Reported by Iva Gillet
It was the perfect day for Wiking- hiking to wineries! Andy Wilgruber met the group at AHS, so Leon Gorman and Baily added Karen Ramsey and Peter Wilcox to his car and traveled to the northwest Albemarle County Park. Hike leader Iva Gillet, was there to greet them along with new hikers Bob Haschart, Clai Lange, and Russ Smiley who joined us for this 5 miles circuit hike. To round off the group we had Michael Seth, Dan Ralston , Tricia Neumann, Bill Holman, Brian Muszynski, and Barbara Martin. 
We began up the paved path from the parking lot, passing the area for horse trailer parking, and ascended the mountain up the Great Mountains Trail. This park has been recently developed and hard work from Albemarle County has created a nice set of trails for mountain bikes, horses, and hikers. An expansive parking lot, color maps in the kiosk, picnic tables and 2 pit toilets are amenities here. Using existing trails and old logging roads as the basis for the first trails, there is now a nice loop with future expansion planned. This is a steep trail in places, as it is located just east of Loft Mountain, close to the SNP.
We took the loop counterclockwise, using the Little Flat Mountain Loop. We stopped to admire the view from the Gibson Mountain overlook, and as we were at the farthest part of our route, the expected happened- a shirtless man appeared from the other direction, who could be none other than John Brandt. Some of us inspected the view through the trees toward White Hall and Clai’s house, using our PATC maps, which don’t have this small park on it yet, to help our orientation. We descended down the Blackwells Trail, returning to the parking lot with the wine destination in our minds. 
John Brandt, Dan Ralston, and Barbara Martin wanted to get in a little more hiking, so they carpooled to Shady Grove and walked to Stone Mountain Vineyard while we carpooled there, taking the scenic route past Mission Home, and over Flattop Mountain. In his usual role as Super Volunteer, Andy headed off to check his trails near Afton, skipping the easier part of the day. We took our lunches in and spread out in the spacious tasting room with awesome views to the west from the deck. Stone Mountain provided us with a tasting of 13 wines, and due to our group size and the winery crowd, we tasted in 2 shifts. We had a very relaxing time, eating sipping, and chatting. The display here of a mountain still was a popular conversation piece. After about 1 ½ hours, we proceeded to Moss Vineyard on Simmons Gap Road. Bob and Clai returned prior to this, and left it to the remaining 7 to continue to decide the best wine of the day. Here we had 3 tasty wines and were given a tour and description of the wine making process by owner Barry Moss. The day was clear and cool, we had amazing views from several different vantage points, and we enjoyed old and new friends while tasting the bounty of Virginia wine. It doesn’t get better than this!
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