Our First Backpacking trip together:
I wanted to introduce Liesl to wilderness backpacking, and since we are so near the Appalachian trail, I thought, "what better place". I did my research and turned up a couple of great options settling on one within Shenandoah National park. However, a couple days before we were to go, the park posted a notice of no camping in the area. Bummer. I bet it would have been a great place for her first trip.
So, back to research, and I recalled reading about another trail in the George Washington National Forest, along the Blue Ridge Parkway. I did a quick review, and printed out the map, and adjusted our schedule a bit to compensate for weather.
Liesl and I undertook our first backpacking trip together starting on 24th April. Due to the impending rains on Saturday, I had taken Friday off, which left us scrambling Friday morning to get our packs loaded, and everything into the car for the three hour drive to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Please Note: I'm a planner, this isn't how I do things normally.
The preparation pulled off without a hitch, and we actually made it to the trail head at the Reed's Gap parking area, around 1pm. In my experience, this is quite late to start the hike, but we were only hiking 7.3 miles the first day, and if we maintained our average pace that would take up approximately 4 hours with stops. Little did I realize, the review was a little too quick.
The trail left Reed's Gap, and started up the AT on a small hill. We passed an older man walking with a cane up the hill. If he can do it, it can't be that bad, right? The foliage had not fully grown in, so we could see into the valleys on either side of the trail. It felt wonderful to be out, away from the traffic and congestion again.
After topping the first hill, we descended into a a small saddle, coming to the Mau Pin Shelter and camp area. This is also the end ofthe Mau-Har trail, which we would return on. We stopped for a short break and chatted up an older guy who was camping at the shelter, and scratching an arrow into the dirt so his friends would find them. He and his wife had come up the Mau-Har that day, and he told us there was some rock scrambling along the way. No problem. If he can do it, so can we. (You see a pattern here?) Another reason to stop here, most of the shelters have a 'privy'. I guess that's nicer than saying outhouse. In any case, it's easier than trying to balance while holding your pant's out of the way, and aiming at a small hole. (If you don't understand that last statement, you need to go backpacking at least once in your life).
One of the things I find interesting at the shelter's along the AT, are the bear poles. They are not very high and, despite all of the literature stating not to hang your food in camp, right in the middle of the camp areas. I've never hung my food before, though I planned to on this trip. More on that later.
Onward. From the Mau-Pin shelter, we continued up the trail, starting the ascent of Bee Mountain. More uphill, which becomes steep in some places. I joked about not having to climb rock hewn stair cases, as is common in Korea. I should have kept it to myself. Rock stairs showed up shortly thereafter. We passed a few people that looked like through hikers on the way up. They looked more energized than we did.
Once we peaked on Bee Mountain, we followed the ridge line for almost two miles as it first descended then gradually ascended. We took several short breaks to take pictures and chat. We were passed by more hikers, mostly young folks that looked like they were doing a section hike.
Three Ridges Mountain was next. We went up about 300 feet on the first stretch to the first nice overlook, where we took a break and talked with a younger guy named Isaac, who was a student at UVA, and happened to go out to the Bozeman area every summer for a camp (Small world). Had we known it, we would have walked another 100 feet up the trail to a very nice overlook where a rock overhangs the edge of the ridge, facing southward, and overlooking Harper's creek, which we would later be camping next to. We stopped here despite having just stopped, and took several photos.
As soon as we left that overlook, we continued the ascent of Three Ridges, pushing ourselves up the mountain at a slow trudge. I could see an older man ahead of us, who would stop every now and again. Initially I thought maybe he was turned around, but then began thinking he was just having as much trouble continuing as we were.
After about 15 minutes, Isaac headed past us. Further on up the trail, I noticed he caught up with the other hiker and had stopped to talk. We caught up with them a few minutes later and it turned out the man actually had somehow gotten turned around, and had traveled a couple miles in the wrong direction. He took it in stride, and as we headed upward, he turned and headed back down. Not the worst part of the trail, but not a part I would like to find out I did by mistake.
Three Ridges Mountain provided some really nice vantage points. and was pretty in itself with flower blooming all around, however it was a tough mountain to climb, and equally hard coming back down the switchbacks on the other side, all strewn with rocks. Somehow we descended without breaking anything, sometimes clinging to a rock as we side stepped down to the next section. We put our bamboo walking poles to good use.
Next up a short saddle then on to the ascent up Chimney Rock. We didn't go out on the vantage point on Chimney Rock, mostly because it's not all that clear where the trail to it is. In any case, by this time we had calculated we were traveling about 1 mile per hour, and we were going to be pushing to get to camp before dark (recall the 1:30pm departure). We continued on despite our sore feet, and started to descend heavily again. As we descended, it became apparent that we should reach our camp just about the time the sun set, we talked about stopping for a while and eating before continuing to the camp site but decided to push on. We didn't expect the mile of ankle breaking rocks that made up the trail along the backside of Chimney rock. It was pretty continuous rocks, about the size of footballs for a while, until we heard rushing water. We couldn't see any water, but we could hear it rushing down beneath our feet, under the rocks. I failed to mention earlier, I had issues with where I put my camelbak and it started dripping early on, so I ended up drinking all of my water within the first few miles, so this rushing water was like a siren call at this point. Further along, a small spring came out of the rock in a trickle, not enough to fill a bottle, but we could see down the hill it was gushing out. We ignored that in the hope that we were near the camp. The camp wasn't far off, and we found our first stream crossing to get to the shelter site.
We contemplated camping on the ridge just before the stream, and probably should have, but decided to cross a tree and set up in another location. Not a great decision, but hey, we were tired and it was getting dark. So as Liesl set up the tent, I started boiling some water for Mac and cheese and veggies. I ran through the water we had, and Liesl stopped working on the tent to go filter some more (Sawyer Mini water filter is kickass by the way, far better than expected) While she was getting water, I kept an eye on the stove, and started unpacking things to throw into the tent. Pretty much everything went in the tent.
Hungry as we were I don't really recall how good the mac and cheese was, but it satisfied. Liesl had refilled most of our water by the time we ate, so I went to wash our dinner dishes. As stated earlier, there is normally a bear pole for hanging your food at these shelter locations. Not at this one. So, the food stayed in the canister in a bag, in my backpack next to the tent. This is pretty much how I've always kept my food when camping, minus the bear canister, which I bought specifically for camping in Shenandoah NP, where it's required. Oh well, maybe next time my food can be hung.
Sleep was not good. The tent site we chose was on a hill. I tried leveling myself by filling a dry bag with extra clothes and rain gear, and placing it under my feet. It only worked so well. For some reason I had a really hard time falling asleep despite how tired I was, and by morning I didn't feel like I had slept much at all.
Oh well, it's 5:30am, time to start harassing Liesl. I can barely see her eyes though the hole in her mummy bag, so I better start by making that hole larger so she can talk, and enjoy the cool morning air (40 degrees maybe?). I chatted her awake, and talked about getting up to make some oatmeal. I think she would have laid there til noon happily immersed in her sleeping bag, but we heard little ice pellets bounce off our tent. Not the wake up you want. We pulled everything together and rolled the tent up in half a jiff to avoid it getting too wet. The weatherman got it partly wrong. It wasn't supposed to start raining until noon. Well, everything is down, lets not cook. We'll just eat some protein bars on our way out. Tasty breakfast. I noticed on our way out that the through hikers who had been in the shelter the night prior were gone already, and there was a guy doing the same loop we were doing getting ready to head out as well.
We crossed back over the creek via the downed tree (lizzy too), and headed a short way back to the AT. We started passing people almost immediately, and I pointed out some interesting gear to Liesl. Not far down the trail, we found the 2nd camping area for this shelter, and there were plenty of flat spots there (Grrr). Then we came to the stream crossing...the same stream that we had just crossed back over, only no tree here, and not all that easy to cross. Apparently they moved the trail at some point to have better camping maybe? In any case, they should have left the trail where it passed the shelter and privy. It made far more sense than this crossing. The trail was descent at this point heading a short distance to the intersection with the Mau-Har trail. By the time we made it to the intersection, I was starting to sweat and decided I didn't need my rain jacket on, and I had forgotten to move my water so it was dripping again. The soloer from the shelter caught up to us at this point and we chatted for a while. Apparently he had started the trail the previous October only to get snowed on and end his trip early. He headed up the Mau-Har, and after rearranging everything, we followed along.
The Mau-Har deceived us, being nice at the start, then quickly becoming a steep switchback up to the top of a ridge. Slow trudge again, as our muscles and feet were still sore from the day prior. To complicate the ascent, there was a lot of dead-fallen trees crossing the trail. Upon reaching the ridge, we descended along more switchbacks, over waterfalls, that were sometime on the trail. There were some tricky spots with ricks on the trail, and steep descents, and couple of spots where water was on the trail as well. We could see below a large waterfall in the Campbell creek drainage.
Campbell Creek has some beautiful waterfalls along it. There is another camp site between the trail and the water. We met up with the soloer again here, adn chatted briefly. I'm glad we did, because he pointed out the trail stayed on that side of the creek. It looks like they may have moved the trail here at some point also, as it looked like trail on the other side of the water. After he headed up the trail, we took a short spur trail to go down and see the big waterfall. Then came back and could see the man further up the trail stopped and looking around before continuing on. We ate some and started out again.
From here, the trail looks to have been designed by a mountain goat. Lizzy didn't have much trouble, though she looked as confused as us at some points. Often water flowed across jumbled rocks which also happened to be the trail. In the nice areas, the trail continued upwards, flanked by fields of trillium flowers on one side and the tumbling creek on the other. It was one of the nicest trails I've hiked for scenery, but also one of the hardest as the trail generally stayed on the ascent, often crossing streams, rocks and downed trees along the way. I think we made 10 or more stream crossings, some by rock, another on a rotting old tree. We passed several camp sites along the trail as well. It rained on us a pretty steady drizzle all day, picking up the closer we go to the Mau-pin shelter.
We made it to the shelter and stopped for a while to drink and rest. There was a small group of people there who were hiking the Virginia section of the Appalachian Trail, making stops at friends places, and seeming to be having a good time. We chatted for a while with them, until we realized the rain didn't plan on stopping. So we packed up for the last push back to the car.
Overall, it was a pretty hike, though a little slower than expected.
14.4 Miles, 6800 Feet of elevation change, 2 days, and 3 sore bodies later.
Pros: Flowers and water in abundance, scenery was beautiful, friendly people, good parking, easy to find, no fees
Cons: A lot of steep ascents and descents, dead-fall and rocks, poorly placed stream crossings
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