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 94: 11/27/05

Since our visit to the massive and fairly disgusting "Scoop On Poop"
wall display in the Cranberry Glades visitor center a few weeks back (and with the wildflower identification season pretty much over), The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All has come to fancy herself a bit of a scat expert. This new knowledge came back to haunt her a little on a raw Sunday along a poorly blazed, largely unmaintained ridge-line trail clearly seldom trod by humans, but full of evidence of other creatures'
use.

The stretch is the Price/Broad Mountain Trail between its crossing of Va. 606 southward to its intersection with the north end of the North Mountain Trail. The trail was mostly buried in fallen leaves on this day, but in occasional clear spots and others where the leaves were not so thick, there were enough evidences that Gail said she was a little nervous that we might come across a family, and that today might be The Day The Bears Have Their Picnic. But despite her identifications of both bear and fox ("or maybe a big cat") scat, through our four-mile-out/four-back walk, we saw only deer and squirrels.

We stopped near the North Mountain Trail intersection for lunch, finding a little scooped-out spot on the west side of the ridge, as the breeze that day (temperatures were predicted to reach the mid-50s but were in the low 40s when we ate) came, uncharacteristically and a little unpleasantly, from the east. And as soon as we had things spread out, the cloudy, uncertain sky began to yield light drizzle. With dry layers and the rain jackets, and a good view to the west, we stayed comfortable.

The ridge of Broad Mountain is anything but--at times no more than eight feet across--and only 2,500-2,600 feet in elevation, but without leaves on trees, the views to the east and west are constant and pleasing all along the route. But the second half of our walk back was marked by increasing drizzle and then light fog, adding to the slightly eerie feel of this path-not-taken-by-many. Perhaps as a result of the deteriorating weather, our return was about 15 minutes quicker than our trek out. Then again, maybe the Day Hiker wanted her bear evidence fully behind her before it had any further chance to turn into something more than just evidence.

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