If I could catch as many fish as I took flower pictures, I would be in paradise. Similar to Big Meadows in Shenandoah National Park, you could take pictures in all seasons and they would be different. We didn’t see any bears or signs of bears, but surely they are here. There are lots of deer and rabbits, but they are both wary of people. In Big Meadows, you can walk right up to them, and bear are plentiful.
Expert photographer, Mark Zablotsky, recommended an app to identify flowers – Picture This, and it is great. You have to have internet, of which there is none in Hidden Valley, but when you get home, I just took a picture of a picture and it quickly identifies a plant, tells you the origin, uses, how it might be used in your home garden and much more.
With a macro lens or a phone, you can get good pictures of flowers. The difficulty is getting pictures of a bunch of flowers and to get them in focus. Looking into photostacking.
The Jackson River Trail is approximately 16 miles long following the Jackson River flowing south from Cedar Creek To downtown Covington, Virginia. We wanted to ride from Cedar Creek down, but that section isn’t finished yet, so we went down to Natural Well, first riding north as far as we could, then riding south for about an hour before turning around. It is a beautiful trail with great scenery of farmland and the Jackson River. We talked to a few people, but mostly we had it to ourselves.
After loading the bikes in the truck we drove up the mountain to explore Lake Moomaw from the east side. There is a very nice campground with shower houses at the top of the mountain with very few people there. Driving down the mountain, we found a beautiful sandy beach with only two people there on a hot July day. At the bottom of the mountain the road ended at the bottom of the Gathright Dam, which should be a great tailwater fishery, but I think there is only a short section that you can fish. Not far down is a beautiful private property.
Lake Moomaw is 2,530-acre cold water lake fed and drained by the Jackson River. It boasts 40 miles of undeveloped shoreline. There is a nice campground on the other side as well.
We chilled back at camp for a couple of hours before exploring the bird trail in Hidden Valley. I was surprised by the numbers of birds in trees surrounding a marshy-looking low area. Like the day before, we were amazed at the variety of wildflowers that were worked by bees and butterflies. An ebird list of Hidden Valley birds identified 127 species! Sadly, in a perfect setting, not one quail was noted. Maybe next time I will take the big lens, a tripod, water and some snacks and sit on a bench.
I have been to Hidden Valley several times to fish the Jackson River, but I wanted to return to explore more of the area. A beautiful B&B, Warwickton built in 1848, sits in the heart of the property, but I love staying in the campground with our Airstream. The campsite fee is $15, and is only half of that with a Senior National Park Pass. Originally I was going by myself, since Martha was going to Africa with her girl friends. However, the flight was cancelled, so they returned home from Atlanta. Well, it isn’t Africa, but she decided to come along and discover Hidden Valley.
After loading groceries and clothes, we got an early start for a pretty two-hour drive to Warm Springs. We drove around the campground a couple of times to select a site, which is difficult because they are all nice. We got setup, fixed some lunch and went for a walk. there are about 200 acres of “hay fields” that are just loaded with wildflowers. Well-maintained paths are cut around and through the fields. Butterflies and bees are busy gathering nectar from all the flowers. It was hot in the sun, even though it was about 8 degrees cooler than at home. The elevation is about 1,500′ with mountains surrounding it in 8,000 acres of George Washington National Forest. The Jackson River runs through the valley with 6.5 miles of river. Connecting to the north is Poor Farm, offering more river frontage and dispersed camping. My goal for tomorrow was to hike to Poor Farm along the river, crossing the swinging bridge. On Wednesday I wanted to bike the Jackson Trail, a rails-to-trails, well-developed trail along the Jackson River.
Trying to keep things simple, we just brought the Cobb Stove, a small grill that uses 6-10 lumps of charcoal. Martha is a great camp cook, cooking chicken for me, a pork chop for her and a riot of peppers, onions and squash. It was wonderful. There is no cell phone service in the valley and no radio or TV reception. It is interesting to spend four days without things we feel are “essential”. I had a new book by Kelly Sutton, A River Runs Through It Outdoor Reflections. I finished that the first day, and found it quite entertaining. We have been hunting and fishing together for a very long time. You can find his book on Amazon.
I get up early every day, but I slept till 5:00, which is quite good for me. With all the windows open, it had cooled to about 69 degrees, which was perfect with a sheet. Birds were waking and talking to each other, so I crept out to the field to look for a deer or perhaps a bear, but no such luck. We knew it was going to be a hot day for an 8-mile round trip hike, so we filled the water bottles and packed some granola bars and sandwiches. We were off by 7:15.
We drove up to the trail head in front of the elegant Warwickton. Our phones would have to do for cameras today. We had already seen four deer and several rabbits. The grass was wet with dew, and it was a beautiful morning for a hike. Deer, rabbits, butterflies and bees were everywhere. After two hay fields, we were in the forest, nice and cool. It took about 45 minutes to get to the first bridge, where I went straight toward Muddy Run. The trail followed it along until it crossed the now small stream. We saw a blaze on a tree on the other side, so we crossed, but were unable to follow the trail. Disappointed, we headed back down.
When we got to the bridge, we decided to cross and see where that went. It led back to the Jackson River and the famous swinging bridge. We paused in the middle to admire the beautiful river, then crossed to the other side. A sign pointed to the right to Poor Farm in 2.5 miles, but we had spent our energy going up Muddy Run. I turned around to cross back over the bridge when I was attacked by yellow jackets, quickly running back to the side. those little things just stick to you and keep stinging until you smack them off.
Well, fortunately the path went in both directions, so we headed downstream, hoping to end up at Warwickton. With no phone service and no map, we weren’t really sure where we were going, but hopefully not up and over the mountain to Back Creek. As long as it followed the river, we should be good, but we were on the mountain side, so it went up and down on a narrow trail.
After a lot of trekking, we indeed found ourselves in front of Warwickton. Crossing a bridge we saw a man leading people on a horse ride. Now THAT’S the way to do it! We talked to him for a bit, getting his information before they jogged on. We were tired, hungry and thirsty by the time we got back to camp, but it was all good, except for a bunch of itching bee stings.
The weather forecast for our stay in Abingdon wasn’t good, but it kept changing. It’s a tradition to gather around the coffee pot and sweet rolls in the morning. I asked Jeff about the hike to “The Devil’s Bathtub”. He said it was an hour drive, a two-mile hike out and two-miles back with 6 stream crossings. “There have been 100 rescues since 2018!” Scott County advises not to hike if the water is above your knees. Amanda had warned us yesterday that “people die in there.” The rain was supposed to hold off until 2:00. With some hesitation and discussion, we decided to go along with 8 others.
We rode with Martin and Karen and had some nice discussions along the way, which made the hour drive go quickly. It looked like rain as I got a couple of pictures at the trailhead. This was a serious mining and logging area years ago, so probably not a good trout stream, although it sure is pretty. We soon came to the first ford, which was up to our knees, but the water was clear. Jeff said it was an inch or two higher than when he hiked it Wednesday. Being the good leader he is, he wanted to test it before taking a group. That made me feel better. Our group was pretty hardy, and everyone helped at the crossings.
It was a very pretty hike to a very cool destination. The main pool is reported to be 10-12′ deep. We paused there to take pictures and have lunch before heading back. A couple of people slid down on crossings, but after a few crossings, no one seemed to mind getting wet. Small gravel is always safer than big, slippery rocks to step on, but despite my warnings, people seem to want to step on the big rocks. Fortunately there were no injuries and everyone was happy to have gone. Lee felt we should have merit badges for having accomplished it in less than ideal conditions.
We got out of our wet clothes, showered and managed a little nap. At 5:30 we met Randy and Xan for dinner at “The Tavern”. Somehow the Tavern seems to always be good with good service. Our waiter coached wrestling, and Randy encouraged him to get with UVA’s wrestling coach, Steve Garland.
We went to the small venue of the Barter Theater to watch a two-person play, “Grandma Gatewood Took a Walk”, by Catherine Bush. “I said I’d do it, and I’ve done it.” One fine spring day, Emma Gatewood, a 67-year-old mother and grandmother, told her children she was “going for a walk.” She failed to mention that her walk would make her the first woman to solo hike the newly formed Appalachian Trail. “Grandma Gatewood Took A Walk” is a wildly theatrical adventure following Emma and all who played a part in her incredible journey.
It is an incredible true story and one of the best plays I have seen. It plays until June 9th and worth the drive just to see this play. Mary Lucy Bivins does a marvelous job as Grandma and John Hardy is great, playing about 6 different people. Grandma not only hiked the AT once, but became the first person to hike it three times! She hiked the Oregon Trail in 1959 and worked on a section that would become the Buckeye Trail. She was inducted into the Appalachian Trail Hall of Fame in 2012. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandma_Gatewood).
It was 10:00 by the time we got to bed, and I was asleep at 10:01.
It is about a 5.5 hour drive from Durango to Colorado Springs, which is northeast of Durango. It takes us about an hour or so longer by the time we stop for lunch, gas and whatever else happens. Pulling the Airstream makes us a little slower, but not that much. We arrived yesterday, staying at lovely Cheyenne Mountain State Park, a perfect location for visiting the area, yet you feel you are away from it all. It’s a great spot with great views.
We had a list of things to do thanks to Carlotta at the sheepskin store in Durango. We wanted to do two of them today. First up was Garden of The Gods National Natural Area. Located in the city, It is a busy place that attracts visitors like us as well as a great place for locals for hiking, biking or walking dogs. There is an excellent Visitor’s Center with a great porch overlooking the park. It would be much nicer early in the morning when not so crowded, It is also easiest to walk through. We drove and found it difficult to park. Everyone wanted to have their pictures taken sitting or climbing on the rock formations. After a few pictures, I had enough. A very nice guide at the visitor’s center told us about a restaurant at the other end of the park, so we went for a nice lunch.
Pike’s Peak behind
Next up was driving up Pike’s Peak, a 14,115′ mountain on the front range of the Rockies. Colorado has 53 fourteeners and the US has 96. I had read about this treacherous drive and was preparing myself. You have to reserve a time to go so the little road isn’t too crowded. The other way to go is by taking the cog train, quite an engineering feat to get a train up a steep mountain. Of course gold was the first call to Pike’s Peak, but it didn’t really pan out.
It was named many things by different people, the first known name was a Ute name meaning Long Mountain. Its current name came from explorer General Zebulon Pike. At the same time as the Lewis and Clark expedition, President Jefferson commissioned him to explore through the Louisiana Purchase territory in 1805-1806. A second expedition took him to the southwest – Texas and New Mexico (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebulon_Pike). I had never heard of him until writing this article, but he is quite an explorer and Brigadier General, killed in the War of 1812. Like Lewis, he kept a journal and later wrote a book that was very popular around the world. I ordered a second-hand copy. You can also read it at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43774/43774-h/43774-h.htm.
The base of the mountain took us to the very cute, little town of Manitou Springs. The road first climbs through Pike National Forest on a normal road. You purchase a ticket @ $10 per adult. Then we passed a small guard house. Thereafter the road becomes steep, narrow and winding. A nice ranger gave some good tips: go slow; downshift coming down into first or second gear – mostly first! I hate this kind of road, on the precipice, with sharp curves and switchbacks and areas with no guardrails. On some of the turns I couldn’t see if anyone was coming or not. Driving on the inside is OK, but when on the outside I’m a wreck. Well a wreck is one thing, but one mistake here and it’s Goodbye! Or what if someone else makes a mistake, texting or videoing while driving? All kinds of thoughts crept through my head as Martha urged me on, totally unaffected. She offered to drive, which makes me even more afraid. Later I asked her what she would do if I fainted or had a heart attack. She said she would reach over and put it in first gear and take control. Pretty cool!
Once at the top, there is a nice visitor’s center and great views all around the top. Some rain came through, obstructing the views a bit. The ravens met us again, making me feel better. I watched with amazement as they sailed through the air with ease at this altitude. Of course they are attracted to areas like this where humans always leave something to eat, or something to take home as a prize.
I was shocked in the Visitor’s Center to learn there is an annual car race up the mountain called Pikes Peak International Hillclimb. This ain’t no hill! It is 12.42 miles, 156 turns and 14,115 ft elevation. It used to include motorcycles, but after four deaths, they quit having motorcycles. I cannot comprehend racing up this mountain!
There is also THE BROADMOOR CYCLE TO THE SUMMIT for those who would rather bike 12 miles with a 4,725 ft elevation gain!
I did as the ranger told me going down. I put it in first or second gear and took it slow, stopping a couple of times at overlooks. I started breathing again when I saw the little guardhouse. I stopped next to it wondering why. A man checked the heat of my brakes and said I was borderline, but recommended stopping to let them cool down for about 10 minutes. There is a small souvenir/restaurant, so we checked that out while I and the brakes cooled down. The rest of the way was a normal mountain road.
Someone told us to go to Elakala Falls, so we did. It’s a short, but treacherous, slippery walk down to the pretty falls. Another photography workshop was scattered all over the rocks, their mentor moving around to help each.
The Elakala Falls are a series of four waterfalls of Shays Run[2] as it descends into the Blackwater Canyon in West Virginia. They are within Blackwater Falls State Park[3] and are quite popular among photographers, with the ease of access for the first waterfall, and the relatively low traffic of the other waterfalls in the series.[4]: 219 The first of the series of waterfalls is 35 feet (11 m) in height and is easily accessible from park trails. It is the second most popular waterfall in the park.[1] From the official Elakala trail there is a bridge over the top of the first waterfall offering easy access and views.[4]: 219 The remaining three waterfalls of the series are progressively more difficult to access, and have no official marked trails to them.[1] The gorge is nearly 200 feet deep at this section accounting for the difficulty of the descent to the lower waterfalls of the series. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elakala_Falls.
45 minutes from Blackwater Falls State Park, driving through Canaan Valley, is the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area. I am on a photography workshop with Mark Zablotsky (https://www.markzphotoworkshops.com) exploring West Virginia. The weather has been for rain the entire week, so I guess we were lucky to be confronted by heavy fog. By the time we got to the gravel road leading up the east side of the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area, we could barely see 10 feet in front of us. We crept up the narrow road hoping no one was coming down in the dark. Our goal was to catch the sunrise from the top of Bear Rocks, but that was not to be. Finally at the top, we pulled into a parking lot that was filled. I think most were photographers like us, but there were also hikers and probably others who just wanted to see the area.
“Dolly Sods is a rocky, high-altitude plateau with sweeping vistas and lifeforms normally found much farther north in Canada. To the north, the distinctive landscape of “the Sods” is characterized by stunted (“flagged”) trees, wind-carved boulders, heath barrens, grassy meadows created in the last century by logging and fires, and sphagnum bogs that are much older. To the south, a dense cove forest occupies the branched canyon excavated by the North Fork of Red Creek.”
“The name derives from an 18th-century Germanhomesteading family — the Dahles — and a local term for an open mountaintop meadow — a “sods“. From Wikipedia. The wilderness area covers 17,300 acres just north of Seneca Rocks. There are some 47 miles (76 km) of hiking trails within the DSW (see below), many situated along the courses of abandoned railroad grades and old logging roads. The premier viewpoint within the Wilderness, affording a vista of the entire Red Creek drainage, is at a set of rocky crags known as Lion’s Head Rock. It is reached by an almost three-mile climb from the nearest road. The last quarter mile is an eight-foot-wide bench (an old railroad grade) in the side of an otherwise steep slope. Like the cliffs constituting the eastern edge of the Sods at Rohrbaugh Plains, Lion’s Head Rock consists of a mixture of sandstone and conglomerate. The Northland Loop Trail is a 0.3 mile interpretive trail just south of Red Creek Campground on FS Rt 75 which accesses Alder Run Bog a typical, and much studied, northern bog or southern muskeg.[6]” From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_Sods_Wilderness.
As we waited in the parking area, we talked with others about when or if the fog might lift. A young lady had a drone, and she sent it up to try to get above the fog, but she could not. She got nervous when it went out of sight, lost in the fog. She was afraid it might not find its way back. I enjoyed talking with a gentleman who had camped at the campground a mile or so back down the road. He said he slept in his car, a Subaru SUV. Looking at the small vehicle, I couldn’t quite imagine, but as he talked about not want to drive up here in the dark, I asked if I could see. He smiled and opened up the back of the car. Using someone else’s design, He had built a wooden camping frame, including a pull-out table and cutting board, storage area, shelves with a rechargeable battery. He was quite proud of his Exbed mattress that he said is just like sleeping at home. He also has a tent that fits over the back so he can leave the hatchback open. I thought it was very cool, especially for a place like this.
After the sun came up, the fog was still socked in, so we decided to walk around the bog and take pictures. I thought it a good time to use my Zeiss macro lens. I have not used it because I couldn’t get it to work. Kevin had the same issue, so Mark showed us we had to have it set to the red number on the manual F-stop ring. I had such a good time wandering the waist-high bushy mountain top that I got lost in the fog. With everything looking exactly the same, I wasn’t sure where I was. There were paths, so I followed one to a big sign describing the area and turned left down the hill when I heard Mark calling out to me from the other direction. I yelled back and headed toward his voice. It took a few more yells to get me back to the parking lot. A gentleman said I was lucky. It is so easy to get lost up here in the fog. Heading back down the road, I promised myself to come back as this is a very special place…..and we could barely see anything.
On our way down the mountain, we came upon a young man standing beside his white van that had one wheel stuck in a deep ditch. He said a guy ran him off the road and never stopped. We had no tow rope, but Mark said he saw a similar problem last year and found a truck shop that could help him. We would send help. I think it was Oakdale Repair shop with trucks and cars all over the lot. Two nice young men inside decided who would go, nodded and agreed to head up the mountain. Thanking them, we headed back to Blackwater Falls State Park.
