Mr. & Mrs. Link

Assateague Island is a bureaucrat’s dream.  Part national park, part state park across two different states with all sorts of new rules and regulations that vary depending on which side of an arbitrary fence you are on.  But it’s also a place where you can camp a hundred yards from the beach with wild horses.  Which is really cool.

It has been on the bucket list for a long time.  Tiff and I actually had a reservation for early this year, but the weather went nasty and we decided not to go.  So when some friends invited us to join them for a weekend, I had to take the offer, despite the fact that Tiffany was stuck on-call for her Medicine Rotation and couldn’t make it.  Medicine is one of the toughest rotations – in her write-up, Tiffany neglected to say how many activities she had to forgo for work.  She doesn’t complain about it – she never does.  But I sure miss her when she’s not there!

Once Brian and I finally found the campsite (after accidentally going to the Federal Park instead of one of the state ones), we had a great time. We red-cupped the beach for several hours as the sun slowly set, then grilled dogs and burgers for dinner. Brian and I had been in charge of firewood and as we drove in we passed a guy who was selling it off the side of the road. We went a bit nuts and filled the entire RAV4 with firewood. So we had plenty of firewood for the night.

Which was good because it got very windy – and very cold. It’s almost a blessing that Tiffany couldn’t make it because she’s not cut from Montana stock and she’s more sensitive to the lower end of the temperature spectrum. Eventually, we turned in, but the wind got even more intense.

My tent survived the night – although from inside it seems like to blow over at any minute. Several other tents didn’t fair as well. Kelly’s tent blew over with her inside. And hers wasn’t the only one.

And the next morning, true to form, the wild horses rolled through camp. They weren’t shy, and one suspects, they weren’t hungry either.

I’ve gotten pretty far behind in posting, so we’re going to have to go back in time here.  All the way back to early September when Tiff and I joined some Capitol Hill Tubing Society friends Andy and Brian on an overnight camping trip to the George Washington National Forest.

The initial plan was a full loop that I found in Backpacker Magazine.  But we got a late start and dramatically underestimated the distance of the hike.  Worse, where we assume that we would be able to fill water bottles on the hike, the majority of it was along ridge-lines where there weren’t water options.

So instead of doing the loop, we knocked out the vertical on the trip and set camp at the summit of Meneka Peak.

Since it was just the one night, we packed in steaks and potatoes and had a delicious dinner around the campfire and relaxed.

It’s rare to camp on an actual summit.  Usually, you camp in a protected nook or valley where the ground slopes upward around you.  Camping on a summit is a strange feeling – the ground falls away from you in every direction, so you feel a bit like melted butter on top of a pancake – like you’re going to slide right off the side of the mountain.  It was  a bit disconcerting – both Tiffany and I kept waking up all night with a strange feeling that something wasn’t quite right.  Of course, everything was fine but things just felt weird.  I’ve camped all my life, but I’ve never had quite this feeling of vertigo.

Final point, despite all of the camping and hiking Tiff and I have done over the past years, this was the first backpacking trip we’ve done on the East Coast.  All our overnight trips have been in the Rockies and all our camping out East has been from the car.

During our adventure on Glacier National Park’s Highline Trail, we saw some amazing sights in still life.  But I think it’s the wild life that we saw that will be the most memorable.

As we drove from Flathead to the trail head at the top of the Going to the Sun Highway, Rachel regaled us with a dramatic reading of an account of Glacier National Park’s famous “Night of the Grizzlies.”  The story, which has become foundational Montana lore, relates the tale of two fatal grizzly bear attacks in the same night, August 13, 1967.  One such attack involved a mother and her two cubs, just a few hundred yards from the Granite Park Chalet.

We were hiking on August 12.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Bear with me.

Right off the bat, we saw the GNP staples.  A mountain sheep and a mountain goat within 100 feet of each other and only about 5-minutes into the hike.  I’m still suspicious that they were animatronic, placed there before the sun comes up by enterprising tour guides hoping for fat tips from obese RV tourists.

As we hiked, countless ground squirrels crossed the trail all around us.  Living in Glacier, they had developed no fear whatsoever of people (and probably come to associate us with food), so they came very, very close.  Then, as I was looking down a valley, I heard Tiffany squeal.

That’s Tiff’s Universal Furry Animal Face™ and she’s making it because a marmut had crested a large rock to role into the lunch spot of some fellow hikers.  The marmut was very brave… as you can see from the pictures, Tiffany was not.  When I later asked her why she had been so trepidatious to feed a furry friend from her hand, she explained that the marmut was a wild animal.  Probably smart.

After our close encounter with rodent kind, we set off again, and an hour later, were shocked by another – larger – sample of GNP wildlife.  Equally brave, this four-point mule dear marched past the trail at a distance of about 50 yards.  I followed him backward for a short distance, when he came across a steep drop framed by trees.  I couldn’t have picked a better location if I was creating a digital deer with CGI!  At which point, Muley posed.  Literally posed.  For 5 minutes, he stood there until I actually got bored taking pictures (!) and just stopped for a minute to appreciate the situation.

So there we were, euphoric from our wildlife encounters to that point, not thinking about the story we’d heard about that fateful August in 1967 when the Grizzlies reasserted their dominance.  As we walked, another hiker hurried toward us on the trail.  He warned that there was a mother grizzly bear and her two cubs just around the next bend.

I had never seen a grizzly bear i the wild.  I’ve seen black bears (surprisingly, not in Montana, but in Virginia).  But never a grizzly bear.  And just around the corner – and a mere half mile from the site of the 1967 attacks – we saw them.  Just like the that fateful night, a mother and her two cubs… no more than 250 yards away…

As we watched (and we watched for a long time), the bears walked along the ridge parallel to the trail.  The closed the distance slowly until they were 200 yards away, between the Highline Trail that we were on and the Grinnell Glacier Trail.  But the two trails merged, and the further they bears moved, the closer they got to the Grinnell Trail.  All of the sudden, a man and his two young children rounded a bend and came to within a stone’s throw from the foraging bears.  Finally, as we waved them off, they saw the bears and slowly backed away.

Eventually, the bears began to mosey back toward us.  As it was about to rain, and everyone was hungry, we decided it was time to go.  By the time we left, the bears were withing 100 yards away… and they had noticed us…

We were only in Glacier National Park for about 12 hours, but it felt like we’d been there a week.  I can’t wait to go back!  More pics below:

From the extreme southwest of Montana, we spend a day in the extreme northwest for some world-class hiking on Glacier National Park’s Highline Trail.  Glacier includes some of the most incredible hikes in the world, and the 12-mile Highline Trail is near the top of the class.  The first seven miles take you from Logan Pass (the pinnacle of the Going to the Sun Highway), across the ridges to the Granite Park Chalet.  The hike entails only 600 feet up and down (the net change in altitude between the start and finish is only 14 feet), so it’s pretty easy, but it cuts through some amazing country.

It’s pretty evident from the photos above, that the weather on our hike was overcast and chilly.  Initially, this was disappointing for me as I was hoping for the grand vistas of Glacier National Park, but in retrospect is was a blessing for three reasons.  First, by all rights, the Highline Trail in August should have been packed with people.  Sure, it’s a long hike, but it’s an easy one that attracts people from around the world.  But the weather kept the crowds away; we still saw people, but not too many.  Second, the cooler temperatures brought out wildlife – and we saw a lot.  Third, while the cliche blue-sky landscapes on this trail are a dime a dozen, the low clouds gave me an opportunity to shoot something unique.  The photos are downright spooky at times, but they capture the temperamental personality of Mother Nature.  It was stunning.

After a little more than seven miles, you reach the Granite Park Chalet – one of two surviving stone lodges that were built in the park 70 years ago when visitors rode a train to East Glacier and then rode from stop to stop on horseback through the park.  We arrived at the Chalet just after the sky made good on its ongoing threat of rain.  By the time we walked through the door, we were drenched.

After lunch at the chalet, we realized that we had 4 more miles to go (this time, descending 2,400 feet ) to “The Loop” on the Going to the Sun Highway.  We also realized that we were behind schedule (after all the photo and wildlife stops).  As we’d left the trailhead, Travis had noted that the last shuttle from the Loop to Logan Pass where we’d parked the car was at 6:15 pM, so we had to haul tail to get there.  So we set off down the trail setting a brisk pace until it became clear that someone was going to have to run.  Rachel and Travis took off – barely making the last shuttle of the day.  And as we descended, the sun finally came out for a few minutes.

Okay, now, I realize that I’ve made several references to wildlife.  And posted no pictures.  Bear with me (pun intended)… I’ll post that in a second post shortly.

*These photos aren’t necessarily in strict chronological order

When I was 10, Comet Peak put up a fight.  But it wasn’t a fair fight.

The first time I climbed Comet Peak – at the north end of the Pioneer Mountains (the second highest range in Montana behind the Beartooths) – was after a long morning of hunting deer in the Grasshopper Creek drainage in the Big Hole.  Hunting with my dad wasn’t a sedentary experience.  It was an up-before-dawn with a heavy daypack and 20 pound rifle trudging over fences and rivers to get to the most inaccessible places because logically “that’s where the game hides.”  I don’t remember the details of this particular hunt, except that we didn’t see anything (we did hear a large crash through the deadfall), and by the early afternoon, we decided to call it quits.

So to fill the rest of the day, we drove over to Comet Peak.  I was already hungry when we set out – up the old road that starts at some abandoned mines.

Montana can get cold during hunting season, and with a summit over 10,000 feet, Comet Peak was downright wintery.  Once the road ended, you’re confronted with a large boulder field, which requires scrambles.  Ordinarily, I enjoyed these sorts of hikes, but on this day, it was cold and the scrambles not only required me to take my hands out of my pockets, but to hold onto freezing granite.

About three quarters of the way up, it started to sleet.  The wind picked up.  It hailed.  It was miserable.

Once you crest the boulder field, you’re confronted with the final gradual rock-strewn slope to the summit.  That slope proved to be my breaking point.  The exhaustion from the day’s hunt, the freezing weather and the psychological blow of facing more vertical after achieving the false summit proved too much, and for the only time in my hiking memory, I cried…

So a return to Comet Peak has been on my to-do list, and the recent trip to Big Hole provided the perfect opportunity for a rematch.

A pica – otherwise known as a rock-rabbit – distinguishable for its distinctive squeak (and possibly as the inspiration for Pikachu).

Once again, the weather threatened precipitation (although, August favors rain to November’s sleet and snow).  Rain clouds began rolling in from the south.  We took refuge from the short afternoon rainstorm in the relative safety of an abandoned mine shaft.

After it stopped raining, it was onward and upward through the boulder field.  Among the boulders, Tiffany came across this patch of wild flowers.  She went nuts.  It was pretty stunning, and we named it Tiffany’s Meadow.

Tiffany and Rachel gain the summit.  Tiffany celebrates while Rachel signs the book at the top.  For some reason, the USGS Marker doesn’t indicate an elevation at the summit.  It should read: 10,217 feet.

Comet peak might be named because of its shape.  The westerns slope is gradual and easy to climb, but at the summit it plummets into a steep mountain canyon.  The granite boulder that is its apex is situated with thousands of feed of exposure – sheer cliffs – along two thirds of its circumference.  Standing on it provides a commanding view of Hopkin Lake far below.  It also provides a feeling of standing on a naked precipice thousands of feet over the rocks below.

Rachel, Tiffany and Dad jumped up on the rock easily – I had a little more vertigo.  Not being very good with heights, I was hesitant at first… it’s a long way down.

But eventually, with some coaxing from Rachel, I stood up.  And as I did, the sun broke through the clouds!  It had been cloudy all day, but within ten minutes of reaching the summit, as we were eating, the clouds began to break and for the next half hour we had sunshine, beautiful clouds and (for the photographer in me) excellent light.

There was another cliff face a few hundred yards away that you could get to by hiking down and then back up.  After lunch, I decided to scout it out so I could get some shots back at the group.  From the summit, it was hard to see just how sheer the cliffs we were perched on actually were.  It was very steep, such that you couldn’t see the bottom, and the ledge was too unsure to approach close enough to look straight down.  The new view afforded by my venture revealed just how exposed we actually were.  These cliffs continue downward for hundreds of more feet than what was visible in the shots below.  From my subsequent research of topo-maps, it appears that these cliffs are matched on the other side as well.

The first three are Rachel; the fourth is Tiffany:

More pictures here, including shooting the .22 when we were done:

Every year since 2007, we’ve done a weekend camping/hiking trip down to Old Rag in Shenandoah National Park.  That makes this year the Fourth adventure, and for the first time we did it on Memorial Day Weekend.

Day One is camping.  For the first Old Rag Adventure, we actually camped in the park itself, which turned out to be a bad idea.  ”Quiet hours” are very strictly enforced at 11 pm.  We stayed up until 11:30 and then called it a night.  As we were settling into our tents to go to sleep, we were assailed by no fewer than four police cars and eight Front Royal Police Officers who had made the 45-minute one-way drive down to our campsite after the Park Ranger called them to complain about us at 11 pm sharp.  It was a mess; they wanted desperately to cite us for something for the trouble of the drive, but we were above reproach.

Anyway, since then, we’ve camped in the horse fields of Graves Mountain Lodge in Syria, VA.  It’s a great deal, and it’s free from both quiet hours and restriction on fires.  For a minimal investment of cash and beer, it’s a great night.  And we got a lot of firewood.

(Bierwagen had a stroke of genius at some point during the night.  So far, we’ve always camped/drank first and then hiked the next day.  The problem is, as we get older, we don’t recover from the drinking quite like we used to.  So the new plan: hike on day one, camp that night.  That lets us leave at a leisurely pace the next day.)

In previous years, we’ve had the camping fields all to ourselves, but this year it was full of horse trailers and upper class rednecks who were camping out for a week before the annual Blue Grass Festival (think a blue caller Woodstock).  We actually met some of our neighbors, including a shirtless horse rider who told us about his plan to stay for two weeks and to be “lit up the whole tahm!”

There was Savannah Marie (not our sister) who was 10 years old, large and in charge.  Imagine Rosanne at ten.  Her dad was two sheets to the wind and friendly as hell.  At around midnight, he rode his horse into the middle of our camp, proclaimed loudly that he was “The Great White Warrior” and then rode off drunkenly into the night (I think Bierwagen might have captured that on film; I missed it).

Day Two was the hike.  We slept in as long as we could before our tents turned into saunas.  While we waited for the hangover medicine to sink in, we broke camp and got ready for the 10-minute drive to the Old Rag trail head.

It was a very hot day – it would get up to 90, and sticky.  It was also Sunday on Memorial Day weekend.  I’d never seen the parking lot that crowded.  It didn’t help that the famous upper lot has been closed… for good.  They got a green light to build a larger lot, so I guess that’s progress.

We parked, paid (it was May 30, the second to last day on our Annual Pass) and off we went!

As we walked, I happened to look down a side-trail and saw a rather unique sight.  A million butterflies just camped out there in the sun.  Probably mating or something.  Anyway,  Tiffany has always dreamed of being swallowed in a cloud of butterflies; and this might actually be her chance.  So we took a short detour:

Tiff and I have done Old Rag more times than I can remember.  It’s a really, really fun hike.  It starts with a challenging climb that eventually morphs into a series of rock scrambles.  The scrambles can be tricky – especially if you’ve never done it before.

With the Memorial Day Weekend crowd, there were some traffic jams.  Seriously, traffic jams on a mountain.  There were also some very interesting characters including a guy climbing in flip-flops, an unwashed hippie with no underroos and a butt-crack on display for the whole world.

This year’s Old Rag adventure featured two Old Rag virgins: Matt Mauer and Jeff Marty made the summit for the first time!

With ski season over, the Links were getting restless in Columbia.  So we hit the road with our annual pass to Shenandoah National Park and knocked off two more hikes from our book.  It was a beautiful spring day – upper 50s  and sunny.  When we went hiking last fall, it was cool to see how fall reached the upper altitudes faster than the valley.  Spring is no different.  Along Skyline Drive, it was still winter – no buds even on the trees.  But you could look down into the valley and see spring creeping up the hillsides.

Dark Hollow Falls is a short, strenuous hike in the middle of the park.  It’s identified in the book as the busiest hike in the Park, and considering how the park was empty but the trail was still crowded, I’m not surprised.  The falls are nice, and for the hike, probably the best pay-off for the effort.  The Cedar Run White Oak Canyon falls are better, but a lot harder to get to.

After the falls, we drove five miles to the next trail head.  It was a familiar location.  The starting point for Hawksbill Peak is the same as the starting point for White Oak Canyon, except instead of going down to the east, you go up to the west.  At 4,050 feet, it’s the highest point in Shenandoah, with a commanding view of, among other things, Old Rag Mountain.

The hike was longer, and only moderately strenuous.  The peak itself can be reached by 4-5 different trails, so it was rather crowded.  We spent the first half of the hike on the Appalachian Trail where we came across a single backpacker.  But then we hooked onto the Salamander Trail and had the place to ourselves.  There were several good lookouts along the trail that we had completely to ourselves.

From one such nook, we were lucky to see a peregrine falcon – the fastest animal on the planet.  Of the wildlife we’ve seen in Shenandoah, bears are the most common (seriously), then deer, squirrels and millipedes.  The peregrine falcon is probably the best sighting because of how rare it is.  Turns out, there’s a nesting pair on the Hawksbill Cliffs just off the summit, so sightings around the peak aren’t that rare.  But still, it’s not a sure thing.