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Weekend Hikes - Week 78
WEB EXCLUSIVE
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The weekend hikers: Gail and Kurt Rheinheimer stand on top of Rice Fields, a bald southwest of Blacksburg, Va. along the Appalachian Trail. They were photographed in May by a couple who were thru-hiking the AT with their two children. |
Week 78: I guess it’s reassuring in a way that it took 78 weeks before we had a discouraging start to a hike. We got on the AT where it crosses Va. 606 – this time headed south to where the trail crosses Va. 608 – some 5.2 miles hence. Here’s what happened in the first 10 minutes:
1. Gail’s big-chicken and highly whiney dog, our constant companion on these hikes, balked on the suspension bridge across the creek at the beginning of the section, and had to be pulled/cajoled/prodded across, providing me with something great to look forward to as we finished up on the way back.
2. Here deep into our second summer of hikes, we agreed this was the first unpleasantly hot start we’d had the whole time; this as we headed up the overgrown-meadow beginning section, under humid sunshine.
3. Pretty much as soon as we entered the forest, the scourge of Gail’s hiking life began to appear profusely. We’ve often noted a good bit of poison ivy near trailheads, and come to look on it as a sort of inhabitants-nearby plant. On this trek, it became thicker and thicker for the first mile-plus of the section. We were hiking, as usual, in shorts, and the Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All found both her hiking speed and her wildflower watching greatly compromised by the overwhelming presence of one plant. Not to mention by an inordinate number of spider webs, an indication that this section – once the thru hikers are through – is not particularly popular.
But the AT, as it is always wont to do, soon gave back what it had taken away, with nice views off the ridge to both east and west, with enough non-poison-ivy wild plants to get Gail off the subject, and a pleasant lunch spot a half mile back up the mountainside from 608.
On the way back, we paused about 3.5 miles to arm ourselves. Gail still had a pair of leggings in the drybag – left there from colder seasons – and I pulled the sleeves of my rain jacket onto my legs, tightened the Velcro at the ankles and tied the waistband around my waist. Protection against the return trip through the PI.
“I really like your big blue diaper,” was TGDHOTA’s comment on my garb, perhaps arming herself to combat the characterizations of her big black dog she knew she’d hear once we got back to that really really scary suspension bridge.
–Kurt Rheinheimer, Editor in Chief
Click here for the archive of Kurt's Hikes
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