Winter Hike in Powhatan State Park

 I've hiked a number of times in the last few months at Powhatan State Park, about a 40 minute drive from my home.  I hiked a 7.5 mile loop yesterday, and decided to write about it.  The loop was hiked clockwise, starting and ending at the red circle, where a picnic shelter and bathrooms are located on the drive in.

This trail - actually about 5 or 6 different trails - goes through open areas,

as well as forests.

About a half mile of my route went along the James River, where I came across these

raccoon tracks in the mud.  I saw plenty of deer tracks as well.

Moving up from the river, the trail goes through thick hardwood forest.

Fungi are hard at work breaking down dead wood and returning its elements and molecules to the ecosystem.

It's always a bit sad to see small graveyards in the forest.

I saw and heard a number of birds, including downy woodpecker, pileated woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, red-tailed hawk, red-shouldered hawk, white-breasted nuthatch, blue jay, Carolina chickadee, Carolina wren, and mourning dove.  The only one I managed to get a photo of was this turkey vulture.

I really like the nuthatches.  I could not get a good photo, so I did a sketch of the white-breasted nuthatch.

Moving back into forest for the last couple of miles of the hike, I crossed this stream using the logs.  The park service should put in a bridge.

This trail is named the Pine Trail.  Can you guess why?

In this stand of trees were a number of dead pine with all the bark missing.  These snags become important wildlife habitat for a variety of creatures, starting with woodpeckers excavating cavities and hunting for insects.

Trails in the state parks are very well marked.

The Cabin Trail leaves the Pine Trail and drops sharply to a forest bottom with a nice stream running through it (with a nice, fairly new bridge to cross the stream).

Upstream a bit, I found this great skunk cabbage flower blooming.  This plant is one of the earliest plants to flower in the woods.  They are always found in wet areas, and generate their own heat to bloom in mid-winter.  The grown plant is very pungent, but a number of animals, such as deer and bear, eat the shoots when they are young.  Many kinds of animals also eat the seeds.

About a mile from the end of the hike is the remains of a cabin, which gives this trail its name.

I always enjoy the trails in this park.  I was supposed to join a group for a hike but slept so poorly that I didn't get up to join them.  Instead, doing this hike solo turned out to be a good alternative.

The Group Hike That Kind of Wasn't

My last hike of 2019 was December 8 at Powhatan State Park (I didn't post about it, but it was 7 miles).  Exactly a month later, I took my first hike of 2020.  My wife's health has improved enough in the last few weeks that we are okay with me heading out for fairly short hikes not too far from the house.  So, while I won't be going up to the mountains - too far and not as easy to stay in touch - Powhatan SP is only about a 35 minute drive and is within cell phone coverage.  And on that Wednesday, the Old Dominion Appalachian Trail Club was having a hike there of about 5 miles, gathering at 10:50.  Seemed perfect!

I hit the road and even got there about 5 minutes early.  As I pulled into the parking area, I was amazed to see so many other people there early as well.  The parking lot was full, but not a single person was in sight.  I pulled out my phone and checked the email: gather at 9:50.  Doh!!!!  Well, I was at the park, it was a pretty day, and I could still do a hike.  I looked at the map, planned my route, and started my feet moving.  And in about 1.5 miles, I encountered our big group coming the other way, so I hiked back to the cars with them, getting to chat with some of the club members.  After they left, I hit the trails again and hiked about 2 + more miles by myself.  Here is my route.  The star is the parking area, the big arrow to the red circle was my first hike, running into the ODATC at the red circle, where I turned and retraced my steps.  The loop at the top of the map was my second hike, solo.

The first part of the hike goes through open woods near the James River, and past some canoe-in and walk-in campsites.  One can camp here year round, I believe.

This park is a pleasant mixture of forest, riverfront, and open fields.

The stairs to nowhere?  Actually, this park is popular with horsewomen and horsemen, and my guess is that the steps are provided for easier mounting of one's horse.

As I walked along the edge between the field and the forest, I was delighted to see the ODATC hikers coming towards me, so I retraced my steps with them to the parking area.

Back on my own, I started out on the River Trail, then looped back through the forests and fields.

Here is a deep gully that likely contains an intermittent stream when heavy rains occur.

I really like going through the forest in the winter.  It's peaceful, although I do miss the bird song of spring and summer.  Birds calling are infrequent this time of year: a few pileated, red-bellied. and downy woodpeckers; Carolina chickadees; Carolina wrens; white-breasted nuthatches; tufted titmice; white-throated sparrows.

I was happy to get in a short (5.6 miles) hike, and also to run into fellow hikers, despite my senior moment about the time.  I'll try to go on a few other short hikes before my wife's surgery.  I may not write about them - for example, I got to Three Lake Park and Malvern Hill Battlefield in the past week.  Eventually, I'll be up in the mountains again, but not for a few months, I would guess.

When Life Hands You Frozen Lemons, Make Lemon Slushies

A couple of weeks ago, a group of five us headed up to hike the Patterson Ridge Trail in Shenandoah.  We knew that it was going to be cold, starting out near freezing and ending up about 35 F, but no precipitation was called for.  Nor was any showing up on weather radar as we made the nearly two hour drive to the park.  About 5 miles from the park, the temperature was 38 degrees, but it started dropping.  36.  35.  Drizzle. 33.  32. Freezing drizzle.  31, and more.  By the time we got to the park gate, it had dropped 11 degrees in five miles of driving and everything was being coated in ice!  The park closed, along with all 105 miles of the Skyline Drive.  What do do?  We talked it over in the car, and headed to Ragged Mountain near Charlottesville, a place I had never been but had wanted to hike anyway.

The hike was about 7 miles, and temperatures were in the 40's, with no precipitation.  Here is a track of the trail we hiked in this wonderful natural area.  We hiked clockwise, starting and ending at the star.

Here are the five of us near the start of the hike.

This hike didn't offer any grand mountain views, but we did have pretty views of the reservoir and of the fall forest.

This floating bridge was amazing. I don't think that I'd ever crossed one before.

More water and forest views....

A skilled wood carver made these owls a couple of miles in.

The leaves are falling fast, but now and then we saw a little foliage.

More wood carving: an eagle catching a fish,

and a bear with her cub.

We also enjoyed meeting this mountain man, the final carving encountered on this very nice hike:

Well, we didn't have a Plan B when we started driving to the mountains, but among the five of us, we quickly came up with a good alternative once the initial plan was squashed.  It turned out to be a very fun hike with a good group, with no slipping and sliding.

Limberlost Trail

The Limberlost Trail is in the Central Section of Shenandoah National Park, near Skylands, and is perhaps the easiest path in the entire park.  It forms a gentle loop of 1.3 miles on a broad and level pathway.  It used to run through a forest of huge eastern hemlocks, but these massive trees have almost all been killed by a tiny insect, the woolly adelgid.  A couple of weekends ago, Mary and I went up to the park for the afternoon.  I am going to be leading three weeks of hikes for Road Scholar this summer in the park, and wanted to get some field guides for Shenandoah natural history.  We spent some time in the park gift shop where I bought several books.  Then, in the museum, we watched a film about the making of the park - and the eviction of poor mountain families from their land - and also toured the museum.  We ended our time by hiking on the Limberlost Trail.

Here are a few photos from the trail.

On the trail....

This hemlock has somehow managed to evade the invasive insect that has killed most of its ilk.

There are nice benches every few hundred feet or so.

Yellow birch are a northerly tree, but are sometime found at higher elevations in Virginia.

This is a columnar jointing, the remains of an ancient lava flow that cooled and solidified into columns.

This forest used to be mostly eastern hemlock.  Look at it now.  In addition to the adelgid, storms have knocked down many of the trees of other kinds.  It is a young and open forest now, with lots of sunlight coming in.  Eventually, a mature forest will cover the area again, and shade the forest floor.

Hard to believe that such a large living thing could be killed by a tiny insect.

Could this tiny hemlock somehow survive and grow, and live to shade the forest someday?

If you are in the park and want a little leg stretcher with minimal effort, this is the hike for you!

Let it Snow!

After hiking solo in Shenandoah National Park on Monday, I was ready for a group hike, and joined the Old Dominion Appalachian Trail Club Wednesday to hike in Bear Creek Lake State Park.  Sorry, no bears, unlike my Monday hiking adventure.  As we gathered at the meeting spot southwest of Richmond, we noted a few snow flakes drifting along.  And as we drove along, we soon were in a steady snowfall.  By the time we arrived at the park 45 minutes later, snow covered everything, and it was still coming down.  It was quite beautiful.

My inReach is not creating tracks correctly for some reason, but here is the location of the park (orange circle) west of Richmond:

We did two different loops - a morning loop of 4.8 miles, then we ate lunch, and then a 1.8 mile afternoon loop.  We mainly walked through deciduous forest, with some water views.  The snow was beautiful.

Our group of a dozen really enjoyed our hikes.

Having the snow turned what would have been a fairly routine hike into a winter wonderland.  I really enjoyed hiking here.

About an hour after starting our hike, the snow had stopped and even seemed to be melting a bit.

After a nice trail lunch under a park shelter - chilly but at least dry - we started the afternoon hike.  By that time, most of the snow had totally melted.  We walked by the spillway of the dam holding Bear Creek Lake back, then the lakes itself.  There were some nice campsites along the lake shore.

We also admired the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps and Work Progress Administration from the 1930's.  They actually built a lot of the infrastructure of the first six Virginia State Parks.

I really enjoyed hiking here, and will definitely get back here for more trips.