Cold Harbor Battlefield

Despite the beautiful fall weather finally arriving in Virginia, after 88 degrees a few days ago, I didn't have a lot of time today for a long hike. But it was too nice a day to not get some kind of time outdoors, so we went for a short hike on part of the Cold Harbor Civil War Battlefield. The area I walked would have been behind the Union lines facing the Confederates a few hundred yards away.

The trees are just starting to turn, and the air is crisp and cool. The path, being totally paved in this part of the park, is very easy. The area is all woods now, but in June 1864, it would have been mostly fields. In such a peaceful area today, it is hard to visualize the carnage that killed or wounded 18,000 soldiers 144 years ago. Most of the casualties happened on June 3, but the battles and trench stalemates lasted from June 1 – 12. Much evidence of the fighting and digging exist today – trenches, rifle pits, and battery pits. What is no longer there is carnage, misery, and suffering. Below are a few photos.


In this rifle pit, Union soldiers would have lived day and night for 12 days in the broiling June sun.



From this one tree, four trunks have grown. The original tree would have died and the sapling that sprouted from the remaining roots, and eventually grown into large trees.



This trench was part of a large Union gun emplacement back in 1864.

A Short Hike in Back Bay Wildlife Refuge

With the winds calm today, I decided to hike in Back Bay again, taking a slightly different route to look for wildlife. Essentially, I took the hike that I did about two weeks ago when I found the cottonmouth.

On the two mile drive to the refuge parking lot, I noted that it was just before sunrise, so I stopped the car and walked to the beach at Little Island City Park. It was a beautiful early morning on the beach:

I saw and heard numerous small birds along my 2.5 mile hike, but could identify only a few of them (red wing black bird, catbird, mockingbird). I also saw a tree frog, a couple of cottontails, and at several points I saw the snouts of turtles sticking just above the water's surface like periscopes. But the larger birds and mammals that I had hoped to find were conspicuous by their absence.

Without the winds of the past three days, the bay was so calm that it appeared like a mirror:

It only takes a slight elevation gain to produce considerable biodiversity in a marsh:

Beachcombing

Sunday morning I got an early start again, and decided to hike along the Atlantic Ocean in Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, looking for wildlife and shells along the beach. I ended up walking two miles down the beach, returning the same distance (duh!). Like the previous day, it was extremely windy. During my old sailing days in Maine, winds this strong would have had me leaving the boat at the mooring.

Walking the third of a mile to the beach from the parking lot, I caught a quick glimpse of a raccoon as he scuttled across the footpath and into the underbrush. Maybe I will see more wildlife today, although it will be tough to top yesterday’s river otter.

I got to the beach shortly after sunrise:

During my walk, I saw numerous gulls and sanderlings, as well as a few pelicans. The wind and waves created a loud sound, but it was still so peaceful to be on the beach in early morning. I saw not a soul until I was nearly back at the parking lot. Below is a sampling of some of the things that I saw while beachcombing

Gull flying over the surf:

"Mermaid Purses" - the egg cases of skates that have washed ashore:

Sea shells by the sea shore:

Dunes:

Sanderlings making their living along the surf line:

Dunes and dune grass silhouetted against an interesting sky:

Geese flying south for the winter

Hiking to False Cape State Park

On this very windy day, I did a 9.5 mile hike through Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge into False Cape State Park. I was footsore at the end, with the start of a blister, but it felt good to take a long walk. The path leaves the Back Bay parking lot and proceeds for 3.5 miles along a gravel road along dikes, and is very flat. A hundred meters or so to the east are tall dunes with the ocean beyond, and to the west is marshland and Back Bay. On either side are often areas of water – some broad ditches that are about 20 feet wide and some larger wet areas.


I walked more quickly than one would in the mountains but still took the time to stop and explore along the way.

Mother Nature's bouquet:


Wildlife was making itself scarce when about 3 miles in, I caught the sight of a river otter swimming in a shallow marshy area. He would dive and then resurface periodically, and I got to catch quick views of him about a half dozen times before he disappeared. It was an exciting sight, and only the third otter that I have seen in my life.

At the State Park, I walked past broad marshes down to the contact station, then turned right towards Back Bay to walk through a open coastal forest – very park like.




I got a nice view of Back Bay before heading along the road to eventually loop back to the park entrance. During this portion of my hike, I again walked by some large marshes, spotting two pretty egrets in one of them. As I looked at this little island, marveling how just a couple of extra feet of elevation can create a totally different environment, a kingfisher flew from the trees.


I returned back along the dike pathway, walking more into the wind. My beloved Tilly hat was strapped to my head, otherwise it would have blown off every few seconds. I once wore this hat while parasailing 800 feet over the water, so I know it will stay on if I wear the straps. About a mile from the parking lot, I spotted a snake swimming across the impoundment toward me, so I walked close to the edge to get a look. It appeared to be a fairly small water snake. I watched him at the edge of the water for a few seconds before he swam away.

Other than a man on a bike who passed me on my hike in, two other people biking on my way out, and a few people of foot nearly back at the parking lot, it was as if I had this whole refuge to myself. Oh, I nearly forgot, I also saw several campers who had backpacked into False Cape. They were doing the things campers do in the morning – making coffee, strolling to the outhouse, and looking around.

The Beach by Moonlight

Do you like moonlit walks on the beach? Well, I do, and Friday night, back at Sandbridge Beach for the weekend, I went for a mile and a half walk along the beach. The night was very breezy and a little hazy, but the half moon shining through the haze was bright enough to see fairly well as it cast a dim shadow.

One’s senses are sharpened in the dark, especially one's hearing. The waves loudly crashing on shore sounded wonderful, dominating the sounds along the beach. A large ghost crab ran across in front of me, and ended up running into the surf. Other than a couple of guys fishing in the dark, I saw no one. The salt air smelled great, and the strong breeze carried the salt off the sea. As Jimmy Buffet says, “The salt air, it ain’t thin, it will stick right to your skin.” This was especially true on the way back, walking back into the northeasterly breeze.

On the way back, I passed the fishermen again, and two more ghost crabs scuttled along the beach across my path. The shore and the ocean is a magical place at night.

Cottonmouth!

Due to a lot of stuff going on recently, doing any hiking has been out of the question. But during a family reunion this week at Virginia Beach, I did get in a couple of short hikes of a couple of miles or so with my brothers and two of my nieces. The hikes were at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

On the second hike, we saw a cottonmouth (water moccasin) in a wet area a few feet from the trail. While not agressive at all, he clearly told us to stay away by displaying his trademark white "cotton" mouth.


It was an exciting sight. I have only seen this species of viper once (and that was from a distance while on a boat, so I can't be 100 percent sure). But there was no doubting this sighting of such a magnificant animal.

As you can see, I do not consider snakes to be loathsome creatures, not even poisonous ones like this one. I respect them of course, and will do all I can to avoid being bitten, but they are part of the natural world and in my view, should be left alone to lead their lives. All too often, people encountering snakes will kill them on sight. A couple of years ago, I found a totally harmless black rat snake that had been killed on a trail in this same refuge, and it was a sad sight.

On the way out, we saw a pretty red fox, the first of this species I have seen in this refuge:


We saw some wading birds and waterfowl on the hikes, as well as two beautiful deer fairly close to us on the first hike. We also found two unidentified tree frogs, which are not uncommon but are very difficult to spot. But the most interesting find was the moccasin.

The area where we saw the snake has a number of cypress trees (I am guessing bald cypress). They have a really interesting cone that is quite different from other conifers that I have seen. They almost look like some type of gall, but are clearly cones.

Back Bay NWR

I spent Sunday afternoon and all day Monday in the Sandbridge area of Virginia Beach, and this morning decided to go to Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I got up about 6:45, slapped some strawberry jam between two hunks of bread to take along for breakfast, and drove two miles to the parking lot at Back Bay NWR. Then I spent two hours rambling around the refuge, which is a beautiful spot. I probably covered about five miles, spending a lot of times looking for animals and exploring different habitats. The most prominent wildlife were deerflies, which drilled a few holes through my skin and tried to make my life miserable, but I wasn’t biting on that one! It is too much fun being outside.

Other than a large group of American egrets in the distance, a few other egrets, and gulls, sanderlings, and ghost crabs along the beach, it was a fairly sparse outing when it comes to wildlife sightings. I’ve had some other trips to this area when it was one animal after another, but not today. Last year, I took a short hike here with a friend and her three young sons, and we saw so many animals that she said that her boys took to calling it "Nature Land"! Even without seeing as much wildlife today, it was still a fun outing. Here are some pictures from my morning in Back Bay, along with a couple of others from trips there last year.

Waterfowl management is the primary purpose for the refuge, so there are a lot of fresh water pond, channels, and marshes.


Walk about 9 miles from this point along the beach, and you will reach North Carolina. It is a spectacular and undeveloped beach the entire way, and then solid huge beach homes once you get to the Tarheel State - quite a contrast.


This is what dunes should look like along Atlantic Beaches.


More well developed and vegetated dunes.


This little guy along the boardwalk to the beach was wary of me but knew he was fast enough to get away if he needed be.


These beautiful flowers, resembling trumpet vine flowers, grew on this tree, along with the huge seedpods that they turn into.


Near a little pond, in a very pretty spot, is this memorial to Richard McCormack Hodge. He died so young, only 30. I don't know who he was, and couldn't find information about him in Google, but what a beautiful and moving tribute this is to him. The memorial looks like a real tree, and has a frog sculpted on a branch. The inscription reads "This site is dedicated in loving memory to Capt. Richard McCormack Hodge, November 24th 1963 - April 14th, 1994. Son, brother, and friend." I always try to come by this spot when I visit the refuge. It is about a half mile walk or less from the parking lot.


Widespread marshes that go out to Back Bay.

These remaining two photos are from two different trips last year.

This gray fox was amazingly tolerant of me being close enough to snap this photo.

These two black racers or black rat snakes were either a male and female mating, or two males having a territorial battle. It was an amazing sight, and just a few feet from them was a large hognose snake. Other than a zoo, I've never seen so many snakes in such tight quarters!

Dutch Gap Conservation Area

I’ve not been sleeping well lately, so I decided that if I slept in today, so be it, but if not, I would just get up and go on a nearby hike. Last night, I set some hiking stuff out just in case, and when I woke up at 5:45, that was my signal to give up on sleeping in for a change and to just get moving. I shaved and dressed, brewed a mug of tea, slipped a Mozart piano concerto – so beautiful – in the car’s CD player, and started driving to Dutch Gap Conservation Area, about 28 miles away.

The trip information I read said that the park opens at daylight, and my goal was to get there as close to sunrise as possible, now that I was awake early on a Saturday. So I was pleased to be driving down the road to the park as the sun was rising over the horizon. This is supposed to be a wildlife rich area, and early morning is the best time to see animals of all kinds. Imagine when my surprise when I made the turn onto the final approach to the park, and there was a closed gate, and a sign saying “Opens at 8:00”. It was now 6:50!

“Well,” says I, “I’ll just walk to the trailhead.” I put on my “waffle-stompers”, got my small day-pack on, and walked around the gate, hiking down the road. There were pretty views of wetlands to the left of the road, and I saw some rails at one point. A little later, there was a view of a couple of dozen egrets and three deer out in the marsh. Two of the deer were six point bucks. In this photo, the white spots are egrets and there is a doe in the lower right of the photo, just to the right of the little tree:


After a mile and a quarter walking, I came to the park entrance. It was blocked with a tall solid fence, with a securely locked gate, with no way around it. In frustration, I admitted defeat, walked back to my car, and drove to a Hardees to get a drink. Then I drove back to the park, getting there at 8:00. On the drive back, I rescued a box turtle crossing the road, my second such rescue of the summer. About 30 seconds after I did so, a car came zipping by doing about 60, and I am guessing that Mr. Turtle would have been road kill without my intervention. A park worker arrived a few minutes later to open the two gates, and in I drove. I parked the car and hit the trail, having already walked 2.5 miles for naught, in heavy hiking boots no less. But saving the turtle made it all worthwhile.

The trail is pretty, with lots of varied water views, and very level. It is mixed use for hikers, runners, and bikers. It is a loop that covers 4.4 miles, the loop being made possible by a bridge that was put in this year. Before that time, hikers would hike 3.9 miles, reach the water, and see the trail that led back to the parking lot just 100 feet away. Then they would turn around and hike the 3.9 miles back.

I didn’t see as much wildlife as I’d hoped, but on this hike today I saw five white-tailed deer, a cotton-tail rabbit, egrets, the two rails of some kind, a blue-winged warbler, an osprey, a great blue heron, a couple of cardinals, a bluebird, Canada geese, a few ducks that I could not identify, a toad, and another box turtle. And on the way back out, I rescued a baby turtle of some kind – it looked like a type of mud turtle. I ended up walking about 8 miles total due to the fruitless early walk and a number of side trips to see water views, and ended up giving myself a couple of blisters. I think these came from (1) only wearing one pair of socks and (2) the easy trail made a faster hiking pace possible, which puts extra pressure on one’s feet.

It was a great way to start Labor Day Weekend! Here are some photos from my hike.

Water view near the start of the hike:


This new bridge turns a 7.8 mile out and back hike into a 4.4 mile loop:


Pretty flowering bush:


This flower was about five inches across:

A toad along the trail:

This view was typical of the loop that I hiked, although some of the path was out in the open and not wooded:

Interesting mushroom, about six inches in diameter:

Box turtle along the trail, she didn't seem too scared of me:

Pretty flower:

Destruction of Mountains, Right Here in the USA

If you are like me, you love mountains. Did you know that in Appalachia, mountains are being destroyed on a huge scale? The method of mining coal by litterally blowing the top off a mountain is leveling mountains, destroying stream valleys, and ruining communities. It is done on a huge, nearly unimaginable scale. More than 470 Appalachian Mountains have already been destroyed by mountaintop removal mining, according to I Love the Mountains.org. Very few people are aware of this practice or the scope of it, and I would guess that politicians and coal companies want to keep it that way. Only if people get involved and turn up the political heat will there be a chance that this practice will end.

Want to learn more? Go to "I Love the Mountains". Also, you can sign up for more information in the sidebar of my blog, on the right. Just sign up in the portlet that is the I Love the Mountains Challenge. I encourage you to do so.

Thanks,
Art

Five Year Tumbledown Anniversary!

Five years ago, August 24, 2003, also on a Sunday, I was standing on top of Tumbledown Mountain in western Maine. Now, we are not talking Mount Everest here, so why should this be a such big deal? People climb mountains like that all the time, and in fact on that day there were dozens of folks that we encountered during the hike. But for me, it was a very big deal - it fulfilled a pledge that I'd made to myself more than a year previously and symbolized my victory over cancer. Here is a brief story about how that all transpired, using a note that I emailed to friends after the trip.

Here I am on top of Tumbledown Mountain in Maine, August 24, 2003 - about 8.5 months after finishing chemotherapy for lymphoma:



It was a beautiful day but extremely windy on top. A year before nearly to the day of this photo, I was in the hospital feeling about as ill as I can ever remember with what turned out to be temporary lung damage from bleomycin. Climbing this mountain with Mary and some exceptional friends was a goal that I set near the start of chemotherapy, so reaching the top was a very special moment for me. To me, it symbolized victory over cancer and a return to good health, and the power of friendship.

Before I got ill we had planned on climbing this mountain, in western Maine, with some great friends during the summer of 2002. With the lymphoma, that could not happen, but in July of that year, my climbing friends sent me a beautiful framed photo of the mountain for my birthday with a note on the back that we would still climb it together. Seeing the beauty of the picture, reading the note, appreciating the thought of “bringing the mountain to me”, and realizing that I would not be climbing it that year – and perhaps never - hit me in an extremely emotional way for some reason. I looked at the photo with tears pouring down my face, the only day I cried during my entire cancer saga.

We hung the photo in our kitchen and every day I looked at it. I resolved that by the summer of 2003, I would be well and strong enough to climb Tumbledown. And that is what happened! Even months after finishing the chemotherapy in early December, I was still not back to full strength, but I gradually got strong and healthy enough to make the trip up Tumbledown Mountain with our friends, even though I was a bit pokey at times. We are only talking maybe 8 or 9 miles, but to me it symbolized victory over cancer and a return to good health. Standing at the top looking out over the forests, mountains, and lakes of Western Maine was just an incredible feeling. Many thanks to Mary, Gordeen and Tom, Chip and Amy for climbing it with me on that August day. It meant more to me than I could ever express.

So if during my cancer year, if you paid me a visit, sent me a card or email, called me to talk, helped with chores around the house, visited me in the hospital, thought good thoughts about my recovery or said a prayer for me, then you helped me get up Tumbledown. If you gave me chemo drugs or mixed them for my treatment, provided oncology or medical services, did X-rays or CT scans, nursed me in the hospital, participated in surgery, conducted lab tests or pulmonary tests, then you too were on that hike with me to the top of the mountain. So to all of you, more thanks than I can express.

To expand upon what I wrote to friends back in 2003, this is a great hike. It is near Mount Blue State Park in Weld, and is very scenic. There is a beautiful high altitude pond near the top. Here is a photo of me near the top with the pond in the background.


After seeing the pond, Amy, Chip and I continued to the top. We had to hike down to the pond, losing quite a bit of elevation, then hiking steeply back uphill. I remember being really tired, and thinking that getting to the pond was enough. It was Amy who gave me the determination to keep going. She essentially said "you set this goal, you are so close. Why not keep going another 20 minutes and see how you feel?" So we kept going, and eventually got to one of the summits (there are two or three) where the photo at the beginning of this post was taken. Amy was so right - if I had turned back, it would have really bothered me later not to get to the top of Tumbledown Mountain.

The photo that my friends gave me still hangs in my kitchen, and I look at it often, always feeling inspired when I do so, and thinking of a very special hike on that August day.