We got a good start and were hiking by 7:30. It’s over 21 miles to Damascus, Virginia where we plan to resupply and I’d like to be close enough to town tonight to make an easy hike the next morning. That way we can hike in. have lunch, resupply, then perhaps hike back out later in the day. Or, if all else fails, check into a hostel for a night.
The first mile or so was still in highland grassy fields with great morning views.
But shortly after we descended into the trees for the remainders of the day. We were amazed to hike with the forest floor covered with flowers for as far as you could see in any direction.
The small white flowers were dominant at the moment but were accompanied by small yellow flowers that looked like little orchids. From above these looked like tiny, half-peeled bananas. Later came small purple flowers that looked like irises, then complex dangling red flowers, and several others. And finally red star shaped flowers and blooming rhododendrons. And, most interestingly, we found what looked like a native pitcher plant—the first like this I’ve ever seen in the wild. After the amazing views and excitement of the ponies yesterday, today’s long walk among the spring flowers was a subtle, peaceful contrast.
Yesterday Ryan mentioned he had heard about “ramps” from a couple people while awaiting f his shoes in the hostel. I had also heard of them in Maine from a hiker who had just come from Virginia. He described them to me. And today, partway through the hike, I noticed some plants that I thought might be them. Ryan and I dug one up cleaned it, then broke it open and inspected it. It smelled just like a mild onion—which is exactly what we were looking for. We cleaned some and tried them raw. They had a flavor reminiscent of a spicy green onion or leek. We gathered a handful to bring along for tonight’s dinner.
Ryan’s heels felt okay today but we had to take it slow. We stopped a few times for him to “ice” his feet in a cold mountain stream. And when we arrived to our planned campsite around 4pm we were happy to find a wide mountain creek accessible just below the camp. The afternoon had been a little warm and we both went in for a cool dip in the water.
We were happy with the delicious one-pot dinner of ramps, olive oil, noodles, cheesy potatoes, and summer sausage. We resolved to keep our eyes out for more ramps. But tomorrow we expect to eat “town food” and will take up our foraging again later.
I sent Ryan off to set up the “bear hang” for the food bag. I followed about 15 minutes later to see how it was going. I found him with the line and rock bag stuck on a very high branch. It turns out it was also a very strong branch. We worked for a good while trying to free the line without luck. I fully expected to lose the line and bag at this point. I have seen many forlorn rock bags and carabiners stuck high in trees out here. But we decided to try the brute force method and see if the whole branch might come down instead. The branch was plenty strong to hold either of us alone. So I tied loops suspended in the line a few feet above the ground. Ryan stepped into one loop and I into the other. We both put our full weight on the branch and bounced up and down. With a loud crack it broke about halfway through. It took another ten minutes of pulling and twisting to try and break it off. Finally, we both swung on the hanging branch, like a pair of chimpanzees, and it finally came down. We both went down along with the branch into a ditch, all tangled up among the branches and rope. But we were fine and, once we brushed off the leaves, we had our rope and rock bag back. I’m sure we were quite a sight. I almost wish we had the episode on video. Almost.
And here are a few other interesting things we saw on today’s hike.
