VIDEO: MOUNT CAMMERER FIR TOWER HIKE!

See our new GoPro video on YouTube...

https://youtu.be/bQrG2G2-Cag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQrG2G2-Cag&t=56s

Blog Post coming soon!

October 4

Tomorrow we leave for the Smokies....3 nights, hope to hike at least a couple of serious trails. We probably will NOT get to do Gregory Bald or Rocky Top simply because it's difficult to stage to those hikes in Cades Cove from any available campground. Save this for later...we'll hit some of the hikes in the Cosby, Greenbriar and Gatlinburg area. Hopefully fall colors have started. Major concern will be the heat....unseasonably warm this fall...and maybe a chance of bad weather Saturday night and Sunday. Could be tough drive home. Stay tuned!

Oh...and by the way thanks for stopping by, we're now over 1000 views all time!

Lineville Gorge Wilderness from the BRP

September 2017

OLD RAG MOUNTAIN

This year, Sylvia and I are tackling some of the most challenging hikes and scrambles remaining in the Southern Appalachians in an attempt to ratchet the bar up to a higher level. After all, if we can’t measure up to the mountains in our own back yard, then how can we hope to be ready for the much steeper prospects of the Alps, Dolomites and Patagonian Andes, to name but a few?

In April we had done the quintessential Carolina/Tennessee Hike – Mount Leconte – to prepare for our adventures in Peru. Now, with an eye toward bigger things next year, we set out to attempt yet another of the South’s “Must do” hikes – Virginia’s Old Rag Mountain.

Long considered the best hike in Shenandoah National Park, Old Rag has a reputation as being unparalleled both in scenic views and in challenge. It is also not without its dangers…with over a mile of intense boulder scrambling, this is not a trail for novices, nor for the faint of heart.

From Skyline Drive, Shenandoah NP

Even getting to the hike is a challenge. Though located entirely inside the National Park, the trailhead itself can only be reached by driving a considerable distance outside of it…nearly 10 miles South of Sperryville, VA, which is in itself seven miles from the Park's Thornton Gap entrance. To stage for the Hike, we stayed overnight in Mathews Arm campground, a 40 minute drive from the trailhead. 

Despite its remoteness and formidable reputation, Old Rag is a popular mountain…maybe THE most well publicized hike in Virginia. As proof of this, the NPS parking lot off state route 601 often fills to capacity on summer weekends despite accommodating 250 vehicles. We chose to hike on a Monday in the ‘tweener’ season of late September, hoping to avoid the crowds, and we were entirely successful. Instead of sharing the trail with hundreds, we shared the mountain with only a few score, and these well spread out. For most of this hike we were quite alone.

We were less successful in avoiding the summer heat…fall had begun, but somebody had forgotten to tell the weather. We started off in buggy heat that seemed to be about 80 degrees in the valley, though it was probably less.

Challenges aside, nearly half this trail is a road slog. The old and inadequate parking area has been closed, forcing hikers to  walk an additional three quarters of a mile (both ways) down a mostly non-scenic rural road. Where the black top ends, the Old Rag trail breaks sharply uphill to the left. Straight ahead at the same junction, the Weakley Hollow Fire Road comes in. Along this mild road hikers will close the loop on their return, some hours hence.

The next two miles on dirt/rock are a steep but uneventful uphill climb in the trees. The only things of note on this section, beside the bugs, are the increasing number of trailside boulders…a reminder that soon, the trail will be nothing but boulders. At about three miles in, the real fun begins. A steep and uneven rock stairway takes the hiker up past a sign proclaiming a no camping zone…and here the first of the rock scrambles appears, a long and steeply pitched cracked slab of granite, atop which is a very fine view from a ledge down the mountain's more populated front side.   

Leaving the ledge, the notorious scrambles intensify, entering perhaps the most challenging one of all…the one that more than any other makes the clockwise direction the advisable way to do this loop. A 10-foot deep crevasse yawns between slabs of solid rock, affording only sketchy handholds. This plagued us for a few minutes and caused me to drop my head-mounted GoPro down onto the rock, but they do make those things to last…this one certainly survived the fall none the worse for wear.

Exiting the crevasse, the trail makes its way around the backside of the mountain, affording one stunning view after another. But you won’t have much time to look at them because for the next mile, you will be grasping, leaping, crawling and straining your way across broken terrain. You cannot just walk this trail…each and every challenge must be answered differently. Among the highlights:

• A granite slab leaning precariously against a cliff; the trail goes directly through the keyhole between
• A short traverse of a claustrophobic cave through the rock (I had to crawl, but shorter hikers could probably duckwalk)
• A narrow chute, directly in the middle of which is lodged a massive multi-ton boulder. Recalling the film 129 hours, the anxious hiker is forced to go straight underneath this hanging obstacle
• After this comes an startling, gravity-defying rock formation that looks like an upraised fist
• And after this...more balanced rocks than ANY other trail I have seen east of the Rockies

The Old Rag Trail tantalizes with at least two false summits before throwing the final challenge at you…a long, white-knuckle ascent up a boulder strewn defile, dead in the center of which is an inconveniently placed block. For me, this proved to be the most formidable obstacle of the day; the weight of my pack, combined with the unseasonable heat, a dwindling water supply had worn me down.  Not helping either was a comical (for anyone but me) episode where my foot became stuck for five minutes in a crack (Sylvia, cursing my ‘lack of flexibility’, impatiently seized it with both hands intending to pry it loose before I convinced her that, no, I really needed both feet for this hike.)

The only place I have seen more strange and unusual rock formations than this is in Utah.

Sylvia posed next to a pair of very unusual formations, one of which uncannily resembles a human being with a GoPro sticking out of his head.

After several minutes of flopping about ineffectually, I finally took off my pack and hurled it up and over the obstacle. Then, and in gazelle-like fashion, I executed my patented ‘full granite body slam’ method of bouldering. Sylvia, to shame me, was able to step lightly through in just one minute to my ten, again cursing the ‘lack of flexibility’ of the gazelle ahead of her.

 The blazes at times are hard to follow, and they always seem to take you in  the least convenient direction.

Amazing Old Rag Mountain...note the almost pristine wilderness views, very rare in the Blue Ridge

Fortunately for us, the 3,284 foot summit was just ahead. There we lingered on the expansive granite slabs, resting and enjoying 360 degree views almost to ourselves. Here the intrepid climber is rewarded with something rarely seen in Virginia – mountainsides and valleys almost completely unspoiled by development. The backside of Old Rag looks out into the lesser seen interior regions of the National Park, and only those few who venture far from Skyline Drive and the park’s more popular overlooks will ever see them.

A rare moment on the trail when  Sylvia was not being obstructed by a large object such as her husband.

Just as with my earlier visits to the Smokies, I was disappointed by the very noticeable amount of haze in the air, which greatly detracts from the views. The proximity of both parks to heavy industry and coal fired power plants in the Midwest makes this the case, and it seems worse in both spots than it does in the middle regions of Virginia and the Carolinas, perhaps because of the prevailing winds. I am not sure if it is my imagination or not, but the pollution problem seems to have gotten much worse than the first time I laid eyes on the Shenandoah valley almost twenty years ago.

 The summit of Old Rag  -- not the highest mountain in Shenandoah NP (or even close.)

Sylvia has found her husband to be brimming over with energy as usual. 

After resting and hydrating we were back on our way, but not keen on doing any more rock hopping. Fortunately for us, the scrambles were over. From the summit the Saddle Trail makes a relatively uneventful exit from the mountain. It’s long (5.2 miles from summit to parking lot) and the first two miles are steep, but it’s just a regular trail, nothing that requires any of the gazelle-like rock flopping I am known for. In less than an hour, the Saddle trail takes you past a pair of day use cabins (one has a privy) and comes out on the well-graded Weakley Hollow Fire Road. From here, it’s another hour's basic slog out

The road was actually passable to vehicles and one did in fact pass us, which turned out to be driven by the caretaker of the Old Rag Shelter. She very kindly stopped and offered us a bottle of water (much needed) before continuing on down the road.

Though the walk out itself is uneventful enough to be called boring, about a mile from the blacktop we got our last bit of excitement of this day. As we were walking along Sylvia suddenly shouted, “What’s that!” I looked up just in time to see, just two hundred feet ahead, a large, black shaggy form go loping across the trail and into the bushes. I was about to cry, “Bear!” when a second, somewhat smaller black thing came running behind the first, and that one was followed by yet another. It was a mother bear, and two cubs! Probably they had come down to a nearby creek at the end of the day for water, and bolted uphill into a rocky area at the sound of our approach.

There was no time to get a picture and no chance of following where they went, even if we were mad enough to try. We kept on walking…no pictures, alas, but we will have the memories of this encounter to treasure. (It marks the only time in twenty years of hiking that I have actually seen a bear WHILE hiking, as opposed to running across a road or through a high powered lens at a distance. Whatever the reason, bears are FAR more easily seen in the south than in New England. I never saw a single one there!)

All in all, this was one of the best days in the outdoors either of us can remember, and we strongly recommend it to other hikers, as long as they are fit, experienced and well-prepared. No actual rock climbing skills are needed here, but this is a level above being just a ‘hike.’ Anyone who is not ready for this challenge may be in serious trouble, and the NPS does undertake many treacherous rescue operations from the mountain every year.

We do offer the following pieces of advice:

Avoid the trail in bad weather. If it rains, don’t feel the need to be macho…there are 500 OTHER miles of trail in Shenandoah NP to enjoy.

Try to do this on a weekday. Crowds milling around the tough scrambles and viewpoints would have really detracted from the experience.

Don’t take a heavy pack…go as light as possible.

Be prepared to stow away trekking poles in the scrambles. Or, if you don’t absolutely need them, don’t take them at all.

Take as much water as possible, this is thirsty work. Minimum 2 liters…more if you can.

Do the trail in the clockwise direction. The obstacles seem to be a bit less insane this way, and you save the easy road walk for the end. 

Once in the scrambles, it is probably better to push on to the summit than turn back…it’s all downhill from the summit.

Finally, if you are a novice hiker who has seen this or another trail report or a video online, our advice is to tackle something a bit less extreme first. The Alum Cave Trail in North Carolina, for example. Or, McAfee Knob.

We saw bears, but alas, this is the only wildlife we filmed on the return leg of the trip.

A year and counting...

Sylvia and I have begun our preparations for next year's epic adventure...Alpine Europe's most classic walk, the 105 Mile Tour De Mont Blanc. It's still about a year away but never too early to begin, considering that it is probably most intense hiking either of us have even done (11 days on the trail, not including rest days.) Oh, and conversational French or Italian is pretty much mandatory.

Here's a map of the whole adventure courtesy of the Rifugio Elisaebtta Alpine Refuge on the French/Italian border...

http://www.rifugioelisabetta.com

Time for one of my rare forays into 'Political Thought'...

The Google Guy's opinions are complete crap. They are 100% dead wrong, and demonstrably so; virtually the entire course of American history can be viewed as an exercise in proving opinions like his wrong.

However, he has a right to his opinion. Even bad opinions are protected by the First Amendment, and should be dealt with through vigorous debate and argument, not censorship and social ostracism. In other words, it is his right to be wrong.

My two cents. Back off the soap box now...please continue on with your enjoyment of cat related memes.

Last free day: Newport, MA

We were very fortunate to be able to extend our trip to Boston for two extra days. One of these we decided to spend sightseeing a place where, in all my years in Boston, I had never been…the playground of the rich and famous, Newport, RI.

The day we chose to drive down was one of the hottest days of the summer so far in New England (though it would have been a below average summer day at best in North Carolina.) It took us perhaps 80 minutes of driving to reach Rockport from Quincy, MA. We actually found the drive easier and less stressful than the trip to Rockport. 

First stop was to check out the shopping downtown. Sylvia pronounced the boutique stores to be mostly worthy of her interest. 

About the only thing you will find for under $10 in Newport except maybe the air.

After several minutes of luxurious shopping, or standing around in closet size boutique stores impatiently waiting for this to wrap up (depending on which one of us you are talking about) we moved on to the waterfront. 

Sylvia expressed approval for several of the watercraft moored here.

Sylvia pronounced the boat above to be a 'bit much' but said the one below was 'just right.'

After looking at the boats we’ll be buying as soon as I strike oil or uranium in the backyard, we went for dinnuh on the haaaabuhside.

Sylvia looked fashionable in her hat purchased a day earlier in Rockport. She looked like she belonged in Newport.

After a couple of Narragansett Ales, I was pretty much done, and might have passed for an overmedicated schizophrenic.

A case of an over indulgence in the finer things...aka Narragansett Ale.

After a fine dinner we moved on to that there lobster corral down yonder. The lobster wrangler let Sylvia rustle up some dinner. Sylvia was of a mind to take this one home with us but…it’s a pain even getting shampoo through the metal detectors these days.

After spending time with the lobster, it almost seemed as if, for a brief time, Sylvia became one.

After touring the harbor we went for a stroll on the famed Cliffwalk overlooked the bay. It was late in the day and starting to cool off and just an excellent time to do this.

We walked about as far as Salve Regina University, in the midst of the gilded age mansions that line the cliffs. We did not go down as far as the rougher sections as we desperately short on water.

Sylvia pronounced several of the mansions to be adequate fixer uppers.

All in all, this was an outstanding time. Sylvia awarded this four Fu’s on the Fu Fu scale. A cast iron octopus weighting about ten pounds was purchased (and carried around by me for half the day) however no additional hats were bought. We also had to save the mansions of Bellevue street for another day. Sylvia pronounced them to be “Not really that great” to begin with and “not the main attraction here.” Sylvia did see several yachts which she might condescend to purchase. And as for myself, I was glad to make it back to Boston without getting lost.

Stay tuned for a YouTube/GoPro film of the trip!!!

Second Free Day: Rockport Massachusetts

AKA Raaaaahckpaaaaht*, like the shoes. Rockport is quaint coumunity of artists that sits at the out end of Cape on the Naaath Shaaaah of Massachusetts….which means it is a town with incredibly strict zoning laws to keep out chain stores, developers, predatory house flippers, the desperately poor and all other quaintness trashing forces of the world. The result is a place that really has no changed at all since my childhood. It was impossible to find parking spaces there then…and its impossible now. But it sure is fun to walk around.

*Note that in the interests of authenticity I will be writing some key phrases in the manner of the local dialect of Boston. Even though this is sometimes 'wicked haaahd' for outsiders to understand, I have felt it necessary in order to preserve the 'local colluh.'

Raaaakpaaaaht has chaaaaractuh. Sylvia loved it.

Rockport Harbor was once a small commercial fishing village back in the day when actual real fisherman could afford to live there. Now, it is basically a show-harbor reserved these days mostly for small pleasure boats. Centerpiece of the haaaaaahbuh is Bear Skin Neck, a long spit of land that forms the left (north) enclosure of the harbor. You can now walk all the way out to the end of the neck. The place gets its name from the fact that, some centuries ago, an unfortunate  bear was trapped by the tide and killed here by the residents of the town. This is in keeping with general New England policy of celebrating the sites of famous killings (the Boston Massacre, Bunker Hill, Salem Witch Trials etc.)

After walking along the neck and attempting to take photos where I wouldn’t be phot-bombed by a lurking 10-year-old, we bought hats. It is required by city ordinance that all visitors to the city buy at least one overpriced item, so we figured we might as well get one that makes us like cool. Not that I don’t look cool anyway…

We then strolled around the back streets looking at the chaaaaahming houses that cost a faaaaahchun…

And some laaaahbstuh paaaahts. And various other nautical paraphernalia. Sponge Bob could easily have lived here.

After this it was time to take the requisite photograph of Motif Number One, the most famous iconic building in the town of Rockport. Of course, this is not the actual Motif One, which washed away in the blizzard of ’78…this is a replica of the original structure. Which really makes it Motif Number Two, if you think about it, but anyway…the former fishing shack enjoys a productive retirement as a landmark and artists model.  The two even keeps it painted in a way that looks weather beaten all year long.

After a lunch of Lobster Roll, it was time to go drive up to the bluffs for a dramatic view of the harbor. As we stood their enjoying the view, a party of young sailors were being instructed in the intracicies of the sea right below our vantage point (IE, a bunch of snot nosed kids in sail boats were trying to run each other aground, which some success.)

A good time was had by all and hats were purchased. What more could one ask for? WITCH brings us to the next destination….

Salem, MA

The Spooky and black mascara/purple hair capital of the world is, actually a very fine place to visit any time of year and not just Halloween. Though most famous for being the sight of the Salem Witch Trials in the 1600’s, it is also a very visitable town that retains probably more historic buildings per square acre than any other place in New England. Some go back to the mid-1600’s, which makes them contemporaries of William Shakespeare and Galileo Galilei.

Salem has a fine haaaaaahbuh too, actually one of the oldest commercial ports on the east coast. It is also possibly the hardest gosh damned place to get in and out of that you will ever have need to go to…there are trans-dimensional portals that are easier to get into than Salem. But we made it in without problems, and more importantly, out with problems, and we returned to Aunt Lois’s luxury suite in Quincy Centuh with no loss of limbs or blood shed.

A great time was had by all on this trip. Sylvia pronounced Rockprt to be ‘very charming’ with houses that have a “lot of character” and a good mix of high and middle end fu-fu shops, and all of this with no discernable homeless population to interfere with the experience. Sylvia awards Rockport four and a half Fu’s on her Fu-Fu scale…Salem, which was “nice but weird” is awarded three.

Next up: Newpaaaaaht, RI