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.

From Here On Out

Once again I've managed to finish a batch of posts just in time to set off to gather data for the next ones. This third leg of my trip will be the longest yet--and the last of the year--so listen up:

I'll head out from Ohio (following a family vacation) on August 7th in order to hit Illinois on a permissible day, then continue north through the Upper Midwest, down to Iowa, and back up to the Dakotas. From there I'll make a line down the Plains states, interrupted by quick jogs west to Mt.s Elbert and Wheeler, then rebound up from Texas by way of Arizona, Utah, and Idaho, and conclude with a visit to the former Mt. Mazama.

As I predicted back in April, the glaciated high points of Wyoming, Montana, Oregon, and Washington remain out of reach for me, as does a 22-mile day hike up Mt. Whitney (and its neighbor Boundary Peak is so close that I might as well do those two together). So it looks like I'll have to cap it at 42 high points for this summer... unless someone wants to step forward with airfare to Hawaii? (Any sarcastic fool who steps forward with airfare to Alaska is coming along to be my rope-buddy on Denali's glaciers. I mostly know how to self-arrest.)

So, here goes!
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