Fountainhead Foliage

I am a glutton for fall foliage. This year I've already sought peak foliage hiking in Shenandoah National Park and Sky Meadows State Park, not to mention the not insignificant foliage pleasures of driving to rehearsal through Rock Creek Park in DC and biking the W&OD Trail through Bluemont Park. But still I wanted more. Part of my foliage addiction is always trying to re-capture peak foliage experiences of the past. Fountainhead is always a sweet spot for foliage paddling, and in 2016 I hit it just right and experienced some truly sublime beauty on the water. I was pretty sure that today, a cloudy day slightly past peak, wasn't going to equal that day, but I decided to give it a try.

I hit the water about 9:10 AM. The reservoir level is very low; for those familiar with the boat launch, the water line is about a a foot short of even touching the rubber mats at the ramp (these mats usually extend into the water). I launched and got in about fifteen minutes of paddling before it started raining. The rain, which wasn't supposed to have arrived until evening time, got harder and harder. I was wearing a Hydroskin top, which would have kept me reasonably warm even when wet, but rather than being wet and kind of miserable I decided to head back and grab my "splash jacket" (rain top) from the car. So I paddled back. Does it even need to be said that by the time I got back it had stopped raining and not a single drop more fell from the sky after I put on the splash top?

I had the place almost to myself. Two fishing boats, a couple of other kayakers, and a whole lot of quiet. Not much wildlife, though. I saw one eagle and a handful of great blue herons, but that was it. The foliage was, as expected, a little past peak, but still quite beautiful. Interestingly, the colors looked more vivid while it was cloudy. Late in my trip the sun started to peek out from the clouds and the brighter light washed out the colors.

I did try to take a break at my turnaround point. With the water level so low, the normal shoreline is unreachable and what's exposed is a bunch of mudflats. I tried to get out of my kayak and immediately sank calf deep into mud. Fortunately, I was still straddling the kayak and so I just sat back down into the boat before the mud pulled my shoes off. I then had some coffee and a granola bar while floating around the cove with my feet hanging out of the kayak, until I finally spotted a rocky area which was solid enough to support me. It was nice to stand up and take a relief break.

When I got back there was absolutely no one around at the normally busy boat launch. As is my usual practice, I loaded the boat then used the yucky bathroom you pass on the way out to change clothes. The park was so deserted that I was tempted to treat the bathroom as a locker room and change clothes in the middle of the bathroom, but I figured that with my luck someone would walk in just when I had all my clothes off, so I changed in the cramped stall.

A stop along the way. Colors pumped up in Photoshop? Maybe. 🙄

 

View of the reservoir. Colors pumped up in Photoshop? Maybe. 🙄

Sky Meadows with Steve

All the hikes I can remember ever having done at Sky Meadows State Park in Virginia start with a walk through the cow pasture (carefully tiptoeing around the cow patties) and then up onto the Appalachian Trail. It turns out there are some other nice hikes in the park, including a loop I hiked with my friend Steve. We were pointed to this hike by Steve's twenty year old hiking guide, which was a little inaccurate in the details (it appears they've reworked one trail junction since the book was written), but which generally steered us right. The hike took us past some magnificent views with valleys filled with pastures and hillsides alive with fall color. Yes, we eventually had to traverse the cow pasture, but coming at it from the other direction you realize that there's a splendid view from the top of it.

The day started out cloudy and rainy, and we delayed our departure hoping that the rain would move out. In fact it did, and the weather behind it was better than had been forecast, with blue skies by the end of the afternoon. A really nice hike with near-peak foliage.

View from George's Overlook

In the woods

View from the top of the cow pasture

Day hike in Shenandoah National Park

 One of the nice things about being self-employed/semi-retired is that I can do things like make a spur of the moment decision to take advantage of a beautiful autumn day and go hiking at Shenandoah National Park. In all honesty, I don't actually have total control over my schedule - I missed two meetings to do this "hooky day", but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

I entered the park at Thornton Gap, and after a quick stop to take in the view at Tunnel View Overlook I parked at Hawksbill Gap and got ready to hike. I had watched the temperature drop by almost 15 degrees as I drove from the valley up into the park and I knew it would be yet colder up top, so I had packed lots of layers and a glove. Wait, what? One glove? Actually, I know for a fact I had brought two gloves since I was wearing them when I left the house, but one of my gloves mysteriously disappeared between home and the trailhead. Either it fell out when I stopped at Tunnel View Overlook (I stopped there again to look for it on my way out of the park, but no luck) or it has hidden itself very well in the car somewhere. So, I was left with a left glove and a pair of very lightweight fingerless sun gloves - I gloved up as best I could and kept my right hand in my pocket for most of the hike.

I hiked a loop up to Hawksbill Viewing Platform - up the Appalachian and Salamander Trails, then back via Lower Hawksbill - about 3 miles with 860 feet elevation gain. I am always chasing a peak fall colors experience like I had once when Valerie and I visited Ted at JMU and went for a hike. We must have hit the peak day of a particularly vibrant year, because it was spectacular and I've never since seen such vivid colors. In planning my park visits I even watch the NPS Fall Foliage YouTube videos - which aren't always that informative and can be hard to watch, since they're filmed outdoors and so have lots of wind noise, plus they feature several giggly young rangers taking fifteen minutes to deliver five minutes worth of information.

Anyway, for this hike it was already past peak at Skyline Drive and above, but the mountainsides down into the valleys were very colorful. Hawksbill has an actual viewing platform where you can stand and get an almost 360 degree view of scenery, plus there's a camping shelter nearby which offers, in my opinion, a superior (if only 180 degree) view. I spent quite a while at both spots, but it really was cold up there - water caught in crevices in the rocks was iced over, and there was lots of wind. I'm guessing it was in the low 30's up top. When I started to get cold I hit the trail again and finished the loop back to the car. 

On the way up to Hawksbill

Hawksbill View

Leaves along the trail

Little Stony Man View

I have to give a shout-out to the family of six - two parents plus four kids ranging from elementary school age down to baby in a backpack - who I saw (and volunteered to take photos of) at the top. It takes a certain amount of guts to shepherd a group of young kids up a mountain trail. 

The Hawksbill hike was less than two hours, leaving me time for more exploration. I did a second hike at Little Stony Man. I parked at Little Stony Man parking (milepost 39) and hiked up to the first viewpoint, then explored the Passamaquoddy Trail for a bit. I could have continued and done another loop (continuing on Passamaquoddy then back on the AT) which would have led me to two more viewpoints, but it was starting to get late (I wanted to get home ahead of afternoon rush hour) and so after taking in the view and once again doing photographer duties, this time for a young Scandinavian backpacker hiking from Harper's Ferry to somewhere in North Carolina, I retraced my steps back to the car. 

Trees at Little Stony Man

Color down the mountainside

On the way back I tried to stop at Rappahannock Coffee Roasters, but either they're not doing retail anymore or just weren't open mid-afternoon on a weekday. I then drove through Washington Virginia, which I had heard had quite a few stores these days (not just the Inn at Little Washington), but there still isn't very much there. My last stop on the way home was at the WaWa in Gainesville where I got a soft pretzel (yay!). They had no decaf coffee (what the actual F? C'mon WaWa) so I got a small regular coffee, which gave me that buzzy sped up feeling for the rest of the day.

Anyway, a nice little outing. Now, where's that darn glove? 

Overnight in George Washington National Forest

I took a trip where I was introduced to a type of camping I had never done before - call it wilderness car camping. When I think of car camping I envision something like a state park with a certain degree of infrastructure: defined campsites and conveniences such as water spigots and bath houses. And of course, you can drive your car to your campsite and so you go in heavy with lots of gear. In contrast, when wilderness camping (backpacking or kayak camping) the campsites are remote, have little to no infrastructure (maybe an outhouse), and you have to get yourself and all your gear to the campsite under your own power - in a backpack or a boat - so you travel light. Wilderness car camping sits somewhere in the middle.

For my friend Steve camping used to mean only backpacking; however, as his hips and knees have aged he's become more open to car camping. But, he still doesn't like the idea of going someplace as developed as a state park. What he and his usual camping buddies (economists all - don't get them started talking about economics) do is drive out to lesser developed places to camp. Our original plan was to go to Red Creek campground in Dolly Sods Wilderness in West Virginia, but we made a game-time decision to head instead for George Washington National Forest (GWNF). 

National Parks are managed for preservation and recreation, and typically have the kind of higher camping infrastructure I described above. National Forests, on the other hand allow a wider variety of uses (hunting, cattle grazing, lumbering) and since they're not parks, their level of camping infrastructure is lower. The GWNF has well defined and blazed hiking trails, but there aren't many defined campgrounds or sites. Rather, it seems you can just pick a spot and camp anywhere in the Forest. Over time, I guess from use, obvious campsite locations have taken shape: maybe someone camped in a spot and built a fire ring, then successive users, by driving and walking around the site tamped down the vegetation, and a clear campsite emerged. Again, National Forests are not as concerned about maintaining nature in its pristine state and so they're fine with campsites being carved out ad hoc, But there's no infrastructure - no water, no outhouse, no nothing.

We met at Steve's friend Dave's house and discovered he had already prepared by loading his SUV with a ton of firewood - five or six of the bundles you buy in the supermarket. Then we added all of our gear. I was packed fairly light, since I mostly just grabbed the stuff I had recently packed for a kayak camping trip I dropped out of at the last minute due to coming down with COVID. But still, I had a pretty big amount of stuff (I packed a lot of layers!), and Dave and Steve had even more gear than I did. After loading everything into the car we really didn't have a square inch to spare.

A full car

Once we made the decision to go to the GWNF we headed for a place the two of them had camped before, which they claimed was almost always available, only to find that despite it being a Wednesday, there were already three different parties camped there. We could have squeezed into that area, but that would have meant a more crowded experience than we were looking for. Plus, Steve wandered into the spot where he and Dave would usually set up and noticed that whomever was camped there had a chainsaw and a half-empty magnum bottle of cheap gin. They had left a half-eaten meal out on the table (not a good idea in the woods), there were filthy kids' toys strewn about and their car was a decades-old beater filled with junk. We got a feeling that these might not be people we would enjoy camping next to, so we got back into in our car and continued up the forest road, where we found an unoccupied spot with a fire ring at the Scothorn Trail trailhead (Lat 38.691750, Lon -78.58007). There were really two campsites carved out there - one to the left of the trailhead, the other to the right. We set up in one and parked the car in the other, which turned out to be a good move. While we didn't see anyone else come by looking to camp, we had quite a few day hikers come by and the presence of our car on the right side cued them to use the right side for parking and stay away from our campsite on the left.

I have mentioned in the past that Steve is the least gear-headed outdoorsy person I know. I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had finally replaced his 1970's A-frame tent, though he still had some of his stuff packed in a backpack of similar antiquity. He brought along his hiking sticks - which are actual sticks. Dave seems to be a more gear-oriented camper and in fact has all brand new gear as a result of having recently lost all of his camping gear in a fire (long story). Still, they were both impressed with some of my gee-whiz gear - particularly my beloved Helinox backpacker cot.

After making camp we hiked the Scothorn Trail (very convenient, since we were camped at the trailhead!), exploring a couple of side trails along the way. Eventually Steve's back started to hurt so he decided to wait while Dave and I ascended the rest of the way to the peak, where he and I were rewarded with a nice view of the Shenandoah Valley and the mountains beyond (Massanutten is a small mountain range - a monadnock, actually that pops up as an interruption in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley, so valley views abound). At the summit our trail intersected with one which runs along the ridgeline. On the way up we had chatted with some hikers coming the other way who said the ridge trail along the ridge offered lots good views, but was rocky and difficult. Given the late hour we decided not to explore the challenging ridge trail and instead headed back. At the agreed-upon meeting point we picked up Steve who, in an only-in-Washington moment, while sitting in the middle of the woods at the trail junction waiting for our return, had fielded a call from a Politico reporter looking for a quote for an article on inflation and potential spillover effects of Fed monetary policy (Steve is a former high-ranking Fed official).

Scothorn Trail - likely an old forest road

The beginnings of fall colors

View at the top

I will also mention that we ran into another hiker on our way back - a young woman who was backpacking with her dog (which was wearing a little doggy backpack - adorable!). I noticed that she had a pistol within reach in one of the outside pockets of her pack. I understand why a woman hiking alone would feel the need for such protection, but I'm sad that we live in a world where this is the case.

Anyway, we got back to camp in time to relax with a cold beer then started making dinner. Steve's idea of camping cooking is, like his gear, mired in decades past - hot dogs cooked on a stick over the campfire, served with baked beans. That was dinner for the two of them; I had vegetarian chili I had brought along, knowing that Steve's food wasn't going to be to my liking. After that it was a pleasant evening of hanging around the campfire. Unlike my kayaking friends, who turn in super early, these guys stayed up almost to 11, and so I didn't have to resort to my usual group camping routine of reading and watching videos in my tent until it was late enough for me to go to bed.

Around the campfire

Different people have different camping ideas and rhythms. I'm used to camping with my kayak crew, who all rise early and immediately get started on the day. I slept pretty well, waking up only at midnight, 2 AM, 4 AM, 5AM, and then finally getting out of bed 6-ish. Once awake I got the stove going to make coffee (Starbucks Via Brew instant), then quietly began packing up some of my gear. When Dave and Steve finally rolled out of their tents about two hours later Steve was surprised to find me mostly packed. But we evened out the timing a little over breakfast. I happily lounged and had a second cup of coffee, and Dave's and my breakfasts (instant oatmeal and grits, respectively) took more time to prepare, eat, and clean up from than did Steve's Pop-Tarts. 

We stopped to enjoy another view on the road back

We broke camp and loaded the car, a task made easier by the fact that we had burned most of the firewood which had taken up so much space the day before. On the way out we stopped and did a short hike - an hour or so - and then headed back to civilization. When we got to Front Royal Dave and I had a good diner brunch at L'Dees Pancake House, while Steve, who is still very COVID-cautious, avoided going inside the busy diner and instead ate a sandwich in the nearby town square (I felt comfortable being a little cavalier about COVID since I presumably still have good immunity from recently having had it).

All told, a fun couple of days in the mountains with an old friend and a new one. Good hiking, and we saw a little bit of early fall colors.  

With Steve

With Dave