The First Short-Sleeves Day of the Year... Without a Map

April 18, 2009. Hoop Hole upper and lower loops. 9.0 miles.

With guest-dog Fluff along in addition to puppy Cookie, we returned to a hike in Botetourt County not too far from where Fluff would lie his head for the night. The Hoop Hole trails, east of Eagle Rock and with multiple stream crossings, are a favorite of dogs, both because of the water and, especially before the leaves return, the openness of the forest - allowing for occasional stops to peer for deer.

For the human hikers, it was the first shorts-and-short-sleeves day of the year, and with the streams in good flow and the sky mostly blue, it was truly all good. Well, except for maybe the 2,400-foot climb, the pesky narrowness of the trail along several steep-slope spots and that false-summit of Pine Mountain that we'd both forgotten, about a half mile before you reach the true peak, at 3,700 feet. And a bunch of big-gnat type flyers who didn't bite or sting, but sure loved to crawl around on things and seemed to want to share our lunch spot on the summit.

Then too there was the reiteration of one of the basic tenets of any hike: Take the map! Even on a most-familiar hike! Our failure to do so led us maybe half a mile down the side trail toward Roaring Run before we returned to our senses and went back up the hill to the main trail, grumbling to each other about our collective stupidity. It's odd: You're out there to walk (and walk and walk), but stick in an accidental mile extra and big bad hikers get cranky with themselves. The dogs, on the other hand, didn't mind a bit.

And they loved the many more easy stream crossings on the way down to the car.

A Warm-Weather Trail Party

February 7, 2009. Appalachian Trail from Va. 311 north on the Appalachian Trail to McAfee Knob and back. 7.6 miles.

On the warmest day of the winter to date, pretty much everybody and his hiking buddy or honey squeezed into the lot where 311 reaches its highest reach on Catawba Mountain – to the point that more cars were parked along the side of the highway down toward Salem. And it makes for a different kind of hike when this many people are out – a sort of linear party full of greetings and exchanges on the weather, the trail, the summit and, in the case of one older couple, a deep lament at all the fair-weather walkers. "We were going to be out here ANYWAY – no matter the weather," the lady asserted. No, it wasn't Gail and me; we enjoyed all the company this day, including fellow Leisureite James Richerson, his wife and a few pals from middle school making their first trek up to the coolest overlook in the area.

The precipice was literally covered with people – nearly all twenty- and thirty-somethings with cameras and cliff-edge poses to go into them. We ate lunch on the far end of the formation, looking down onto Roanoke and across the valley to Brushy Mountain. The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All spent a considerable amount of time asking about various puppies' ages, toward the day when little lab-mix Cookie – now up to 29 pounds from the 16 when she arrived with a month ago – will be able to climb mountains.

The way back down, as always, was easy and enjoyable, to the point that Gail talked about "the old days," when our sons were boys and this was kind of a long hike. On this day, she got good-naturedly impatient several times when she ran up on the back of hiking parties that were a little slow to move over and make way for somebody who... just... walks... fast. She drug us up the 1,200-foot climb in an hour and a half flat and down in 10 minutes less. A great walk to a great place on a great day.