I failed to record last weekend's adventure to the summit views and curious crags of Sugarloaf Mountain, thirty-odd miles north of D.C. and the nearest actual mountain to the metropolis. It's another popular place, a rare private parkland open to the public, and reminiscent of the Chuckanut Range back home. It's not quite as large or tall or green, but if you swap all the conifers for hardwoods, oak in particular, you'll have a reasonable facsimile.
Trails are extensive and well connected, creating lots of options for shorter and modest outings. We parked at the bottom of the scenic drive (which allows access to some of the views without having to leave the comfort of your multi-CD changer and bucket seats). We rendezvoused at the porta-potty, that being an appropriate gathering place for the half of us that started our morning with a cup of jo.
It was an early morning to boot. I had to catch the first Metro train out of Silver Spring at 7:00 am or so and rode the thing 40 circuitous minutes to the carpool spot next to Grosvenor Station. I was the last one without a ride, so rather than queue up another set of wheels, the driver of a smallish import offered me the middle third of his backseat, which made for a cramped, but short drive to the mountain. I didn't know it until later in the day, but the guy I was elbowing next to me works in the same office as I do, a couple of floors up. For a city of a million people, I think that qualifies as serendipitous. (Actually, D.C.'s population is around 600,000 by night and swells to a million by day, once all the workers from the edges have commuted into the city.)
Back to the porta-potty and the game plan for the day. Our well organized leader informed his 21 apostles (yes, we were quite the congregation) of the main strategy--a large loop that would hither and thither rise and fall, ultimately reaching craggy White Rocks just in time for lunch. We marched up the trail and soon reached an upper parking lot where we shared a nice view of the lowlands with the bucketly-seated tribe. Then past wild, flowering cherry trees and up to the rocky summit with a great view back to the taller buildings of D.C. and, I believe, Baltimore on the not so distant horizon. Along the way, we looked down on the Potomac River and then out toward a coal-fired power plant with a giant 500-foot tall stack that one in our party had helped engineer. Interestingly, our leader had invited a fellow from the Forest Service to come along and educate us some on the effects of climate change on the local ecology.
At White Rocks, food was inhaled by all, while the mid-day weather alternated between nearly warm and sunny to sporadically breezy and cold, spurring constant confusion as to whether we were cold or just okay. I know I would have been more okay had I not left my cheese sandwich in the refridgerator that morning. I filled up on GORP instead, and had to eat my big juicy orange earlier than planned. I asked my fellow travelers for some tips on where to go hiking next--something more challenging, I said. Several soon agreed that Old Rag Mountain over in the Shenandoah might be just the thing. Steep and scrambling, they said. Hmmmm...
As the big tease between clouds and sun carried on like two kids making faces at each other, the climate lecture ensued. We learned that sea-level is rising and temperatures are warming and plants will likely migrate northward and upward in elevation and that tree-killing insects will begin to party 24/7 as the winters moderate in the coming decades--not unlike what's projected for the Cascades back home. Atmospheric carbon is rising at an extreme rate, in geologic terms, and is fast approaching 400 parts per million. At 390 presently, it's at the highest level it's been in perhaps 20 million years. The effects could be devastating. The skeptics still shrug, of course. They're just numbers.
Fully informed and duly alarmed, we got off our butts, slung packs on shoulders and finished our fine loop hike. Nice descending grades had us loping along like donkeys, heehawing over a couple of streams, and miraculously ending up, quite suddenly it seemed, at the morning's porta-potty landmark. The leader was behind us by now, so if one of my fellow followers now in the lead had missed the potty, it could have caused a real stink. Butt, I suppose all's well that ends well. And I wasn't even tired.
Now about this Old Rag Mountain hike...
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