In awe

I always look forward to the weekend because that usually when the fun starts. I had a string of adventures lately.

I went on a hike last Saturday, that was originally a backpacking trip, but the place was flooded. My buddy with me had enough hiking in the rain after the Seneca trip (bp) and Mt Rogers trip (bp) earlier this year.  So we changed this to a hike and to a different location. Still the place we chose had a lot of water unbeknown to us. We had the wettest year on record since 1899 or something in the region. 

We hiked in the Shenandoah on the Tuscarora Trail from west to east to Matthews Arm campground (got within 1 mi) and looped back using Beecher/Overall tr, something like that. Tuscarora Trail is known for its waterfall. It was like we didn’t know that waterfalls need lot of water from somewhere and they would need to go somewhere. 

I didn’t track the mileage, and it was probably around 10 miles that day. Anything less than 10 is fooling around in the woods and that what we did, fooling around. It’s just not worth driving 2-3 hours to do a 2-3 hour hike, unless… yeah, to have an adventure.

We got lost, but thank God, my friend for her innate sense noticed early on and we backtracked and it was still a mile out of the plan; really nothing would be according to plan when you ‘fool’ around, by definition. I wasn’t using a map (no excuse really) but should have known since we wanted to go east and we were going west on the Tuscarora. I was asked if I knew too but my spiderman sense was not that good.  I wouldn’t have minded the extra mile or two or even 10. We were not rushing to go any where, because we knew we’d be out of the woods this time for sure way before sundown. Haha, but I had everything this time except a map. I forgot I purchased a map for the region and didn’t bring it.

There was water every where. Down on the bottom of the mountain to up on top of the mountain. Have you done water crossing or seen water on top of the mountain my friend asked me! There was no place to do water crossing without getting wet. No bridges at all because the water was due to flooding. At a couple places, there were down trees to shinny across on my butt. My balance was off and didn’t want to test our luck. My balance is always not so good because this gorilla can’t climb tree.

At the end of the hike, we came across this creek/river, probably was the Overall Run. I would rather turn back than cross (and get my 20 miles in). There was no tree to use to cross it this time. We scouted upstream and downstream and came back to the trail (I think we were off trail based on the map or maybe flooding changed the terrain). How many more rivers we have to do! We ain’t going crossed this more than once, we told ourselves. So we scouted some more, but the safest crossing was at the trail, and any where else was either too deep or the current too swift for me.  In the end, we suckered it up and crossed that thing twice, really who designed a trail to have multiple crossings for the same river at the same location and you have to cross them all? Why do we have to cross them. I crossed with my boots on. My friend hates taking them off but in the end didn’t want to ruin the insoles. I didn’t want to stub my toes on rocks. We spent more than half hour crossing it. Urggh! It was an experience. It wasn’t the first time we did water crossing, but to make that much of an effort just for a 10 mile hike, one would rather stay inside. 

Not complaining. I rather hike than to stay inside. I said I wasn’t going to write about it, but here it is. Maybe one day, I will look back and laugh about it. By the way, the hike was beautiful, very beautiful. Beauty is hard to capture. I slept the whole Sunday afterward. Yes, a ten mile knocked me out. Every trip is an adventure!

Day 46