This past weekend, my cousin/hiking partner J-bo was in town for a job interview, so we decided — no-brainer — to make it a hiking weekend. Forget the cold. Chance of snow? No worries. We were ready for anything.
Early in the week, on my final day off during an extended Chrismakkuh break, I drove to the nearest REI to pick up a map of the area we had decided to hike in — George Washington National Forest just west of Shenandoah National Park. Somehow, REI was out of that particular map.
No worries.
I had learned of the hike from a meetup.com group that does lightweight backpacking trips (a group I hope to join, by the way). Through their website and a few other links, I pieced together the hike and printed out a few Internet maps. I felt we were ready to roll.
As it turned out, the weather was balmy on the drive west Saturday. When we got out of the car a shade before 10 a.m., it felt like 60. We couldn’t believe our luck. J-bo considered leaving his winter coat in the Civic, but we remembered how quickly the temperature can dip in the mountains. He took it without plans to use it anytime soon.
The parking lot was on the left (or south) side of Route 211. The directions had simply said to take the “Masanutten Connector” trail after driving for 8.4 miles on 211. We had drove 8.4 miles.
Adjacent to the parking lot was a trail with clearly marked orange blazes. I glanced briefly across the highway to see if there was another trail, but there was only a gate like you might see at a closed entrance to a parking lot.
I was itching to get on the trail. J-bo was ready to get his tramp on. The compass read that the orange trail led to the northwest, which was the direction we wanted to be headed in. We didn’t give it another thought.
We strapped on our too-heavy packs and started hiking.
After what seemed like a steady 1.5 miles, we reached a fork. The orange-blazed trail continued ahead while a pink-blazed trail branched off to the left. Gazing down at the map, studying it closely, we saw that the intersection resembled the first one on the 17.6-mile trek we had planned. We made a left onto the pink trail.
We hiked through the peaceful woods, not a worry on our minds. Sure, the going seemed pretty flat for the opening stages of a hike up a mountain, but we figured the elevation would increase soon enough. We passed a hunter with a rifle who didn’t exactly know the trails, but assuaged any fears we had of going the wrong way by describing the terrain up ahead.
After an hour of steady, easy hiking, we stopped at an open spot by the stream we had been following for quite awhile. We were famished. As I devoured a gluten-free peanut butter sandwich, some dried mango pieces — so good! — and a humungous apple, I began examining the map.
Two minutes later, I was worried.
I called over J-bo to confer with. Looking at the map together, we quickly reached the conclusion that, yes, we were not on track. At first, we had no idea where we were. None of the trails or intersections or signs we were on or had passed was even on the map. But we had gone the exact 8.4 miles. So what gave? We were confused.
Then it dawned on me. The mistake had been simple. Elementary, in fact. For such a seasoned navigator, I felt embarrassed.
We had started out on the wrong side of the road!
For some reason, I had overlooked the fact, when we started the hike, that we needed to be heading north and that, in order to do that, we needed to begin the hike on the north side of the road. I couldn’t believe my gaffe. Here we were, more than two hours and four miles into the hike — with no more than five hours of daylight left — and we were farther than we could have imagined from our destination.
We decided to go on an adventure, since our original 12-mile day was not going to happen. We packed up our belongings, re-strapped — bringing back the shoulder burn I felt all day due to my pack’s inept waist belt — and continued on the unknown pink trail, which suddenly began ascending, and ascending, and ascending.
We were hopeful. As we continued to climb, we imagined an exposed viewpoint at the top of whatever mountain we were on — an impeccable camping spot where we could hang out, relax and eventually eat and sleep.
With the excitement building, I reached the top of the mountain, or knob, or whatever it was — we later learned it was Bird Knob — and, to my disappointment, the summit was treed over. Only birds had a view (the name would later make sense to us). There was a nice campsite, but no view.
We continued on, but it was clear where the pink trail was now taking us. Down, down, down. We soon turned around.
Thus begun a long-winded discussion about our next move. Should we call it a day and camp atop the knob? Should we continue down to a couple campsites we had earlier seen by the river? What about returning all the way to the car and driving to a nearby campsite? As we moved at a steady pace down the trail, we decided that we would return to that first fork and stay straight on the orange trail, which, a sign at the trailhead had indicated, led to the Masanutten Visitor Center. From there, we figured, we could either find a camping spot or map out a short hike to a nice spot in the area to set up our tents. They had to have maps at the center, right?
Oh, how we were wrong. After a short hike from the fork, we reached the center, but it was closed and there were no maps outside. Not only that, but there were no real trails adjacent to it. Just the one we had come on and a paved 0.25-mile asphalt path for tourists.
We were at a loss.
The time was after about 3:45 p.m., and darkness was just an hour away.
The center was located on Route 211 a couple miles north of where we had started the adventure some six hours earlier, so J-bo decided we should try to hitchhike back to the car and then, maybe, attempt to find the trail we should have started on. Having made so many navigational mistakes throughout the day, who was I to argue?
After 15 minutes of watching people speed by us without a thought of picking up two good-looking young men, a guy in his huge carpentry truck finally made our day. We hopped in the back next to nail guns, pails of paint and other tools, and enjoyed a bumpy ride back to the parking lot.
It was a few minutes after 4 when we returned to our starting spot, but we were re-energized. I wasted no time walking across the road to that gate, and as I reached it, J-bo spotted a faint white blaze on a stump next to the gate. In the description, which we had read at lunch — and which, if we had ready earlier, would have kept us from ever getting on that orange-blazed trail in the first place — there was mention of the Masanutten Connector being marked with white blazes.
We had found the trail!
Moving at a brisk, it’s-about-to-get-dark-and-cold pace, we tore up the path for two easy miles before reaching the intersection for the Masanutten trail up Waterfall Mountain. We had read the description of the hike up Waterfall as severely steep, with an elevation gain of 800 feet in 0.6 miles, so we knew what to expect.
We were breathing hard, but thoughts of a nice view — our first of the day! — and a chance to set up our tents and eat a hearty dinner kept us going up the winding, dirt path. J-bo checked his heart rate. It was 240.
Finally, we reached the summit, but there was no view. Luckily, our Internet map had little camera icons that, we believed, indicated lookouts on the trail. One appeared just a couple tenths of a mile from where we stood. We hustled along the ridge, until we reached it.
The outlook wasn’t widespread and didn’t offer more than maybe a 120-degree view, but it felt like we had reached the top of the world. After seven-plus hours of hiking in the wood, of not having anything substantial to admire, we were treated to the final few minutes of a breathtaking sunset. We dropped our packs. We sat down for a minute. We had turned disaster into beautiful.
Of course, we still had to set up our tents, and all we had was a little loop of trail on which to arrange them. We somehow made it work, although I had to step through a bush — which had a few thorns — to reach the entrance of my abode for the night.
But once everything was set up and we had changed into our winter gear, as the temperature dropped at a scary rate, we allowed ourselves to sit down and cook a phenomenal beans, rice, corn tortillas and carrots dinner. I’ve had many incredible-tasting meals on mountains, but that feast — yes, we ate an entire pot of beans and rice — was certainly up there.
Content, full and overly satiated, we didn’t take long to crawl into our tents and call it a night. It was 7:30 p.m.
I had no plans of going outside during the middle of the night, but J-bo — always hydrated — did so, as he told me the following morning, to relieve himself. He described the temperature as in the teens. He said he was shaking. Exaggeration? Possible. But it can’t be denied that the temperature dropped some 30 degrees from midday to midnight.
When I got up at 7:30 Sunday morning after a rocky (literally) and interrupted sleep, I peered outside the tent and realized why these hikes are always, always worth it. The sun was just rising above a distant ridge, which was baked a blood orange. It was freezing, but I got out my camera and made sure to snap a few pictures of the sight.
There’s nothing better than waking up on top of a mountain ridge.
The rest of the morning was uneventful. It didn’t warm up until about 10, when I finally took off the long underwear and put my gloves in my pack. We took a side trip of two miles in the direction we had originally planned, but didn’t see a whole lot — which made us think, at least for a minute, that maybe our hike as we did it wasn’t too bad compared to what we envisioned it Friday night as we packed.
An hour later, after a quick descent, we were back at the car, hungry for lunch. We got back to D.C. by 3 p.m., in time to see the Wolverines put the finishing touches on an impressive win over the Badgers.
I vowed never to make a navigational mistake on a hike again. We laughed at ourselves for all the gaffes. And we knew we had another incredible adventure for the memory that will make a fun story for years to come.
Oh, and we hiked almost the exact 17.6 miles that we set out to do. Go figure.
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