Spent the day (mostly driving) way up North to Backbone Mountain and
Hoye-Crest, the tallest point in Maryland! This 2.6 mile round trip,
600’ascent, is pretty easy, although very muddy at the bottom. Parking
is easy and labeled on the side of the road and the trail is marked well
too. The woods on the North side of the trail near the bottom have been
harvested, so it looks a bit of a mess right now. Near the top is an
interesting boundary marker between MD and WV. I would not like to have
been the one to carry that thing up there! The peak is nice, with a
bench, sign-in log, and a nice view. There are a couple geocaches up
there too. Both are pretty easy to find if you use the hints. I’ll
tell you, on the one at the summit, work it from the WV side!! On the
way home, we stopped at "Our Lady Of The Pines" Catholic church. This
church has the honor of being the smallest tiny church in the lower 48.
Right next to it is the "World's Smallest Mailing Office," the tiny post
office serving the community of Silver Lake. What was very welcome was
the not so tiny outhouse out back, which I assure you, is functioning
well….and a geocache right behind too! https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/G... https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/G... https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/G... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_...
Continued my SOBO journey today (10 Feb 2017) and decided to try and visit the north end of Shenandoah National Park and park at Compton Gap. Trouble was, today that section of Blue Ridge Parkway was closed due to ice. Instead, I parked at the tiny parking area at VA601. VA601 is a little one lane gravel road that has a trail head called Harmony Hollow. There is a short uphill blue blaze to the Appalachian Trail. Once on the AT, it was a short hike to the Tom Floyd Wayside Shelter. There is a spring nearby and several tent sites. The shelter itself is a little small, sleeping maybe 6. Ginger Spring is a drippy puddle with a sandy bottom. I’ve seen worse, but this one is reported to be unreliable. It was flowing today. After visiting the shelter I continued on to the Shenandoah National Park boundary kiosk. There were plenty of Backcountry Camping permits in the metal bin.
Missed this on my last overnight. I approached the shelter from the
north in frigid cold and dwindling light with light snow. Previous
footprints led me to the shelter a bit early on a "shortcut trail". 100'
more and there is good signage and the spring!
This time, on the way back from WVU after the winter break, I decided to
try out some of my gear and techniques for cold weather hiking. The
temps were forecast to be in the teens and did not disappoint! Once
again, I parked at the I-66 trail-head parking at Manassas Gap but this
time decided to hike south an easy 3 miles to the Jim and Molly Denton
Shelter. Thank you Smell-N-Roses for the video of this area a couple
weeks ago! The I-66 parking is very nice with a great trail head on the
AT. I brought 2 sleeping pads with me. One is the closed cell foam
Therm-a-Rest Z Lite (R 2.6) and another is a Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XTherm
inflatable (R 5.7). It is suggested that 2 pads are carried for very
cold weather. An inflatable, although comfortable with high R value, can
deflate and leave you in a risky situation, so a closed cell foam
backup is also needed. Combined, they provided very good insulation (R
8.3) from the cold ground. My sleeping bag was a BOG Standard Kelty
Cosmic Down 21. My tent is a 2 person North Face Talus 2. With temps
outside around 9F overnight, the tent held temp around 18F with me
inside. Between the pads and the sleeping bag, it was just barely enough
to stay warm. The addition of my Sea to Summit Aeros Premium inflatable
pillow, cheap base layers, mid layer, and a hat kept me
warm/comfortable. Problems I encountered were cooking after stopping
hiking and setting up the tent. These were difficult because I had to
remove my gloves for those tasks and it was wicked cold! I’m glad a
brought a Zippo hand warmer, as that made for quick recovery after those
tasks. All my water froze. I knew this would happen ahead of time, so I
filled my cook pot the night before to make it easier to cook in the
AM. Butane Canister Stoves have difficulty in cold weather. See my
canister stove hack video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HiTr... Because
it was so cold, I did not explore the site as much as I normally do and
did not locate the spring. The guide says it was a little ways (few
hundred yards) south. I’ll find out when I continue south on the AT…
This is a quick video showing what I do to get my butane canister stove to operate when it is below freezing in the winter. Canister stove fuel, especially 100% butane, does not work very well below freezing. This is because butane has a boiling point of 30.2°F. Below 30, the fuel just stays liquid in the canister. Many manufactures have a mix of fuels in the canister that contains some propane. These “winter mix’ formulas work below freezing, and some work well down into the teens. All suffer as the fuel level drops in cold weather because the propane burns off first, leaving the other fuels. To overcome this problem, this “hack” uses a copper strip (copper conducts heat very well) to divert some of the heat from the flame back down to the canister to vaporize the fuel. The strip is held to the canister using a silicone bracelet. Silicone is resistant to high temperatures and won’t melt from the hot copper strip. It’s a simple setup that brings the fuel in the area of the strip up to temperature to pressurize the stove well. There is a thread on backpackinglight that explores the method: https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/98947/ There is also a thread on WhiteBlaze.Net about the method: http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php/115424-How-low-will-a-cannister-go!
** Warning ** This is a hack and not the intended use for canisters. Failure to monitor canister temperature and letting it get too hot may result in serious injury. Do not do this in warm weather, as there is a risk of adding too much heat to the canister making it burst, which would be very dangerous. Please subscribe to my channel and thanks for watching! Watch my other hiking videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdxYynz7DmRoLfGNWYRI5wsvPi-WJ_OIa
Made a quick stop for a "dinner hike" rest break on the way back from WVU after the Thanksgiving Weekend. I parked at the I-66 parking at Manassas Gap (the SR 55 parking is smaller and on the other side of 66). The I-66 parking is very nice with a great trail head on the AT. I did a quick hike up to the Manassas Gap Shelter to eat dinner and check out the spring. The spring was flowing great. It was dark by the time I finished dinner and hiked back in the dark using my Zebralight H52W headlamp. Please subscribe to my channel and thanks for watching! Watch my other hiking videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdxYynz7DmRoLfGNWYRI5wsvPi-WJ_OIa
