submitted by Michael Seth
Jeff Monroe, Mike Hammer, Barbara Martin, Nancy Handley, Iva Gillet, Peggy Byrd, Marian Styles and Mike Smith met hike leader Michael Seth at the Food Lion in Elkton at 10 am. There were accompanied by two canines. The hike was supposed to be Crisman Hollow-Duncan Knob but a prescribed burn on Wednesday closed Crisman Hollow Road necessitating a last minute change to Roaring Run. It was a nine mile hike. Four miles and 1800’ up the Roaring Run Trail, then five miles easy gradual downhill along the Massanutten Trail and Big Mountain Road.
In three cars we took the 20 minute drive to Catherine Furnace. The three Mikes in the lead car, two with Iva and two with Jeff. Iva was the last car, then disappeared and miraculous appeared ahead of everyone (she took a shortcut). The weather was better than the forecast, with sunny skies in the morning and mostly cloudy in the afternoon, temperatures in the lower seventies.
After several people read the historical marker and admired the civil war era iron furnace we began our hike following the purple blazed Roaring Run Trail. We had one challenging stream crossing at the beginning. There was no consensus as to the best place to cross but everyone somehow managed to make it with dry feet. The trail was a bit muddy at first but as we ascended became drier. We were treated to some views to the east. We had lunch at the top. Mike Smith was busy identifying birds-pine warblers, a titmouse, while the others were eating and chatting. Everyone received a bag of nuts & M & Ms as an award for making it to the top.
After lunch it was almost all downhill. We walked along the Massanutten Trail which is just runs along a forest road, only the orange blazes suggest that it is a trail. The two dogs briefly became excited when a deer ran across. Then we returned to our cars vis Big Mountain Road that runs along the cascading Cub Run. We found two copperheads in the road-both dead. Along the way we saw hepaticas, spring-beauties, yellow corydalis, star chickweed, common and bicolor birdsfoot violets, pussytoes, pennycrest, speedwells, rock cress, and a vast forest of horsetails. Mike Hammer, Mike Seth, Marian, Iva, and Peggy briefly stopped at a shale barren noted for fossils. Marian seemed excited about finding one but after five minutes of turning over stones and not finding even a dinosaur footprint, she and the others gave up. Jeff and Barbara arrived at the cars first, followed by the failed fossil hunters and then Nancy and Mike Smith.
No comments:
Post a Comment