Appalachian Trail Days Festival 2017 - Damascus VA

Welcome to 2017 Trail Days in Damascus Virginia!
http://www.traildays.us/
Last year I made a long day trip out of this and could tell there was much missed in the way of evening activities, music, and socializing. This time I spent the night Friday. I made the 6 hour drive down from Maryland and got there about 3PM. I was able to find parking in the grass lot next to One Way Ministry and it cost $20 for the weekend (in and out privileges). There was no parking in the gravel lot across the street closer to Tent City. I went over to the check in tent at the right gate to Tent City and paid my $5 for access to a camp site. The person there said that the quiet side was the open field on the left, medium activity was the woods in the middle, and the party side was on the right. I snagged a field spot and set up my tent and then explored the area. There were lots of very cool woods spots to camp, and many people hanging. Everyone was "tightly packed" to say the least. The right side looked to house very well organized camps of group affiliated hikers. Some of the camps sponsored evening activities like chili cook-offs, others had 'beer-bat'. Yellow Deli had an area to drink tea, eat food, and listen to people playing music. Everyone seemed to have a fire ring. With the weather being hot and humid, the smoke hovered in the woods and drifted around with the droves - literally hundreds, possibly a couple thousand, hikers. I spent quite a bit of time over at One Way Ministries (to eat their most excellent free food Friday night). They had chili cheeze (not to be confused with cheese) dip, all sorts of brownie like things, and ice cream on cobbler. Tables were set up inside and there were plenty of great people to talk to. Got to meet and talk a little with 'Optimist and Purple Mist' who have an outstanding YouTube site 'Harper's Tarry' for their 2016 hike!  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUBLpcrrFJ25jo0uZ1pVG3g
I also ate 'all you can eat $5 pancakes' there the next morning. Once the sun went down, things got crazy. People were partying everywhere, and the songs, cheers, music, and 'odd smelling smoke' filled the air. The giant camp fire ring for the super crazy tribal bongo dancing was set ablaze (in a fairly unsafe explosive manner) and the dwindled as what looked like senor fire starters had to bail the rookie crew out. Saturday was vendor and parade day for me. Plenty of parade spirit to go around, as well as at least three drones. I'm looking forward to finding the drone footage when it gets posted. Half way through the parade it rained hard. A persistent rain cell crept over our area and it became nasty (and thankfully cool). I ran into Dollar General, who happened to have $6 golf umbrellas!! It was time for me to finish up and drive back home. Just as I got to the car, it started to hail...and hail pretty hard. It pretty much hailed hard the whole way on the drive to I81.
It's always fun to recognize and meet people I know from YouTube, or have met on the trail in the past, at Trail Days. Big hello to Optimist, Purple Mist, Logo The Blackalachian, Odie, The Real Hiking Viking, and Red Beard.
Don't forget to order your hiker yearbook!
http://hikeryearbook.com/
In memory of Joe Moraski, a friend of mine who passed unexpectedly last week. He was an antenna god, an artist, a technician, a sculptor, a great chef, a writer, a sailor, a philosopher, a hunter, a fisherman, a Mensa, a mentor, and a friend.      
http://www.traildays.us/
https://www.facebook.com/onewayministriesdamascus/
https://onewaydamascus.com/outreach/trail-day-ministry/
     

Elkwallow Wayside to Tent Sites and Spring

This is the Appalachian Trail from Elkwallow Wayside north toward Gravel Springs Hut. Along the way, we summited Rattlesnake Point and also found a couple great campsites about half way to Gravel Springs Hut with excellent water. We also found the southern terminus of the Tuscarora Trail. The Tuscarora Trail bypasses a large section of the AT and rejoins with the AT on Blue Mountain in PA. The trail was developed as a backwoods alternative (backup) to the AT prior to the passing of the National Scenic Trails Act of 1968. Information on the Tuscarora Trail can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuscarora_Trail

Watch my other hiking videos:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdxYynz7DmRoLfGNWYRI5wsvPi-WJ_OIa

Battle Creek Cypress Swamp - Prince Frederick, Maryland

Welcome to Battle Creek Cypress Swamp in Calvert County Maryland! This is the northernmost stand of cypress trees in North America. There is a nice little county park with a Nature Center that is a fun place to visit. The boardwalk trail is very easy and only about 0.4 miles round trip. There are some stairs descending to the main boardwalk trail that people with knee or walking issues may have difficulty with. The cypress here are Bald Cypress. There are quite a few in the swamp and their knees are very cool to look at.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Creek_Cypress_Swamp
http://calvertparks.org/bccss.html
http://calvertparks.org/Resources/Documents/ParkMaps/BattleCreekCypressSwampMap.pdf

Watch my other hiking videos:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdxYynz7DmRoLfGNWYRI5wsvPi-WJ_OIa

Spruce Knob – West Virginia High Point

We took a trip to West Virginia today to claim another one of the peaks on our State High Point list. This peak is Spruce Knob, at 4,863 feet above sea level. The trees here are stunted in growth and tend to be full on one side and bare on the other from the prevailing winds. The road is windy and skinny to get to this peak. At first I thought it was a one-way road, but it is indeed two ways. Be careful, as there is quite a bit of traffic on it and when cars meet, both need to borrow a bit of the shoulder (if there is any!!). There is ample parking up top, many hiking trails, a privy, garbage cans, picnic tables with grill boxes, and a picnic shelter. Also, of course, is the Spruce Knob Observation Tower about 0.2 miles down a very easy trail. This is a great, east to climb, steel and stone tower with a huge viewing platform up top. Views are excellent in all directions. The trails are well worn and scented with spruce that remind me of some of the trails on the top of Cannon Mountain in NH. We did the easy, 0.7 mile, loop around the summit. Although a long drive out to the “middle of nowhere, WV”, it was a pleasant one. On the way there (and back), we did stop briefly to photograph Seneca Rocks. Very Cool! We’ll save that for another day. 😊

https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/mnf/recarea/?recid=7053
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spruce_Knob

Watch my other hiking videos:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdxYynz7DmRoLfGNWYRI5wsvPi-WJ_OIa

Hike to Millers Head View Point and Bushytop Microwave Station

At 3760 feet, Bushytop is an easy hike from the parking lot at the Amphitheater at Skyland. If you follow the service road to the top where it dead ends, you can meet up with the Millers Head Trail. There is also a trail that pretty much parallels the road and is accessible from the parking lot. Atop Bushytop is a microwave relay and the trees have been cut down to prevent blockage (while providing limited views). Although clearly marked, we somehow missed where the trail head was. Either way, it is about 0.2 miles to the top of Bushytop. The Millers Head viewpoint is an additional 0.6 miles down a rocky trail with switchbacks. The viewpoint at Millers Head is nice and provides a good view of the surrounding valley.  This trail is fairly easy and only 1.6 miles out and back. That being said, it is a bit steep and the closeness to the road and easy access may entice people with health or physical issues to attempt it. Remember, if you go down, you need to come back up!! The elevation loss between Bushytop and Millers Head is about 400’.
https://virginiatrailguide.com/2009/10/01/millers-head/
https://www.nps.gov/shen/planyourvisit/upload/skyland_area_2013.pdf


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https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdxYynz7DmRoLfGNWYRI5wsvPi-WJ_OIa

Mosby Campsite and Tom Sealock Spring - Appalachian Trail VA

This was an overnight hike that we did this weekend to finish filling in some parts of the trail that we missed. This is the section from VA 522 to the Jim and Molly Denton Shelter. We ate a hearty breakfast at the Apple House Restaurant (AWESOME) and then hit the AT parking along 522. The lot will hold 10 cars if people play nice. The hike is straight forward, with the 1st section being an easy ascent of about 1000' over 3 miles. The Mosby Campsite is 3.6 miles from VA 522 down a clearly marked blue blaze trail (about 400'). Mosby is a primitive campsite site on ten acres of land donated to the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) in 1965 by Mrs. Mary H. Keyser. PATC donated the land to the National Park Service in 1987.The Tom Sealock Spring is co-located at the Mosby Campsite and clearly labeled. There is NO privy at the Mosby site. There is a good fire pit and a couple of nice benches that were donated by Front Royal Cub Scout Pack 112 in 2007. It is about 1.8 more miles  (600' descent) to the Jim and Molly Denton Shelter. J&M Shelter is super nice and should not be missed if camping along the AT.

Thank you to "Dump Truck" for saying hello along the trail and mentioning that you watch my videos and found them helpful. That made my day! I hope you enjoyed the rest of your hike! :) 

Watch my other hiking videos:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdxYynz7DmRoLfGNWYRI5wsvPi-WJ_OIa

Appalachian Trail - Compton Gap to Gravel Springs - Columnar Jointing Formation

This hike is in the northern most section of Shenandoah National Park and ascends Compton Peak where there is a unique rock formation called Columnar Jointing. I’ve included some links below describing the formation. The hike to visit the formation is 2.4 miles round trip and has 835 feet of elevation gain to hike. The parking is very good at mile marker 10.5 and the hike well worth it just to visit the rock formation. The hike guide can be found here:  https://www.nps.gov/shen/upload/Compton-Gap-Trail-Map.pdf

We ended up hiking all the way to Gravel Springs Hut to stay the night. There were three section hikers there working on their 1000+ miles with tons of interesting stories and also a Scout troop doing some training hikes for a larger hike later in the year. It was fun to trade stories with the section hikers. I’ll just post a link to the video of the shelter from the other day (Friday) as it looks exactly the same as then… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68do2KuxCjs

On the way back, we decided to track down a spring that is listed in some of the guides on Hogwallow Flat. We blew right by it on our way in and wished we had seen it because it was hot and we drank up all our water. The water at Ginger Spring at Tom Floyd Wayside Shelter is also pretty sad, so this spring may be one that people are counting on finding!  After paying close attention along the way, we found a suspicious looking rock pile that did turn out to be the spring. The spring is at the end of the video for those interested in just that part.
Hogwallow Spring coordinates: N38° 47.042' W78° 11.629'
Compton Spring Coordinates: N38° 48.966' W78° 10.632'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columnar_jointing
https://www.nps.gov/shen/learn/nature/greenstone.htm
A paper way more technical about the subject: https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/1265/report.pdf
Watch my other hiking videos:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdxYynz7DmRoLfGNWYRI5wsvPi-WJ_OIa

Music “Dawn's Battle (Instrumental)” by Ivan Chew (c) 2016
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode
Available at: http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/ramblinglibrarian/52995
http://ccmixter.org/content/ramblinglibrarian/ramblinglibrarian_-_Dawn_s_Battle_%28Instrumental%29.mp3