Monthly Archives: June 2014

Ford Escape: Hundred Mile Wilderness

This is a REALLY LONG POST. I recommend spreading out reading it over a few days. Or, you know, just skim it and look at the pictures. I won’t know the difference. I’m not even sure who all is reading these days. You all look like bars on a graph to me.

It was quite late in the day to be starting my first day into the hundred mile wilderness, given that I only had 7 days worth of food for Copper and me. (Yes, I was carrying half of his food to begin with, in a large bag. He carried in Tupperware, which, since his bowl had gone missing on Mt. Adams, he could eat out of) I needed to make ten miles to the Wilson Valley Lean-To before I slept if I were to stay on schedule. And not staying on schedule was not an option when you the trek ahead means crossing an under-trafficked logging road only every other day. The problem was, the trail doesn’t wait until after the first day to start throwing you in front of things worth taking pictures of.

For instance, right past the warning sign, I already reached the first pond of the wilderness: Spectacle Pond. All the ponds out here are scenic, so I succumbed to my urge to move quickly, and skipped the picture. An hour and two more ponds later, I dropped down a steep hill and landed at Leeman Brook Lean-to, where most of the hikers leaving that day had already gathered, some to snack, some just to chat, and some to have a safety meeting. Among the hikers already there were Counselor, Wonder Boy, and Piper. (The latter two may have been largely responsible for the safety material.) Continue reading

Trail Magic for the Late 2014 Thru-Hikers

I wanted to do another magic this year, and we had one all set up to go the weekend in April before I left for Europe, but unfortunately, with it going to be miserable squeezing in the preparations for it with all the other stuff that was going on then, plus someone who wanted to come having to cancel, plus the weather going sour, that plan was dropped. And then, because my European vacation was such a scheduling nightmare for my center director at work, I couldn’t get permission to go to Trail Days in Damascus, VA. Maybe next year! However, I was guaranteed to get Memorial Day off work, because it was a holiday, so I decided it was my last chance of the season. I asked Dangerpants, of whom I am unendingly jealous because she got to go to Trail Days, to ask the hikers there about where on the trail most of this year’s hikers were. Most of the people she spoke to had either hiked as far as Erwin, TN or Damascus. Even though I was personally as far as the Shenandoahs last year (and so my instinct had been to set up magic on the bank of the Tye River south of Waynesboro, VA), I realized there were quite a number of people who didn’t leave Springer until April, and that we could save a lot of gas money by just going a trail-week up from Damascus to the Mt. Rogers Visitor Center in Marion, VA.

Continue reading