April 14, 2018 - More Manassanutten Trail via Veach Gap East Trail

Picture of the day

    This blog chronicles the hikes I've completed in the "Lee 333 Challenge". I haven't set a challenge deadline because I can't dedicate myself 100% to it. However, if the SNAP500 (or SHEN500) can be done in one year, I don't see any reason why a dedicated enthusiast couldn't complete the "Lee 333" in under a year also.

Today's Hike:
Distance: 8.0
Duration: 5:14
Ascent: 2166ft
PATC Difficulty: 186

Lee 333 Progress Summary:
Trails: 13 of 107
Trail Miles: 46.07 of 342.45 miles
Hiked Miles: 78.05 miles

Today's Track

    It was a great day to be on the trail. When I arrived at the parking area on Panhandle road there were about 25 or 30 bikes and one guy in a lawn chair. He was monitoring a triathlon. We spoke for a minute or two and I learned that he planned to hike the AT next year. He was reading "A walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson.

See "boat was inflatable" below....

From the Shenandoah River State park, here is a view of the Massanutten ridge where I hiked today.

  Hard to believe that I'll be on that ridge in just a couple of hours.

Well a couple of hours have passed...now, I'm on the Massanutten trail looking back down towards the Shenandoah State park where I was in the last two pictures.

This is where I met the three triathletes

    I set out to reach the ridge as soon as possible because I'd hiked the Veach Gap east trail before and wanted to get to some new trail. The last half mile is steep and gave me a good workout, once again. On my way up I passed 5 or 6 of the triathletes coming down. They looked hot and tired but were keeping up a brisk pace. 

     Upon reaching the Massanutten trail on the ridge I met three guys, wearing the yellow vests of the triathletes, sitting on a log. One of them asked me if I had any extra water. My initial reaction was to say that I couldn't spare any, I had 6 more miles to go on a hot day, but after seeing him put his head down and hands on his face I quickly changed my mind. I offered him a bottle of Gatorade. He drank about a third of it and tried to give it back. I said that he should finish it. He gave it to the guy next to him who had been keeping a eye on him. All three were friends running the race together. They shared the rest of it and I took the empty back. The first guy was trying to psyche himself up by reminding himself to "closely mind the trail ahead" since it is a mine field of loose rocks and steeply downhill. All four of us talked for about 5 minutes. I learned that one was a middle school computer teacher, one a general contractor and the third...I forget. They thanked me and were off again down the way I'd come up.

My first break. I'm just left the Veach Gap trail and turned south on the Massanutten trail.

     I did a little experiment with the camera and my sun glasses. Although they are prescription (not bifocals), the camera (cell phone) is still able to focus.  I thought it might cut the sun's glare. It did but it just looks like sepia photo to me.

Here's another with the sun glasses

This one and the next are for comparison (with and with out the sun glasses filter)

Without the filter

    I turned south and hiked along the Massanutten trail until I reach a local high point, I had gotten hot and needed a rest. I sat in the shade of a large tree trunk while the wind blowing up from the valley cooled me. It was a beautiful day and I just relaxed and made a call my wife (good cell signal on the ridge). It was easy to get started again since I knew I didn't have any more climbing to do because the trail stays on the ridge for miles from here south.

   I continued south on the Massanutten trail, keeping an eye out for the Dry Run trail. I found the abandoned Dry Run trail marked with a small rock cairn. The lower end of the trail is now on private land with no public access. I intended to hike down the Dry Run trail but changed my mind after seeing that it was in poor shape. That was supposed to be my turnaround point but since the trial was flat and the weather nice I continued on the Massanutten Trail far enough to round out the day's hike to 8 miles.

    

No Filter

Filtered

Near the Abandoned Dry Run Trail

Now, I'm over heated

Looking up from my bed of leaves

    I'd grown very tired and hot on my hike north, back the way I'd come, but kept going looking for the perfect place to take and extended break. I finally collapsed in a pile of leaves just off the trail. I really hate doing that because of the ticks. Next trip, I'll be sure to pack a ground sheet (Tyvek). Sure enough, as I was getting up to leave 30 minutes later I found a tick walking up my arm.

Heading back down Veach Gap Trail

    It was an uneventful walk back to the car but my day was not over just yet. As I drove south along Panhandle Road (a small dirt road in the middle of nowhere at about 6:30pm) I saw a guy walking along with a mostly empty water bottle and nothing else. I stopped and offered him a ride and he quickly accepted.

   After giving him a Gator-aid, he told me an interesting story of how he ended up there. It seems that he had been on a 3 day river trip on the North Fork of the Shenandoah when he came upon several canoes attempting to recover gear scattered in the river as a result of a capsized canoe. He pitched in to help out. That's when he paused to mentioned that his boat was inflatable. And yes, it did spring a leak when he was swept into a rock while helping. 

    The canoeists took him aboard one of their boats. They ferried him several miles farther then they had intended to go that day and eventually put him ashore where he could make his way out to a road. They stashed his gear at this point too. Since that time, he'd been road walking. I'm not sure how many hours that was but he said he'd walked over 10 miles by the time I picked him up. 

   He told me where his car was parked. It was still over 20 miles away and he'd been hiking the wrong way. Someone had given him bad directions. I really don't know what his plan at that point was but probably just to get anywhere. I, of course, drove him all that way to his car. We had a nice long talk and discovered that he's a Computer Science major at the University of Maryland, my alma mater!

Go Maryland