Mountains in the Snow

I caught up my two January backpacking tales, so wanted to add this day hike from last week. 

A few guys were hiking in the mountains last Thursday, and asked if I wanted to join them.  "Sure," said I.  As we assumed, the Skyline Drive was closed, but we parked at Swift Run Gap and started the hike up the Appalachian Trail to the top of Hightop Mountain.  It is about three miles each way, and climbs nearly 1,100 feet.  To make it more challenging, there was significant snow up there.  People had broken trail, so it was only a few inches deep on the trail, but every step required extra effort to push through the snow.

The weather was gorgeous.  Temperatures were in the low 30's (F), and the sky was crystal-clear, one of the clearest days I have ever seen in the mountains here.  I'm displaying some photos from this very fun hike.  It felt great to be out in the snow!

You can see the trail with the packed down snow.

On the hike up to Hightop.

Pat in the snow.

Snowy rocks...

The trail goes continually uphill, graining about 950 feet in the last 1.6 miles of the hike.

Views from Hightop...

Just a few hundred meters from the summit is a nice spring, a rarity for mountains ridges here.  You could actually camp up here and have plenty of water.

There is something beautiful about the woods in the snow.

I brought along a thermos of tea, which stayed hot all day.

Once we got back to the Skyline Drive, we cheated by walking back to the car on the road, rather than repeating the snowy walk along the AT.

Snow in the mountains?  No problem!  This was a very fun hike.

AT Between Doyles River and Simmons Gap

Yikes!  Since my three day backpacking trip November 2-4, I've gone hiking six times and haven't posted about any of them!  It shows my declining interest in this blog, which I don't think gets viewed much.  But as I'd like to keep it going through the rest of the year at least, I'll start posting about four of these six hikes.  By the way, I've now hiked over 400 miles this year.

On November 9, just five days after backpacking, I led a group of nine to hike 10+ miles along the Appalachian Trail in Shenandoah National Park, heading north from the Doyles River Trailhead to Simmons Gap.  I'd not hiked that section before and really liked it, as it had some great views along the way.  Here is the elevation profile of the hike, with us hiking left to right.  The high point is about 3,300 feet and the low point at Simmons Gap is about 2,300 feet.  We did lots of climbing at times, but more downhill than up.

The AT here went through the Loft Mountain area, which is a major campground in the park.  We got some great views along the way.  Here I am (yes, it was cold!) early in the hike.

The mountains are mostly without leaves now in early November.

Here is the rest of the group at our lunch spot - a lunch with a view!  At lunch, one of the guys gave me a good idea - carry hot tea or coffee in a thermos.  A hot drink would have hit the spot today.  The temperatures never got above 37 F.

You can see a little section of the Skyline Drive far below us.

I liked this orange fungus.  It looked like something had eaten part of it.

Well, I didn't get a ton of photos.  I never do when I hike with a group because people keep moving and I am not fast enough to catch back up.  But I did notice that my level of conditioning has improved since September.  Uphills that would have made me slow way down and/or rest back then didn't seem problematic today.  Probably the 22 mile hike a few days ago with the 40 pound backpack helped with that.

I enjoyed this hike and the group of people.  The Old Dominion Appalachian Trail Club is a fun group to hike with.

Halfway There!

A year or two ago, I started keeping track of which trails I have hiked in Shenandoah National Park, with the aim of hiking them all eventually.  With a couple of hikes over the last week and a half, I've completed half the miles in the park.  263 down, 248 to go!  When I complete them all, I earn a patch, the SNP 500 patch.

I hiked on September 14 and September 22, concentrating on the Appalachian Trail (and a few offshoot trails) in the northern most part of the southern district: Swift Run Gap to Simmons Gap.  The arrow shows the turnaround point of the first hike and the starting point of the second hike at Smith Roach Gap.  These hikes were out and back, covering mostly the same ground coming and going.  So while I only got credit for about 12 or so miles against the park total, I hiked about 22 or 23 miles.

Here is the elevation profile of the first hike, going over Hightop Mountain, an 1,100 foot climb on the way out and a 900 foot climb on the way back.  My friend Doug and I hiked this together.

My second hike had this profile, starting at the gap on the right (Smith Roach Gap) and turning around at Simmons Gap.  I gained and lost about 1,800 feet on this hike, which I did solo.

The weather on the two hikes was totally different.  On the first one, it was foggy, misty and cool.  The second one was in total sunshine with highs close to 82.  Neither hike had good views, but the view from Hightop Mountain would have been very nice without the fog.

These two hikes were only my second and third hikes in the mountains since the July Road Scholars hikes, so I was out of shape and struggled a bit on the climbs.  Here are a few photos from the first hike, done in the fog and mist.

Doug hikes up the trail to Hightop Mountain.

In SNP, concrete posts mark every trail junction with information about how far, with the direction, other points are.

Mature yellow birch, more typically found in northern hardwood forests.

We had lunch at the Hightop Shelter.

Even in the afternoon, the fog continued.

Hightop Mountain summit.

We crossed over Hightop in the morning and again in the afternoon.  This is the view in the afternoon, which was a lot better than the morning view.

The second hike, from Smith Roach Gap to Simmons Gap, was solo.  I've hiked 275 miles this year, and before this hike, only 33 of them were by myself.  This hike made it 45.  I prefer hiking with others, but now and then, I like getting out by myself.  This is especially true if I am a little out of shape, because I can go at my own pace and stop for pictures or to study something.

It was a nice, warm day on the AT - note the lack of fog.  I saw a lot of hikers on this day, including a number of backpackers.

This butterfly is a comma.

On both hikes, we noted lots of hickory nut shells.  There appears to be a bumper crop, good for squirrels and bears.

I've not identified this, but I liked the purple color.

And I liked the muted colors in this fungus on a tree.

This hike had one nice view, looking northwest, about a half mile south on the AT from Powell Gap.

I enjoyed hiking in the mountains again, although I clearly could be in lots better shape.  We saw minimal wildlife - squirrels and chipmunks - although a woman hiking north on our first hike had just seen two bears about a half mile from us near Hightop Mountain.  The birds are mostly finished calling, although I saw a raven, and heard pileated, red-bellied, and downy woodpeckers, as well as a barred owl.  Stream levels are really low - unlike last year.

This is my last hike for another 10 days, when I go back to SNP for a weeks to lead more Road Scholars hikes.

Scholars on the Road

While I mull over what I will do with this blog, I think that I will write a post about a fairly unique set of hikes.  This opportunity kind of fell into my lap, but the bottom line is that I was asked to lead hikes in Shenandoah National Park for about a week in June and July for the Road Scholar program.  I really enjoyed this.  My general duties were to (1) lead a hike each day of a distance from 4.5 to 9.5 miles (2) make sure that my participants - up to a dozen at a time - were safe, stayed together, and didn't get lost (3) answer as many questions as I could - birds, wildlife, history, flowers, general plants, geology (4) interact with the hikers and keep them engaged and involved and included (5) give a talk one night to the participants (my talk was on common wildlife - mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians - of the park.)  In return, I got to go hiking every day, got a room at Big Meadows Lodge for the week, got three squares a day, and got paid some money.  Plus I got to enjoy the company of some really fun and wonderful people from all over the place!

The hikes were led by two of us.  Each day, one of us lead a shorter hike and one of us led a longer hike, and we switched every day.  The hikes were in the Big Meadows area, generally along the Appalachian Trail, but we threw in a bonus hike or two along the way.  The general schedule was: Monday - Big Meadows Falls loop; Tuesday - Hike from Lewis Mountain north on the Appalachian Trail until either Bootens Gap or Milam Gap; Wednesday - hike north along the AT from either Fishers Gap (longer) or Hawksbill Gap (shorter) to Stony Man; Thursday - Camp Rapidan (a 4.5 mile out and back or an 8 mile loop).  Here is a high level view of the trails.  The arrow points to the general location of the Big Meadows Lodge:

For the two weeks, I hiked about 30 miles each four day session.  We had wonderful weather almost all of the time, even in July.  98% of the people were great and a lot of fun to be with.  I'll be going back in October for one more week.  In June, the wildflowers and birds were great, and in July, we continued with great wildflowers and also butterflies.  Here are some photos from the two weeks:

JUNE -

Bumblebee approaching flowers

Fly poison, so named because earlier settlers ground the toxic plant parts and mixed them with surag water to poison flies in their cabins.

Dark Hollow Falls

Cave family cemetery in the park

View from Bear Fence Mountain

View from Hawksbill, the highest point in the park:

Views from Stony Man, the second highest point in the park:

"The Creel," one of the cabins at President Herbert Hoover's camp:

Cottontail rabbit:

Sunset from Big Meadows Lodge:

JULY:

Dark-eyed junco nest on ground in the base of a hollow tree:

Monarch:

Question mark:

Unidentified mushrooms

Syrphid fly on flower:

Eastern tiger swallowtail:

Silver-spotted skipper:

Dark form female, and male, eastern tiger swallowtails:

Orange fungus on dead log:

Indian Peace Pipe:

Turk's cap lilies:

Beetles on milkweed:

Turk's cap lily:

Yellow and green:

White-tailed deer:

Yours truly on Little Stony Man cliffs:

The sun sets on the week:

Polyphemus Moth:

I enjoyed my two weeks helping to lead hikes for the Road Scholar program.  It was great fun with wonderful folks on beautiful hikes.  I look forward to going back in early October.