we could summit Old Rag as an accomplishment and not be disappointed if we had to turn back on the rock scramble.

Google Earth image of the hike.

Old Rag parking, about a mile from the old small lot, which is not used anymore.

Old Rag fits into the “75 @ 75” plan because of its length and elevation change: Heatwole has it as a 7.2 mile circuit with 2,380 feet of climbing. The out-and-back route we took along the Weekly Hollow and Old Rag Fire Roads and Saddle Trail is 4.2 miles each way, but adding the nearly one-mile trek from the parking area to the trailhead makes the hike about 10.3 miles, as I have tracked it in my logbook. The trusty Casio Pathfinder indicated that we had climbed 2,249 feet net – which was remarkably close to Heatwole’s calculation.

The hard cores among my readers are going to ask, “What’s so interesting about Old Rag if you leave out the rock scramble?” It’s a good question, and one I’ll answer by quoting from Heawole, specifically regarding the Weekly Hollow Road section:

“The former village of Old Rag was near here, and the Old Rag Post Office was at the road junction…Originally, the Park intended to preserve some or all of the mountaineer homes in this area. But maintenance proved too difficult, and the houses were torn down shortly after the end of World War II.”



Tom on a rock.



Me at the summit.

Heatwole notes that the road has been relocated a few feet, but as we were hiking with good light, you could plainly see the old road trace, and there were a few scattered stones around that appeared to have been shaped for use as building materials. Also, if you check out the Google Earth image, there is a little envelope icon at the location of the old post office...

So in addition to the summit, distance, and elevation, a final attraction of this version of Old Rag is the cultural reference of the area, before the Park was formed. That is definitely an item on the checklist for “75 @ 75” hikes.

Summit photo, with view and "buzzard baths."

I’ve got a few photos I took from the area around the summit of Old Rag, which is listed as 3,291 feet. The geology is very interesting, and there are resources that explain why the rock scramble was formed and help interpret why these large boulders occur at altitudes on top of the mountain. They are beautiful, and exceptional weather the day of our hike gave us some spectacular views.

Another view near the summit.

As we made our way back to parking, we encountered four men in military style boots carrying heavy packs on the trail – then I saw a pick-up with a crew cab in the lot with a Quantico sticker. For Marines looking for a training workout, this hike accommodates.

On a final note, Tom and I bookended the hike with a morning stop at Central Coffee Roasters in Sperryville and an evening stop at the little burger joint at the crossroads of US 211 and 522. The folks at the coffee shop were very cordial, and allowed me to park the car in their lot for the day so we could carpool down to the mountain – thanks and a tip of the hat!

The 75 @ 75 Project: An Update

It has been a while since I posted an update on my “75 @ 75” project, which is a series of hikes I’ll be taking this year in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the founding of Shenandoah National Park. Honestly, the reason for the lack of posts was the summer: it’s too hot to take on these hikes, which by design are moderately strenuous, since each hike on the list must be five miles or longer, with a net elevation change of at least 500 feet.

However, over the last three weeks or so, I have managed to get three new hikes in, and so I will review those over the next few posts. There are Google Earth images for each of these three hikes, which were:

Old Rag Google Earth Image

• Old Rag (we reached the summit off of the fire road and saddle trail) completed with hiking team mate Tom;

Doyles River/Jones Run Google Earth Image

• Doyles River/Jones Run, which I completed solo as a warm-up for the next one; and

Wildcat Ridge/RipRap Hollow Google Earth Image

• Wildcat Ridge/RipRap Hollow, completed with my neighbor Dan.

As shown in the table at the beginning of this post, with the completion of these three hikes, I have nearly reached 50 miles in the project, or two-thirds of the goal of 75 miles. From the project’s intro post, listed below are the hikes left on the candidate list that I hope to take on before the end of the season, which I count as Thanksgiving weekend, when the lodges in the Park are closed for the winter.

• Bluff Trail/AT, mile post 17.6, distance 12.8 miles, altitude change 2,400. Includes two summits and some views, and about 5 miles on the AT.
• Knob Mountain/Jeremy’s Run, mile post 24.1 (at the Elk Wallow Wayside), two versions either 11.7 or 14.0 miles, elevation from 2,600 to 2,800 feet. There’s a stream with cascades and a falls, and a summit.
• Hazel Mountain, mile post 33.5, distance 5.3 miles and elevation change 1,070 feet (the easiest on this list!). No summit here, but it is interesting for a combination of a falls, cascade, and a small cave. Depending on when we go, maybe no spelunking – the snake scene in True Grit still creeps me out.
• Pocosin Mission and South River Falls, mile post 59.5, distance 8.5 miles and elevation 1,800 feet. This combines the ruin of an old cabin and mission, and then takes in the South River Falls, which was one of Chris’s and my main training hikes for the Half Dome a few years ago.
• Black Rock/Trayfoot Mountain Loop, mile post 84.8 or 87.4, distance approximately 10.0 miles and unestimated altitude change. This trail is shown on one of the Park’s maps, which include distances but not altitudes, and I cannot find a review in any guide. This will take in the rock scramble at Black Rock, an old fire observation point at the summit of Trayfoot Mountain, and the hollow where the Black Rock Springs Hotel was located in the late 1800’s.

The trail review posts will begin tomorrow, starting with the Old Rag hike I did with Tom.

Warm-ups: Hawksbill and Calf Mountain Hikes

From the headline of this post, a casual reader might ask, "Warm-up for what?" Since most of the summer's heat and humidity has passed without me taking another 75@75 hike, I've been worried about losing traction on that goal. 

One of my hiking buddies agreed that we should make a goal of Old Rag (photo here from an overlook on Skyline Drive), and so we did, but I took the extra precaution of getting out on a couple of leg stretchers in the Park first: Hawksbill Mountain and Calf Mountain.  I've reviewed both trails before (check the Easy Day Hikes label at the end of this post), but I'll make a note of them again today.

Since Tuesday is market day at the farm, I'm often out of there by noon.  The weather was so good last week, and since I knew that the Friday Old Rag outing was fast approaching, I decided a quick hike to the summit of Hawksbill Mountain might be productive.  Off I went for a late afternoon trip.

I found myself practically skipping along from the Upper Hawksbill parking area. Heatwole lists the trail I took as 1.7 miles round trip and 690 feet of elevation gain; I think it's around 400 feet net, if that.  Definitely not an intermediate hike in my classification, where the distance needs to be five or more miles and net elevation gain of 500 feet or more.  Net elevation gain, as I am using the term, means the elevation difference between the hike’s highest and lowest points; Heatwole generally measures the aggregate elevation change as I understand it.

So all in all a pleasant little hike up the mountain, where I spent an hour or so up at the summit enjoying the cool breezes and chatting with two or three groups of tourists passing through on their summer vacations.  Here's a photo of the day use shelter near the summit of Hawksbill Mountain (incidentally, the highest peak in the Park, at 4,049 feet, per Heatwole).

Typically, I can expect a tough day at the farm on Wednesday, and last week was no exception...no fecal dust to show for the experience this week, but I do have a couple of spots where some poison ivy is showing up after some dirty work in the fields.  After that, I left with the thought that I might put together another short hike for Thursday to continue my preparation for Friday's Old Rag climb.

I haven't been down to Waynesboro in a while, so I decided I'd get a route together down in the South District of the Park - and take advantage of being there to get lunch at Scotto's (don't miss it when you are in Waynesboro - I like the baked ziti specialty), and to visit Rockfish Gap Outfitters, which is conveniently located on the road up to the Park entrance.

My destination was Calf Mountain.  Again, an easy little hike with minimal elevation gain (Heatwole lists a longer hike than I was after, although I probably hit much of the elevation he lists: 495 feet; but I took no measurements).

These first two photos from the Calf Mountain trip show why I enjoy this spot in the Park so much: the open former pasture where Skyline Drive passes through the middle, with the Appalachian Trail disecting it.

I first came here a couple of years ago, it was the first hike I took after we lost Gracie Dog to renal failure, so that outing had a purpose for grieving.  I guess nowadays when I am here I get a fond memory or two of our friend.  Maybe in the winter I'll take Tessie up here and she can be part of that whole thing too.

There are a couple of other reasons I like this hike - it's an easy outing, even if you head back into the woods, which I didn't; there are a couple of hilltops with low vegetation so there are nice views looking down on the Piedmont; and there are leftover traces of human use of this land in fruit trees and domesticated shrubs around the pasture and further back on the trail.

Mary thinks we've seen a grapevine gone feral in the woods there and I wouldn't be surprised.  But the readily visible and identifiable trees are the apples and peaches.  We visited last fall and caught site of a group of AT section hikers who had picked some of the fruit and sat in the shade eating it.  They told us it was very tasty...my guess is it is an heirloom variety that would be hard to get to grow true, but still would be worth trying.  I don't know how you might go about that, though.

Plan B Weekend: Hazeltop Summit

With the onslaught of 100-degree plus days, hiking partner Tom and I decided it was best not to take on one of the “75@75” hikes this weekend. We had planned to do the hike that combines Pocosin Cabin and South River Falls, which would be convenient for him and me. He had a campsite reservation at Big Meadows and wanted to do something to take advantage of that, and of course, I am anxious to make the miles, so we came up with something that would meet the criteria for 75@75, but allow us to take frequent breaks.

That “Plan B” was to summit the three tallest peaks in the park: Hawksbill, at 4,049 feet; Stonyman, at 4,010; and Hazeltop, at 3,850. We could do each of the three day hikes to these, around 2-miles each, and also manage to ascend about 1,500 feet in elevation. We would car shuttle between trail heads, allowing some air conditioned cooling off and ensuring that we had plenty of fluids. Even so, the mileage and elevation gain would qualify this effort as a 75@75 day for me.

In the end, the temperatures were just too high to take on this effort. Tom ended up canceling his campsite, and I went out to Hawksbill Cabin to check in on things – and sit in the pool for an hour. By Saturday afternoon, I started getting news that the temperatures up on the mountains were at least 10 degrees cooler than in the valley, and I really still wanted to get up there for a leg stretcher.

On Sunday, I decided I would head on up to do the Hazeltop portion of that segmented hike – from the Bootens Gap Trailhead, estimated at about 2.2 miles round trip. I had been to the summit of Hazeltop with Chris when we did the first of the 75@75 hikes, the big loop down to Camp Rapidan. That was a foggy day, with rain at times, so there was no view, and I had planned to come back to check out the views.

With the canopy up, I didn’t expect much of a view on this day, especially through the sultry haze. In reality, I was just looking for a cool breeze, and a complementary view would have been nice.

From the trailhead – this entire route was on the AT, by the way – both the south and north directions look inviting. But I was headed north and uphill, first passing the intersection with the Laurel Prong trail, which leads down to Camp Rapidan, and then on up to the summit.

There are beautiful summer wildflowers all along Skyline Drive right now, mainly Black-eyed Susan. However, I had noticed a few Turk’s cap Lillies – also known as Carolina Lillies – as bright orange highlights, and had been tempted to stop and take a photo of some. I kept my fingers crossed that I might see some along the hike, and I did – I’ve got a photo of a pair here as the opening image.

(Note, something's up with the Blogger interface today and I can only upload one image, so I'll come back to post the others later.)The other photos are some views of the trail, and a few of the rock outcroppings and boulders along the way. The last of these is the one that I took my summit altimeter reading from, although it probably wasn’t the actual high point of the mountain. I remember that it was pretty close from the last hike, when I approached from the other direction; walking ahead a few dozen more yards revealed that you began a descent from this point onward.

By the Pathfinder’s altimeter, I climbed about 530 feet on this short hike, although by official altitude readings, it may have been more than 600 feet. In any case, I found my cool breeze at an AT switchback, where a little canyon tapered down of the hill. A storm was rolling in, and it sent some brisk cool air up my way from down in some stream bed below.

Superintendent Bogle's Speech at the SNP 75th Ceremony

Karen Beck-Herzog, who handles community relations at Shenandoah National Park, was kind enough to send along a copy of Park Superintendent Martha C. Bogle's remarks at the recent 75th Anniversary observation at Big Meadows.  I've copied in the full speech, less some of the ceremonial parts, below.  The full remarks give a lot of recognition to the people and organizations that we can thank and should honor for founding the park - but the passage she gave at the very end of the ceremony were most inspirational:

"And now, my friends, in the year 2011, WE seek to pass on to OUR children a richer land and a stronger nation. Let us join together for the future, as we have so well in the past. Let us renew the promise of preservation and in it, the rich and boundless promise of Shenandoah. Let us all take pleasure in rededicating Shenandoah National Park, rededicating it to this and to succeeding generations of Americans for the recreation and for the re-creation which they shall find here."

The last part harkens back to FDR's dedication speech.  I guess Mary and I are some of those recreators - and re-creators...we really appreciate having the park so close by, and understand what it does for the little community in Page County where the Hawksbill Cabin stands.  So, without further ado, here is the full speech that Martha Bogle had given earlier:

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This year is an exciting one for Shenandoah National Park, the Commonwealth, our nearby communities, our neighbors, and our partners. Your National Park is 75 years old this year. Your National Park -- and today’s rededication -- wouldn’t have happened without the vision, sacrifices, and hard work of many people. I would like to take a moment to recognize some of those people. In the 1920s, the Commonwealth of VA was successful in lobbying for a National Park to be created in these Blue Ridge Mountains. At the time, several Virginia businessmen and state officials believed a National Park could play a key role in improving the dire economic situation facing the region and at the same time preserve the natural beauty of the area. Today that vision has become a reality – tourism is a big business in many of the park’s gateway communities.


Several hundred families had to move to make way for the vision to become a reality – some willingly sold their land to the Commonwealth of Virginia; others didn’t. Today, people from all over the world come to spend a few days or weeks in these same mountains they called home. What a gift those landowners gave to America. If you owned land in what is now Shenandoah National Park or your family did, PLEASE stand now so we can recognize you and thank you for this great gift to our country, the Commonwealth, and our communities.

Your National Park was a gift from the Commonwealth of Virginia to all Americans. Today Deputy Secretary of Natural Resources Maureen Matson is here representing the Governor’s office. I know she’s busy this year because the Virginia Park Service is also celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. Thank you for being here with us today.

We have other special guests as well, including Senator Hanger, Delegate Scott and Delegate Landes, several Chairmen and members of our County Boards of Supervisors, and more than a dozen mayors and town council members from our gateway communities. Shenandoah’s visitors and employees depend on our communities for all kinds of services, and we couldn’t survive without their support.

The Park also couldn’t survive without our wonderful non-profit partners, including the Shenandoah National Park Trust – the park’s fundraising partner; the Shenandoah National Park Association (affectionately called SNPA) are the ones that sell the books and other educational materials in our visitor centers – 100% of the profits go to support the park’s educational and interpretive programs; and last but not least, the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club whose volunteers maintain more than 300 miles of Shenandoah’s trails. We couldn’t operate this park without their support. Many of you may have noticed PATC’s volunteers helping park cars today. The Trust and Association also have provided financial support to help celebrate Shenandoah National Park’s 75th anniversary.

A team of more than 30 people from our adjacent counties and communities began meeting two years ago to help plan a yearlong celebration to recognize Shenandoah’s anniversary. 75th Anniversary Coordinator Donna Bedwell headed up a team made up of park staff and county government and tourism officials from all the counties adjacent to the park. The Shenandoah staff and the other committee members have worked hard for two years to plan ways to recognize and celebrate Shenandoah’s 75th anniversary.

In addition to the three signature events planned by the park, our nearby counties and towns have planned more than fifty community sponsored 75th anniversary sanctioned events. Please stop by the Community Partnership tent to learn more about the park’s neighboring communities, its partners, and the events.

Wonderful friends from our communities and counties keep stepping up to recognize Shenandoah’s 75th in very special ways. Local artist Kevin Adams painted a beautiful work of art for the park. One of the park’s most famous mountains -- Old Rag -- was his subject. He donated 500 signed and numbered prints to the park with 100% of the proceeds going to support the park. Please be sure to stop by and visit with him after today’s ceremony. He will be available to talk with you outside the Community/ Partnership tent.

Also, the Blue Ridge Chorale from Culpeper commissioned a musical composition called Shenandoah in honor of the park’s 75th. I had the pleasure of hearing it performed by the group at Culpeper’s Remembrance Days where I was a speaker. The piece was so beautiful and was so beautifully performed that it brought tears to my eyes. You will have the opportunity to hear the choral group this afternoon at 3:45 on the mainstage.

The next generation of the park’s caretakers, Park Rangers, and scientists also got into the act. Luray, VA students have written a one act play in honor of the park’s 75th birthday. They will perform it at 4:30 today on the mainstage.

Also, seated to my left on the ground are K – 12 students from Rappahannock Public Schools and Hearthstone and Belle Meade schools. These students, along with their teacher, came together to design and paint an 8’ high by 15’ long mural to celebrate nature and to commit to protecting our natural world, including Shenandoah. You will not believe their incredible work – stop by the Family Fun tent to see the mural and to hear the students talk about what they learned as part of the experience. We also have many other talented local artists performing on the main stage during the day. Check your program for details about today’s activities and plan to stick around for lots of music and fun.

After working for more than 30 years for the National Park Service in 12 different National Parks, I am convinced that the National Park Service cannot protect National Parks . . . that is without the help of our partners, neighbors, and communities, of course. The health of Shenandoah National Park’s natural and cultural resources and the economic health and quality of life in our communities is connected. If we continue to take care of the resources and values that bring people to visit Shenandoah, those values and resources will also be here for us to enjoy . . . and our visitors will continue to seek services and support the economies of our local communities. I firmly believe that if we can find more ways for the park and the communities to connect and to partner with each other that we all will be stronger.

Piney Branch - Piney Ridge Trail: a 75@75 Hike (part 2)

The point of these 75@75 hikes is to get into the history of Shenandoah National Park a little more deeply than I have in the past. The hikes all have their physical challenges, since they have been chosen because of their moderate length or elevation change. A second reason for choosing them was the connection to what was here before the Park, since humans have occupied the Blue Ridge from time to time over the last 12,000 years or more, and exploring and settling the Ridge began in earnest during the colonial era.

One of the “traces” that is evident on the Piney Branch-Piney Ridge trail is the Dwyer cemetery, which is one of two cemeteries that are formally mentioned on NPS trail guides and in the Heatwole book.

In the case of the Dwyer cemetery – its current state is best described as returning to nature, since no family members actively maintain it – there is no trace of the old wire fence, and the visible markers remaining are newer, formal markers. The Heatwole guide includes a notation about this family; there were seven families of Dwyers that were displaced from the Park when it was formed, and 850 acres of their land was assimilated into the growing Park.

We met a scout troop leader trailside at the little spur that leads back to the cemetery and had a good chat (he confirmed for Tom, still skeptical at that point, that we had gone the wrong direction on the hike – “but the hardest part is behind you now”). He pointed us to a newer, more formal headstone that had a CSA badge mounted near it; this was from the most recent burial, in 1927. Heatwole also notes that a Mary G. Dwyer is buried here, having died in 1867 at the age of 75.

As we returned to continue up the gently climbing Piney Ridge trail, I thought about some of the trees we were seeing here. I understand that this part of the trail goes through an old goat pasture, and that the trees growing in now are second growth, young hardwoods. There are still some magnificent pines on the ridge and black locust trees, species that are called pioneers and first growth forests as the area is taken back by the woods.

Most likely, none of those specimens are older than the Park, but down on the Piney Branch trail and on the cut-off trail I had seen quite a few tulip poplars, which is also known as the tulip-tree. These trees are magnificent cousins to the magnolias, and can be found in most of the branch, river and creek valleys and ravines at the park. They are an ancient tree, and when you see the little flower, the magnolia is not the first relationship that comes to mind, although the tulip does, but once you see the fruit later in the year and after research, the relationship is clear.

One other plant to note in this traces theme is the thriving tea rose I saw trailside, which is a reminder that this area was well populated, like much of the northern district of the Park. There are a couple of old home sites that can be explored, with many decorative and food plants gone feral still remaining. Heatwole notes a grape vine that is three inches in diameter down there…but these areas are in the vicinity of the steep climb, and we were too focused on our misery at that moment.

Early in the hike we’d passed the utility cut that I have a picture of here. Our thoughts considered the descent, and then the ascent, that was shown in this cut. All totaled, we were looking at maybe 200 feet of elevation change – one seventh of the total climb we were in for – but on balance, this third installment of the 75@75 hikes was very rewarding.












Here are some of the reference books I used for this post: