Something Between Nowhere and Hardly Anywhere

January 17, 2009. Urban walk from home to Tanglewood Cinema and back. About 6 miles.

With the forecast showing windy high in the 20s for Saturday and a high in the 30s with rain or snow on Sunday, The Day Hiker advocated for something between nowhere and hardly anywhere for a weekend walk. (She is of course The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All once she is going, but can occasionally be reluctant to take that all-important first step.)

With a trio of strong lures – lunch in a warm restaurant instead of the usual mountain-top windswept rock, a Clint Eastwood movie and popcorn – she agreed to an urban walk with woodsy touches.

For the first mile and a half – neighborhoodish with sidewalks – we had puppydawg Cookie along, on her way to the sitter's (son Adam's house). From there, we set out eastward and over as close a thing to a mountain as there is in this part of the city – the high, water-tower-topped rise between Brambleton and Colonial Avenues. We tried to name the "mountain," but didn't come to anything we were pleased with. The Day Hiker wondered aloud and with full irony as we climbed, how in the heck we had forgotten our hiking poles. The encouraging sign up there: New signs announcing that the trail goes this way or that; and it is indeed a trail, ducking through the woods and then heading down toward Colonial.

Across Colonial and parallel to Ogden Road, we found an unsigned trail, new to us and likely the work of the neighborhood's children, as it glides and twists down through the woods toward what we had not known before were the headwaters of Murray Run. The trek from there to Tanglewood Mall takes you through a cluster of condos and then down the hill to parallel the railroad tracks back to the movie house. With time tight, we settled for Applebee's for lunch – a place where neither of had been, but enjoyed just fine.

The popcorn was good too, and Clint Eastwood as retired Detroit auto worker Walt Kowalski was even better – crusty, acerbic, squinty-eyed and in the end, soft-hearted as could be.

The walk back, with Cookie being delivered, was the route we usually take for this walk: Along pretty, tree-line Winding Way Road, through the Virginia Western arboretum, across Colonial and onto the Murray Run Greenway and on back into our well-sidewalked neighborhood.

On a day when it was delightfully clear that the days are indeed getting longer, we were back home before the sun went down.

Dogs, "False Teeth" and a Shivery Lunch

January 11, 2009. Appalachian Trail, from U.S. 11 at Troutville to Fullhardt Knob Shelter and back. 7.0 miles.

This day was marked by two things with positive implications for future hikes: The movement forward in congress of the bill that would create nearly 40,000 new acres of wilderness in Southwest Virginia; and the taking-to-the-babysitter (son Adam) of three-month-old Cookie the lab-mix puppy, new to the household and too small to hike but already learning the rudiments of walking along without too much going-nuts-and-all-over-the-place. Well, sufficient preliminary pre-rudiments to at least indicate there's hope.

The day itself – cold, breezy and cloudy – was nonetheless apparently a popular one for hiking, as the little parking lot at Troutville had three cars in it when we arrived; and another pulled in as we were packing up to go. Its occupant said he was picking away at little sections toward walking all of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia, and decried the hardest section he's done so far – the climb from the south to Dragon's Tooth, with its multiple "false teeth" until the true tooth is at last attained. We seconded his views on that long climb.

Not too far up the climb on this day, we crossed a group we saw last summer near Mount Rogers, on the day of our completion of the Virginia AT. They were on their way down, and were dressed in hats, jackets and gloves, providing the usual evidence of the difference in winter garb of those climbing – I was in two layers, no hat, no gloves – and those descending.

At Fullhardt Knob Shelter, pure-bred boxer Annie bounded toward us and then stopped dead just short, as if remembering her manners just in time. Once greeted and petted, she again lost them, bounding onto the picnic table and presenting herself fully for a body rub. Her master, who had come up the unknown-to-us trail directly down the east face of the mountain, apologized for the dog's energy. He and I also exchanged notes on the wives: His won't walk; mine walks too fast.

Given company at the shelter and the hiker behind us, we didn't attempt a fire, and Gail's new Zippo hand warmer didn't function on its first time out. As a result, we experienced our first shivery lunch of the season, with Gail suffering from whitened fingers and various fidgety/jumpy responses to the cold. We walked back down as fully dressed as those we'd seen on the way up, and didn't feel fully warm until about halfway back along the trail.

The one sure-to-warm factor on the return walk is the climb of a meadowed hill less than half a mile from the parking lot. Approaching it, just prior to the crossing of Mountain Pass Road, we exchanged demands on who should go get the car, come back and save the other the climb. Just before we started up, Gail provided prospective: "Just remember, it's harder than it looks."

The Belfast Trail With Kurt, Gail and Fluff

January 3, 2009. Belfast Trail past the Devil's Marbleyard to Gunter Ridge Trail to Appalachian Trail to FR 35/Sulphur Springs Trail and back. 9.2 miles.

On a beautiful and warm January Saturday, the six- or eight-car parking lot at the base of the Belfast Trail was already full when we arrived at 12:30, so we joined a small line of along-the-road parkers in a spot where the locals are known to raise a ruckus over any car parked even across from their land. (None was raised this day.)

Our guest for the hike, white-dog Fluff, made us even more sharply aware, with his high-waving white tail, of this last day of deer-hunting season, and helped dictate that this would be an out-and-back hike – mostly within the relative safety of the James River Face Wilderness – rather than a loop that would take us along vehicle-accessible forest roads.

This walk begins gently enough, with a nice wide trail and a stream crossing or two; the hardest part of the climb is at the point where the boulders of the formation loom to your left. The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All had too big a lead on me to even think about calling ahead to suggest a brief foray onto the rocks, determined as she was to get the long grade to the Gunter Ridge Trail behind her. As we passed by the rocks, we did hear the distinct calls of one of the prominent species of the boulder field – older boys and young men scrambling, yelping and celebrating where they are.

You attain the ridge line at 2.4 miles, and from there, the walk along the Gunter Ridge and the Appalachian trails is mostly a pleasant walk through the forest. We continued to the point where the AT intersects with Forest Road 35 and the Sulphur Spring Trail (is this the closest thing there is to a major in-the-woods intersection in Virginia?) and found a sunny spot on the south face for lunch. Lunch with a dog can in many instances be a bit of a beg-and-whine bother, but Fluff, aside from occasional plea-eyed looking, is generally content to pick a spot in the shade and wait for the water and goodies he seems confident will come his way. At the other end of things, he is also somewhat unique in his propensity toward teenage-boy-audible burps once he's finished eating.

The walk back, aside from the gentle climb just prior to reaching the Gunter Ridge Trail, is easy and fun, to the point that the two-hour walk in became an hour and 40 minutes in the other direction, even with the brief pause at the Marbleyard, where only one of the three of us wanted anything to do with boulder-hopping out into the sunshine for even a short distance. When I was maybe 20 boulders out, there came a call from father up formation, from a member of the aforementioned the rock-inhabiting species: "Come on up, the views are terrific!"

"Maybe another time," I called back, concurrently ruing lost youth and celebrating The Day Hiker's penchant for keeping us in motion along the trail. (Unless of course it's for WILDFLOWERS or something.)

On the Trail in West Virginia

December 29, 2008. Kate's Mountain loop hike in Greenbrier State Forest, West Virginia. 8.9 miles.

With time off the week after Christmas, we snuck over to Greenbrier County, W.Va., for two days of hiking built around a stay at the General Lewis Inn.

The first day's hike began in the otherwise-empty state forest camping and parking area with a climb of about 1,000 feet up Kate's Mountain. At the ridge line, the trail becomes wide, level and non-rocky as it makes its way along an old forest road. Here, in winter, are good views in both directions off the ridge, especially to the east for perhaps half a mile, where all the trees were taken out – in 2006 – after a pervasive gypsy moth infestation. The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All, without being aware of it, took advantage of the easy walking to step up her pace on a coolish day, and get us to the high point of Kate's Mountain, at 3,200 feet, well ahead of my expected time. The day was cooler than predicted – about 40 at lunch time – and so we moved off the true peak and its shadows and into a meadow where we could take full advantage of the sun.

From that high point, the trail plummets in what Leonard Adkins describes in his book "50 Hikes In West Virginia" as "one of the longest and most unrelenting steep descents in the state." Indeed, the trail eschews switchbacks in favor of an angle of walk that has you using tree limbs, when available, for braking. We agreed that Leonard's recommendation for the direction of this loop was entirely correct. Think of those two short, steep spots in the Andy Layne Trail and multiply that by, what, 10? It'd be all but impossible to go up. The Day Hiker admitted to no ill effects at the end of the descent, while I was pleased that the reaction in my legs was in the thighs rather than the knees.

The rest of the walk – back into the more-used area of the state forest – is again gentle and easy. And toward the end, near the superintendent's cabin, we did find people, in the form of a person in the gift shop. Gail told her about what she'd seen near the high point of Kate's Mountain, where there is an overlook down onto I-64: two dead dogs, wrapped in a sheet, just down the hill from the forest road.

"Oh, we get a lot of that," the young lady said, and went back to her book.

The warm and cozy General Lewis Inn features antiquey rooms so uniquely appointed that the doors are left open when they're unoccupied, so that guests can walk in and take a look. We enjoyed a pleasant dinner and carefully appointed breakfast (warm maple syrup for the hotcakes and a choice of apple butter or berry marmalade for the toast, for example) at the inn, as well as sitting by the fire in the evening and perusing the old Appalachian implements on display.

December 30, 2008. Lake Sherwood loop trail. 10.9 miles.


This is a terrific hike, in a remote and beautiful part of the Monongahela National Forest. The walk begins near the southern end of Lake Sherwood, which on this cool, clear day was as blue as a lake gets. The trail parallels the shore for a quarter mile or so and then quickly deflates the hope that it is a natural water body when you cross the wide and sun-warmed earthen dam, which provides great views across the water. The trail then makes its way up the mountainside to the Allegheny Mountain Trail, which straddles the Virginia/West Virginia border and follows the undulation pattern of so many Virginia ridgelines. There are winter views into both states, with the Virginia one defined by an ability to keep your eye on Lake Moomaw – from several different perspectives – for more than an hour.

Our pace was so much slower than the day before that we began to wonder, soon before we found it, if we'd missed the end of the Allegheny Trail. With a coldish breeze from the west, we made our way back up the mountain a short distance to a point where we could perch ourselves on the east side and in full sunshine for lunch. We ate without gloves and with a great view onto Moomaw.

The return part of the loop, along the Meadow Creek Trail, provides a completely different milieu than the windy, open ridgeline of the mountain. Rhododendron and mountain laurel crowd the trail even in winter as the pathway snakes along the creek, making 10 rock-hop crossings on its gentle descent to the northern end of the lake. Along this section, The Day Hiker, with little else to command her attention on the ground, became fascinated with the great number of plastic blue-diamond trail blazes that had been detached from trees and laid in the trail. Some appeared to have teeth marks, leading her to wonder if an animal had pulled them out. Some showed no marks, as if the two nails had simply been pried out. Simple vandalism seemed most likely to me, though why would most have been placed so carefully at the base of the tree from which they'd been removed? Eco-vandalism? we wondered.

The last two-plus miles of this walk are along the eastern edge of the lake – yet another new environment. The Day Hiker paused to listen to the sound of water lapping over a rock, and asserted that that noise, with its links to her childhood experiences at a lake in Michigan, was perhaps her favorite in the world. Which made me wonder why, with my own set of childhood adventures in living on a tiny finger of the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay, the sound doesn't have any particular magic for me. I told Gail it might rank in the 80s for me, but maybe that's a bit exaggerated. Let's see: The sound of a baseball coming off the bat in your hands is a good one; or the sound of the same ball stopping with a slap against the glove on your hand. The opening double-organ power of Procol Harum's "Repent Walpurgis"... oh wait, maybe it's only fair to stay with natural, outside sounds. Well, that moves the water-lap up quite a bit – up there near (but not all the way to) that faint, is-it-really-there ring in the air when a good strong snowfall is taking hold.

Our hikes are almost always augmented by a map and narrative information about the route and the area. For these two, as with many others in the past, the presence of the terrific work of Leonard Adkins provided us with rich and deep contexts for the day. Leonard's precision with the turn-by-turn details of the walks is keenly valuable in areas such as these where there are multiple trails and sometimes minimal signs. His observations on the natural world and of the history of the area combine with that practical information to provide an invaluably wise and trusty companion-in-absentia in the woods.