Loop Hike: Nicholson Hollow, Stony Man, Whiteoak Canyon, Berry Hollow, Weakley Hollow (~1000-4011')

For the last of my spring-training hikes, I went big: a base-to-summit, dawn-to-hopefully-not-dusk loop from the Old Rag parking area to the summit of Stony Man, the second-highest peak in Shenandoah National Park, and back. As planned, the loop would cover 15 miles; a route change on impulse bumped it up to 18 miles, in which I gained and lost at least 3500 feet. If I could handle this hike, I figured, I could handle anything the southwestern highpoints would throw at me in a single day.

To make sure I could fit the whole loop into one day (because I kind of hate backpacking), I showed up at the Old Rag lot around 7:30 pm on June 15, the day before the hike. The place was quiet then, but the fact that the hand-sanitizer dispensers in all seven of the lot's porta-potties were completely empty testified to the crowds that had come and would soon come again (and cover those rocks in fecal bacteria, I supposed, suddenly glad I'd be hiking the other way. If you want to stay clean, BYOB.)

I tossed my tent into my pack, self-registered for a "backcountry camping" permit, and hiked a mile up the Nicholson Hollow trail until I found a nice flat spot to sleep, in a grove of pines within hearing distance of the river.

Loop Hike: Three Ridges, VA (~1000-3970')

The next weekend, I headed back to the Tye River Gap southwest of Charlottesville to hike the peaks I'd seen across the valley while hiking the Priest. That trio of summits, known as the Three Ridges, is accessible by a pleasantly challenging 13.1-mile loop along the AT and a side trail called the Mau-Har Trail.

Starting from the same parking lot, I crossed VA-56, then crossed the parallel Tye River along a cable bridge:

Enter, it seems to call...

The Priest, VA (4063')

A couple of weeks ago, I drove south to hike a mountain called The Priest, a 4000-footer in the Blue Ridge a few dozen miles south of Shenandoah National Park (and the high point of Nelson County). The drive down, through Charlottesville on US-29, was a little awkward--they've built up the area north of town so much, over the past few years, that I could barely tell where I was going. But once I turned off the highway and onto the country roads and found myself face to face with this beauty:

I knew I'd made the right decision to come out.

That particular road, VA-56, took me right into the gap north of The Priest, carved by a little river called the Tye. The hills rose up around me, the houses and fields drew in towards the road, and then, a couple miles into the George Washington National Forest, the trailhead lot appeared to my left.

Annapolis Rocks, MD (1700')

About two weeks ago, on the recommendation of SummitPost's Eastern States Climber's Peak List, I ventured north to central Maryland to hike Annapolis Rocks. I had never heard of the Rocks before, but if they'd made it onto that list--in the company of Katahdin, the Presidential Range, and Old Rag Mountain, among others--I figured they must be worth seeing. Even if they were in Maryland.

Remember this map? The Supreme Court just heard a case over whether these districts are unconstitutionally gerrymandered... for reals.

But what the Rocks lack in elevation, at a measly 1700', they make up for in accessibility. They lie just off the Appalachian Trail on the slopes of South Mountain (a long, flat-topped ridge much like the Massanuttens in Virginia), about two and a half miles north of I-70. East of the mountain, farm country descends to the growing exurb of Frederick, MD; to the west, steep slopes look out upon the Cumberland Valley, northern neighbor to the Shenandoah. In other words, the country seemed fairly familiar to me, right down to the white-haired farmer waving at my car as it passed through the village of Wolfsville.

My original plan had been to approach the Rocks from the north, starting about six miles up the AT at the next road crossing, and make a full-day hike of them. However, I wound up starting late (though not late enough to avoid the tail end of the Beltway's morning rush hour) and arrived around 11 at the trailhead--well, at the mountain gap where Google Maps had claimed there was a trailhead. I didn't see a thing as I drove by.

Southern Sixers: Mt. Collins (6188'), Mt. Love (6400'), Clingman's Dome (6643'), Mt. Buckley (6560')

On the way down to visit that Chattanoogan fellow I've mentioned in previous posts, I thought I'd stop by the Smokies for a bit of February mountaineering. I hadn't hiked through snow since my winter ascent of Mt. Washington in 2016, and the ice axe I'd bought after that trip was long overdue for actual use. Plus, what better time to snag the handful of Southern Sixers along the main drag of the Smokies than in the dead of winter? I'd have the mountains to myself, I figured--my own little ice-encrusted wonderland at the crown of the southern Appalachians.

Now, if you've noticed any trends while following this blog for the past two years, you're probably wondering what's about to go wrong. And the answer, my friends, is...

...absolutely nothing.

The weather on the high ridge of the Smokies that weekend was perfect for hiking: warm, sunny, and snowless. And I looked like a fool schlepping an ice axe all the way to Clingman's Dome.

Southern Sixers: Roan Mountain, NC/TN (6267', 6286', and 6189')

The Friday before the 21st, a friend and I headed south from Northern Virginia, hoping by our early departure to beat the worst of the eclipse-weekend traffic. As far as I know, we did, but there were still about twice as many accidents as usual along I-81 southbound through the Valley. Things cleared up somewhat once we hit the plateau west of Blacksburg, and they stayed that way until Bristol...

...where our route happened to take us past the Speedway on a race day. The two-mile stretch of US-11 running past it was lined with parking lots, carnival tents, and streams of pedestrians homing in on the racetrack. Even if that 162,000-seat stadium was only half full (which it might well have been; the night's race was only a minor one), it held a crowd one-sixth the size of the population of the Bristol-Kingsport-Johnson City region, all of whom had turned out in their best on that drizzly summer evening to watch a bunch of cars drive loops around a half-mile track. I guess you have to grow up out there, in NASCAR country, to get it.

My friend and I, however, drove on by. Our reason for detouring off the interstate lay further down the road, up US-19E among the western slopes of the Blue Ridge--which, after a summer wasted in the flatlands, looked so rugged and green and beautiful that I could barely keep my eyes on the road. But I did, and shortly before dusk we arrived at the base of Roan Mountain, a twenty-mile ridge along the TN-NC border home to three peaks above 6000 feet and the longest grassy bald in the southern Appalachians--and conveniently located two-thirds of the way to Chattanooga, our base of operations for the eclipse.

The campsite I'd reserved in Roan Mountain State Park, one of only three available when I'd picked it out two days before, turned out to be an RV site:

Note the utter lack of soft, flat ground suitable for pitching tents.

Whiteoak Canyon and Hawksbill Mountain, VA (4011')

Back in April, I decided to treat myself to a backpacking trip in Shenandoah National Park for my birthday. The plan was to hike in from the east via Whiteoak Canyon, swing around to tag the high point of the park, 4011-foot Hawksbill Mountain, and then continue down the Appalachian Trail to Big Meadows Campground, where I'd camp for the night. I'd spend the next day making my way back to my car however I felt like it, perhaps by way of the deliciously sinister-sounding Dark Hollow Falls?

I rearranged my work schedule, cleared my social calendar, packed my bags, and waited...

...until the day of, when I checked the weather and saw it was scheduled to thunderstorm every night that weekend. Discretion is the better part of valor; I stayed in town. Work kept me homebound through the next two weekends, and more thunderstorms through a third... would I ever get to take this trip?

I finally set out on the 19th, nearly a month later than intended. Despite the delays, I was excited: it would be my first proper backpacking trip, my first chance to use the Osprey overnight pack that had spent four years holding hats in my closet. Whatever happened out there, it would be an adventure.

To get there, I retraced the route I'd taken to Old Rag Mountain that winter; the Whiteoak trailhead was just a few miles south from there off VA-231. The drive was uneventful except for a tense moment when a family of geese waddled onto US-211 right in front of my car. I braked hard and managed to stop just in time. The poor gander wound up three feet from my bumper, honking his head off as if he'd had the right of way. (Maybe he thought he had?)

As I approached the mountains, I noticed that their upper ridges still looked brown compared to their lower slopes. The leaves had come in weeks ago back home; had they not yet up there?

Soon after, I pulled into the Whiteoak Canyon parking lot, which was tucked into a narrow stream valley at the end of Weakley Hollow Rd.

Highpoint #25: Katahdin, ME (5267')

Two thousand feet is a long way to fall.

An obvious statement, but one whose reality is never quite felt until one finds oneself that far above the nearest level ground, inching along a jagged knife-edge so narrow that you don't dare stand or even step from rock to rock, but scuttle through on your butt like a hyperventilating crab with its shell soaked in rank nervous sweat and its claws clamped to holds it would never have trusted below--but it's that or thin air on the ridge of Katahdin--and a look up confirms, by Pamola! you've still got a mile to go to the summit.

Oh, Katahdin, wildest of the Northeastern high points. SummitPosters call your rugged profile "the only Western peak in the East." Your renown stretches south to Georgia, where each spring hundreds of saps slip on their hiking boots and go a-questing for your summit 2190 miles north. Far better writers than I have cowered before you--but if I am allowed a few brief words, let me simply say thank you, thank you, thank you for not killing me.

Side trip: Delaware Water Gap

The traffic, as though to wish me a special welcome to the Northeast, was bumper-to-bumper in the Philadelphia suburbs that afternoon. It took me so long to inch my way up I-476 that I almost skipped the Delaware Water Gap (I'd meant it as a midpoint stop between Ebright and New Jersey's high point), but I'm glad I didn't, since it turned out to be the most visually impressive place I saw on this trip until the White Mountains. Blame that on bad weather in the Adirondacks if you like, but you must admit that this:

is really something. Enough, I'd say, to make up for both that morning's disappointing Azimuth and the tepid flatness of Pennsylvania's own high point (remember Mt. Davis? I barely do).

Highpoint #7: Clingman's Dome, TN (6643')

Though the winds in the valley rattled my tent's cover all night (the same way a curious bear would, I imagined), I slept much better than before. I woke to find the sun already risen--maybe, just maybe, I thought, I'm getting the hang of this "camping" thing. While the morn was still young, I broke camp, loaded up my car, and headed out.

Farewell to the Black Mountains!

I took a twisty two-lane road up and out of the valley, then hustled westward down I-40. There was no time to lose; on this beautiful, sunny Saturday morning, with quite unintended timing, I was headed for the Great Smoky Mountains Tourist Tra-... er, National Park.

Full disclosure: I hate the Smokies.

Highpoint #4: Mt. Rogers, VA (5729')

I made it to Mt. Rogers without any further crises. As I drove up into the highlands, I noticed that though the leaves had been lush and green in the valley, they were barely budding here. That’s one thing I like about mountains: going a thousand feet up is like going several hundred miles north… or several weeks back in time.

I arrived at the gap between Mt. Rogers and its neighbor Whitetop Mountain by midafternoon. The missing-Lars debacle had set me back an hour, but I figured I still had time to hike 4.5 miles up the Appalachain Trail to the summit and back before dark. At worst, I’d get some practice hiking with a headlamp, which I’d need to do later in the trip to get up and down the Rocky (Rockiean? The ones in the west.) high points before their afternoon thunderstorms.

For the first time on this trip, I loaded up my day-hike pack (an Osprey with ~30L capacity, three major pockets, and more little strappy things than I’ll ever know what to do with). I didn’t know what the weather would be like up top, though it was pretty cold and windy in the gap, so I packed my Gore-Tex jacket from Mt. Washington along with a sweatshirt to wear while stopping for breaks (the most useful tip I learned from that mountaineering class. It’s amazing how fast you lose heat when you stop moving on a mountain). A liter of water, my notebook, my phone-camera, the aforementioned headlamp, and the Lars rounded out my gear. I zipped up my down jacket, shouldered the pack, and set off into the highlands.