What a great weekend in Shenandoah National Park! This weekend's trip was to
serve three purposes; one was to finally hike up Old Rag mountain, the second
was to give our AT thru-hike presentation at the Big Meadows Campground
amphitheater on Saturday night and the third was for me to record nature sounds
for our soon-to-be-released AT thru-hike DVD. It turned out that the weekend
held quite a bit more in store for us. We had heard that Old Rag, being the
popular hiking venue that it is, gets very crowded later in the day, so we were
on the trail by 6:45 a.m. to beat both the crowds and the heat. It has been
awhile since we climbed anything this steep and we were feeling it. But, with
The Long Trail coming up in August, we needed to get our mountain legs back into
condition. It was a steady upward climb and then we reached the rock scramble
area we had heard so much about. There were some sections that were reminiscent
of Katahdin and, in one particularly narrow and wet upward scramble, Mom had to
provide me with her hand as a foot hold so I could boost my way up. I, in turn,
had to pull her up since there were no obvious foot holds and hand holds for
folks of our height. It was easy for us to understand how, at times, there can
be one hour backups as these choke points as hikers try to navigate them. Once
reaching the summit we enjoyed a long lunch and the beautiful, though hazy,
views. The rising humidity of the day was suffocating the peaks of the
surrounding mountains like a wet blanket. The way down the mountain was in stark
contrast to the trip up with a mild, meandering path that, ultimately, turned
into a fire road that took us back to the parking lot. As we were driving away,
past the overflow parking lot, we were thanking our lucky stars that had started
our hike so early. Aside from the increasing heat and humidity, the parking lot,
which holds around 200+ cars was full which meant that the trail itself had to
be crowded like the Capital Beltway around DC. We drove back to the campground,
after a stop at a local winery to taste and pick up a bottle of their personal
finest and then lunch at the campground wayside. We also visited the newly
renovated, and extremely informative, Visitor Center and took in a ranger talk
on the wild cats and dogs of the Shenandoahs. In the evening, we were blessed to
be able to make our AT thru-hike presentation at the campground amphitheater to
a crowd of about 100+ people. The evening weather was beautiful, we had a had a
great time and even had a skunk walk along the edge of the amphitheater, much to
the delight of the kids in attendance. There were lots of questions and, once
the talk was over, we stayed another 30+ minutes trying to answer everyone's
questions. Obviously, we did not answer them all, because on Sunday morning, as
we were checking out of the lodge, a gentleman approached me to ask how much it
cost to thru-hike the AT. What we also found to be fun, was that a couple who
had attended the talk and who discovered, quite by accident, that we were
staying in a cabin right near them, approached us on Sunday morning wanting to
take a photo with us. It was a bit weird being treated like celebrities but we
enjoyed it. On Sunday we took a hike to Hawksbill Summit to see the new
peregrine falcons that had been recently released in the park. The AT has been
detoured through this section to keep hikers away from the nesting area. At the
summit we met volunteer ranger John Malktin, who was there watching the falcons
and making notes of their activities. He was extremely informative and Mom had a
chance to take photos of the falcons while they warded off a crow that had
mistakenly come into their airspace and I recorded the sounds of the falcons for
our DVD. It was a memorable experience as we watched these majestic birds float
on the thermals around the summit. Al in all, it was a wonderful weekend and
made us look forward, even more, to hiking in Hawaii next week and to completing
The Long Trail, from Vermont to Canada, in August.