Summiting Terrapin Mountain, and Rock-hopping with a Nervous Puppy

April 11, 2009. Terrapin Mountain Trail/Reed Creek Trail loop. 9 miles.

We'd been trying to get back to this hike – done years ago and only vaguely remembered – for weeks, owing to Gail's hope to pass by the old homeplace of a friend/co-worker who grew up on the side of Terrapin Mountain, in Bedford County. Alas, the little piece of paper with the directions to it were remembered only after some miles of driving into Bedford County, so we'll get to go back to this pesky down-up hike again sometime before too long.

Actually the walk starts up, for perhaps a quarter mile, to reach the summit of Terrapin Mountain before beginning a long, rocky, occasionally steep descent. At the end of the nearly three mile drop, the Terrapin Mountain Trail intersects with the Reed Creek Trail, and things get considerably easier; the trail makes its away gently along near the bottom of the mountain, curling its way around and into ravines on its way to Reed Creek.

We ate along one of the bends, in the semi-sunshine on a rock. (And found out, a day or so later, what we have had to relearn every daggone year in the woods: It gets to be April? And warm? You need to get the trusty ground cover out and sit on it for lunch, or else – come Sunday or Monday – you'll have these big ol' itchy welts on your backside. Duh.)

It was at the first crossing of Reed Creek, on this spring day when the water was spilling furiously over the rocks, that we had our adventure for the day. Gail and I had to walk upstream a good ways to find a set of rocks, boulders and logs that were close enough together to let us hop across. But alas, puppy Cookie – seven and a half months old and a fine leaper on dry land – wanted no part of the last boulder-to-rock jump. And so we scouted farther up but to no avail, with the dog yelping more and more desperately with each passing, separated-from-momma moment. At last, back where the trail crosses on small rocks at lower water levels, The Greatest Puppy Helper took off her shoes to wade the dog across. Halfway, with the woman yelping from the cold and the dog from fright, Cookie wrestled her way out of her collar rather than go into water well onto her belly. The second try, with the collar tighter, was a success, and the little half-hour challenge was done.

The trail turns, a half mile or so up, across the stream again. And while we did have to scout a bit again, we soon found a crossing all three could readily make. From there, it was on up the rest of the mountain back to the starting point, on what is, despite its climb-at-the-wrong-time, a nifty walk.

Honoring Wilderness, and Audie Murphy

April 4, 2009. Appalachian Trail, Va. 620 to Audie Murphy Monument and back. 7.6 miles.

We picked this walk on this day in honor the signing by the president of the omnibus outdoors bill, which includes the creation of a new designated wilderness along its route – Brush Mountain East. The new protected area is one of seven new wildernesses bought into being by the Virginia Ridge and Valley Act, which protects 43,000 acres as wilderness, and also creates more than 10,000 acres in two new National Scenic Areas in Virginia. That bill, versions of which go back as far as 2004, was sponsored by both Senators Webb and Warner in the Senate and had sponsorship or contributions from Representatives Goodlatte and Boucher in the House.

The good climb up from the low point at Trout Creek along 620 was of course no less steep by virtue of the new designation, but the approach from this direction does get you on the ridge line sooner than from the other way up, allowing for a pleasant and easy second half of the walk to lunch.

The monument to the fallen war hero is more decorated every time we visit it, with more and more intricate cairn work off to the side, and more and more flowers (artificial for sturdiness), flags and other leave-behinds all around the stone marker. We scouted around for the perfect lunch spot on both the east and west sides of the ridge and ended up, as is The Day Hiker's wont, on the east – in the sun and not in the wind. Frisky puppy Cookie was tired enough to allow us a brief nap before we started back through the woods with just a touch of new meaning to them.

Following in Thomas Jefferson's Footsteps

March 29, 2009. From Blue Ridge Parkway milepost 83.1: Fallingwater Cascades Trail loop and Flat Top Mountain up and back. 7.2 miles.

This two-walk walk is a good one for an early-spring, post-rain trek, given the presence of falling water, moist spots for early wildflowers and the open, pre-leaf views going up 4,001-foot Flat Top.

All three perspectives provided at least some reward on this brisk, increasingly blue-sky day. The falls had a healthy, noisy flow. The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All paused maybe 20 times during the walk to move leaves, inspect new shoots and occasionally quiz her hiking companion, who was maybe-two-of five on identifying. And on the way up, views onto Harkening Hill to the west and out onto the piedmont to the east were frequent.

The walk up the mountain that the AT guidebook talks about Thomas Jefferson climbing at age 72 is a rewarding one – nicely switch-backed till near the top, where things get rocky and steep, and where there are several faux summits before you reach the terrific views from both the western and eastern rock outcrops at the true summit. One of those false summits was recommended to us pre-hike by son Carl, whose propensity toward photographic memory for hikes manifested itself with the advice to look out for Pinnacle Rock and its gnarly old evergreen, which we did find.

At the true summit, The Day Hiker and her rock-rookie puppy headed immediately for the eastern overlook; I took a quick view westward before joining them on the eastern overlook, where we were surprised to have the big rock to ourselves on this pretty day. Cookie explored it to every edge and precipice, causing her mistress to reach the edge of panic several times.

The air was sufficiently clear to see the city of Bedford fairly clearly. The Bedford reservoir is the most immediate and prominent feature of the view. To the north, Apple Orchard Mountain is prominent, and to the south, Sharp Top's sharp, rocky top is clear and imposing (though about 125 feet shorter in elevation than Flat Top).

On the walk back down, six-month-old Cookie confirmed her readiness for full-distance hikes with a sustained friskiness that manifested itself in off-trail runs and explorations, and in a half-mile or so of repeated taking of Gail's hiking pole into her mouth, to the extent that for many steps at a time, the pole served as sort of a stiff, voluntary leash for the wacky puppy.

In Search of a Tunnel

March 21, 2009. Carvins Cove Boat Launch Lot to Tinker Creek tunnel and beyond on the fire road on the northern side of the reservoir, and back. 8 miles.

This walk was occasioned by the previous week's, when we crossed Tinker Creek on the Appalachian Trail just south of U. S. 220 at Daleville. The creek, fed by the weekend rains, was fuller than we'd ever seen it, rushing its way south toward Roanoke and into the Roanoke River.

The next day in the Roanoke paper was a piece on the status of area reservoirs, in which an official from the Western Virginia Water Authority talked about Tinker Creek continuing to help replenish Carvins Cove. I was puzzled enough to get out the topo map and verify that Tinker Creek flows along one side of formidable Tinker Mountain, and Carvins Cove is on the other, with no visible connection whatsoever to Tinker Creek.

The explanation, with specifics courtesy of Sarah Baumgardner at the water authority: a 6,528-foot, six-foot-diameter tunnel through the mountain.

So our goal for this hiking day became a walk to see where "Tinker Creek" spills into Carvins Cove.

The Brogan tunnel was completed in 1966 and is operational as a reservoir-filler only when Tinker Creek has reached a specified level of flow; thus the continued strong rush of water – far downstream from the tunnel – that we saw where the creek passes under the AT, even as water was being diverted into Carvins Cove as well.

The walk to the mouth of the tunnel is along the fire road. We've done this stretch several times on bicycles – on the way to the Sawmill Branch Trail up to the AT – and agreed it is much more pleasant on foot; its climbs are clearly minor when you walk – think of a climb up Tinker Mountain on the AT or on the Andy Lane, for example, versus little hills along Carvins Cove. (We threatened, on our last ride of the road, to chuck the bikes into the reservoir upon finishing.)

With new-hiker Cookie the five-and-half-month-old puppy in tow, we made good time on the approximately 1.7-mile walk to the point in the road where there is a left to head down to the water. It is at the end of this road – less than a quarter mile – that the tunnel empties into a semi-circle-shaped concrete bowl that creates a short falls as the water spills over and on into Carvins Cove. At this spot as well as at smaller feeder streams along the way, the reservoir was taking on serious water, apparently replenishing still, a week after the rains.

There are suggestions of a trail along the perimeter of Carvins Cove, and we walked along those and at times along the bank created by low water until we found a good sunny spot for lunch. From there, we followed a small stream up from the edge of the reservoir, back to the road and back to the parking lot.

Tiny Trail Magic

March 15, 2009. Appalachian Trail from U.S. 220 southbound to first full viewpoint of Carvins Cove and back. 6 miles.

With rain all weekend and grandkid commitments here and there, we snuck in an old favorite and got lucky not to catch any drops during the two hours we were out; this was late Sunday afternoon and the first two dry hours all weekend.

Not that there weren't good evidences of all the rain that had fallen. The lower part of this trail section seems always to be muddy, and on this day it served in spots as a little brook bed. And Tinker Creek, usually languid where the trail crosses it, was in a discolored rush on its way toward Roanoke and the Roanoke River. Higher up, just prior to where the trail attains the ridge line, we heard the sound of water off to the left, over on another piece of Tinker Mountain. A little farther along, we were able to see where the sound was coming from – a 40-foot rain-fed waterfall over an outcropping. In perhaps a dozen walks on this section over the years, we'd never seen nor heard water over there.

At the ridge line, we entered the light fog of cloud cover, but could still see down to the surface of Carvins Cove when we got to the outcropping of "Hey" Rock (not Hay Rock, but the one where you go, "Hey, there's Carvins Cove"). Even though this was a good weekend for the drought-ridden reservoir, the broad band of tan around it was still starkly evident through the mist.

After we were back down the mountain and back to real life, showers returned, and we counted ourselves lucky to have been visited by yet another, albeit tiny, piece of trail magic.

The Puppy's First Hike

March 7, 2009. In Carvins Cove Preserve, up the Hi-Dee-Hoe Trail to Brushy Mountain Trail to Carvins Cove overlook and back. About 7 miles.

We'd planned for something longer, but with no sitter for puppy Cookie, the five-month-old lab/boxer/pest mix, we opted to make this day's walk both shorter and also Cookie's first genuine walk in the woods.

The Carvins Cove trail system, with its ski-style signage for the bikers, is nothing less than a terrific near-urban resource, and on this summer-like day, there were ample members of all three user populations – cyclists, horse riders and hikers – out and about on the land. We went in from the Va. 311 side, where you have to stop for your hall pass ($2 per day or $20 per year) at the Just The Right Gear bicycle shop before you park in the lot along Bennett Springs Road.

The Hi-Dee-Hoe begins innocently enough, crossing a feeder stream and meandering briefly in the woods before heading up the mountain with a series of climbs and switchbacks, tightening to steeper gradations as you near the top – to the extent that the trail carries a black diamond and a caution on the map about climbs. Still, the puppy, The Day Hiker and I made the climb – a mile and a half or a little more? – with relative ease, with Cookie pausing for quick snowcones at spots on northern faces as we neared the top.

The Brushy Mountain Trail into which the Hi-Dee-Hoe Ts is a wide old forest road that at this pre-leaf, pre-weed time of year looks like a dirt-track thoroughfare compared to a traditional trail. The three walkers could spread out every which way across it, save for the occasional meeting of cyclists or other hikers. One such meeting included the presence of a seven-month-old puppy; attraction and play were immediate and the older dog got the first take-down in the brief wrestlin match there in the dust.

We ate lunch on a knob with a semi-view down onto Carvins Cove, which continues to be seriously tan-rimmed in the ongoing drought. The dog did some preliminary sniffing, scouting and woofing as if to secure the space and after we ate, there ensued an uncharacteristic hour: The dog, just a puppy, and the big kids, both mildly under the weather at the start, all lay down on the woods floor and took a nap, another factor in which may well have been the first shirt-sleeve day in many months.

We joked that the puppy's bones might turn to jello before we got back down, with this walk about double her previous single-walk distance. But Cookie had more energy than even The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All on the easy, if long-for-its-mileage return walk.

Snow Day!

March 1, 2009. Appalachian Trail from Va. 620 northward onto Cove Mountain and back, including a stop at Pickle Branch Shelter. About 6.5 miles.

We set out on this day of impending snow to try to find some actual snow to walk in before its predicted arrival in Roanoke-proper long after dark. We wanted a western-facing ridge to walk on, and chose an Appalachian Trail section west of Roanoke. We parked where Va. 620 crosses the trail, heading for the Audie Murphy Memorial 3.8 miles southbound. But as seems to have befallen us once before at this spot, we realized, once we saw the distance sign maybe an eighth of a mile in, that – duh – we were headed the wrong way. Still, Dragon's Tooth at 4.0 miles away, seemed equally fine, and we HAD gone that eighth of a mile, so we continued southbound.

Snow began falling – lightly – after perhaps a quarter mile in. And as we continued to climb, it got stronger and steadier, to the point that by the time we passed the Pickle Branch Shelter spur at about a mile, the forest was quickly filling with white, and visibility was decreasing delightfully. The Day Hiker paused us here and there to look at tracks in the snow – everything from little-bunny hops to big-deer leaps. By the time we reached the ridge line of Cove Mountain, the snow came still stronger, and at times with an almost fully horizontal angle, as the openness to the west that we had sought did indeed serve to deliver the weather. And views to the east and west off the ridge were – well, they were a gray-white wall perhaps 50 feet out.

Our hopes to walk to Dragon's Tooth soon got buried in the wind and snow: Even with good layers, several sets of gloves and hats, we realized that lunch was going to present a challenge in terms of comfort and shelter from the storm, even amid all the big rocks – the "false teeth" along the ridge before the primary formation. And so, after a few pauses and decisions to push on, conditions finally turned us around – sending us back down the mountain and toward the shelter for lunch.

We'd never been to Pickle Branch Shelter before, as its one-mile-in-from-parking rendered it a too-early or too-late stop. But on this day it provided the perfect spot to pull off wet top layers, change socks and gloves, and settle into a comfortable lunch looking out into a forest filling with snow. It's easy to forget, when it's been so long, how quiet and white and peaceful a real snowfall is. And while we have walked through fallen snow many times before over the five years that we've been heading out, this was our first full falling-snow hike.

The snow tailed off as we drove down out of the mountains. But back in Roanoke was evidence of an inch or two that had fallen while we'd been out. The real snow in the city came after midnight, and we awakened to a total of six inches or so, making for more opportunities to walk in the white, albeit urban ones.