Start: Beahm's Gap
End: Little Stony Man parking
Today's miles: 11
Total (cumulative) AT miles: 32
Time: a couple of days
Wow! We had quite a productive weekend. Our plan was to take Friday off and hike from Beahm's Gap up past Mary's Rock, and then camp somewhere between Mary's Rock and Byrds Nest #3 shelter. Then, hike out to Pinnacles picnic area the next morning where my Escape was waiting. It was the inaugural backpack for my new REI Crestrail pack. Rosie came along and carried her food & water in her own pack. We started out a little before 10am. Feeling good, taking lots of pictures, and the new pack was the shiznit. We climbed Pass Mountain and barely busted a sweat. As we got closer to Panorama (where Rt. 211 intersects Skyline Dr.), we made a plan to stop for lunch and use the flush toilets. Well...just as we were crossing Skyline Dr. to loop around from the back, it started to rain. Ugh. Not a toad-strangler, but a steady gentle shower. We were sooooo close to Panorama, but we had to stop long enough to put on the pack covers to protect the gear. It wasn't supposed to rain, but thank goodness we brought pack covers & rain jacket/poncho just in case. We booked it to get to Panorama and the shelter of the breezeway. We didn't even get any shots or video of the "milestone" crossing of Rt. 211. We may have to go back and stage a "reenactment". :) Rosie was really getting pissed. She hates getting wet unless there's a bird or squirrel involved. She kept walking up to cars in the Panorama parking lot wanting to jump in and go. All three of us went in one of the open family bathrooms together (what the heck, no one was watching), and before we could stop her, Rosie started drinking out of the toilet. Eww, dogs can be gross.
After lunch, it was STILL raining. There was nothing else to do but put on the rain gear & covers and keep moving. Our only bailout option would have been to hitchhike...eh, no. We headed off to conquer Mary and her rock in the rain. She was a real bitch too! Lots of baby rocks & pebbles thrown in our path, and she was torturing us with the almost constant view of her summit rock that never seemed to get any closer. But we trudged upward through the rain and fog. We ran into lots of hikers bailing down in the rain, and only saw one other lone hiker that was going up. I think he got gas bombed right before he passed us. Wellll...we didn't know he was back there. We FINALLY made it to the side trail to the actual summit of Mary's Rock. We debated for a hot second on whether to skip it, but after all that work, we deserved the payoff. I swear, as soon as we hit the side trail to the summit, the rain stopped and the sun came out. We laid out our rain gear to dry out, had a snack and posed for pictures. I scampered up Mary's big-ass rock for the obligatory "rock climbing" pics. The one good thing about the weather was that everyone else was coming down as we were going up. Which means we had the entire summit to ourselves and didn't have to share. Once we were ready to go, us and our rain gear had mostly dried out. We packed away the rain jackets, but put on the pack covers just in case.
On the way up Mary's Rock (in the rain), Jen mentioned getting a room at the Quality Inn in Front Royal. As Mary and her rock beat us down on the way up, and the rain & sweat soaked us to the skin, that hotel idea started sounding better and better. Hmmmm...a hot shower, take-out food, comfy & toasty bed...hell yeah! We descended Mary and her big-ass rock and headed down to the Byrds Nest shelter. We would decide what to do next once we got there. We found a dude already at the shelter that seemed a little sketchy. A real jumpy guy...telling us how he had hiked 30 miles through the night because he couldn't sleep. Really? Is that normal? He was twitchy and even "accidentally" threw his lighter in the fire. Really? Is THAT normal? Jen and I looked at each other right then & there, and without saying a word, we both knew we were pushing straight through to Pinnacles. We had another snack, offered the guy our matches to replace his exploded lighter (since we didn't need them now), then shouldered our packs and headed out.
So we have one more mountain to climb, 'The Pinnacle', before we make it to the finish. Going up that last mountain and heading down the other side, we came up with a new theme song for The Gimpfoot Sisters. It goes like this: "Ouch!", "Oww", "Ouch!", "Owwwie", "Ouch!", etc. Seriously, we were HURTING! We were limping through the picnic area at Pinnacles, just trying to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and bitching because we didn't think to park the Escape in the FIRST parking space next to the AT. We didn't even get any "finish" pictures. We were so over it. We did a total of 8.7 miles in ONE day, and climbed three mountains in the process. We kicked off our boots and drove our tired asses and sore knees & feet to Front Royal and that cozy hotel room.
We got up on Saturday early enough to get into the park before sunrise. Not a problem since we were both out on Friday night by 9pm. We decided Saturday would be a photo expedition day. We picked up Jen's car at Beahm's Gap, made our way south to Big Meadows and got a campsite for that night. We had a big (but somewhat healthy "healthy hiker") breakfast at the wayside, then headed out for more picture taking. Not a single bear all weekend. Blah! We had dinner at the wayside since we didn't bring any "real" food with us and were too tired/lazy to cook. We had a cold six-pack by the campfire. Sweet! On Sunday, we got up early and packed up before sunrise, but it was so cloudy and foggy we didn't really get a sunrise. We drove around looking for more wildlife anyway and the catch of the day was a big old tom turkey "Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!". I loved him! Wish I could have gotten him on video.
We did another short "recovery hike" on Sunday to pick up another 2 miles. We went from Pinnacles to the Little Stony Man parking lot. It was easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy compared to Friday's torture. Jen took her fancy-pants camera, and I had a packless Rosie on a flexi-lead. We all three had a blast! The views along that section are pretty awesome.
Next stop Skyland! And maybe even all the way to Big Meadows!!
No comments:
Post a Comment