Blackrock Summit and Hogsback Mountain (VA)

Morning at camp.

We picked up our camp at Shenandoah's Loft Mountain on Labor Day, and not missing a beat, headed for the camp store for some morning joe. A ranger was leading a talk-and-walk a few miles away to Blackrock Summit, which sounded like a mountain top to me. We scooted over to the trailhead to get our minds prepared for another itty-bitty mountain climb. Yeah, pretty easy, but still nursing a sore knee, I’ll take what I can get.

 

21. Blackrock Summit:  The ranger pointed out a prescribed fire area, where the Park Service had intentionally burned the forest on one side of the trail in 2008 to mimic the ecological benefits of natural fire. He stopped again to show us a small American chestnut tree. All but extinct, these once wide-ranging, giant, nut-producing trees were dominant in Shenandoah and across much of the Appalachians. Tree trunks up to ten feet across were not uncommon. Instead of looking out at a sea of oaks, hickory, locust and other trees we’re more familiar with today, Americans over a century ago were marveling at great stands of giant trees rivaling even the large, old-growth conifers of the Pacific Northwest. As in the NW, the big trees were also decimated by logging throughout much of their range.

When Asian chestnuts were introduced, they brought a disease, chestnut blight, to which the American trees had no natural resistance. They died off by the millions, decade by decade, until nearly all disappeared. The roots often remain alive underground and frequently send up new shoots, but the blight sets in after a few years and the young trees quickly die off. Genetic monkeying has produced trees that are 94 percent native and six percent Asian, which apparently provides for some resistance to the blight, but the Park Service has been reluctant to plant the genetically modified trees at Shenandoah in order to preserve natural forest conditions. It’s very hard to imagine what the forest would have looked like with these behemoths peppering the landscape.

 

American chestnut.

The ranger led us up to the summit area, a large rock pile created by freeze-thaw cycles cycling endlessly. A large talus field extended across the upper slopes and a good distance below the trail. The ranger warned of rattlesnakes that lived in the rocks. Unfazed, a mom and two young rock scramblers, aged 5 and 6, headed for the summit, with Kris and I struggling to keep up. All enjoyed the clambering and no one saw a snake. The view was most excellent.

At the summit.

We returned to the car, headed north on Skyline Drive for the next little summit, and sure enough, spotted a rattlesnake slithering across the road in front of us—our first sighting of the timber rattler I’d been looking forward to running into for the past two years. It was a-okay by me seeing this one on the road instead of in the rockpile. S/he moved somewhat awkwardly, a snake with a limp, I figured, and we wondered if it had been injured by a passing car. It seemed to strain to reach the grassy shoulder then laid there awhile keeping still with its head up. I dared not to move in too close for a portrait.
Miles (RT):  1.0 mile; elevation gain: 200 feet
Cumulative mileage and gain:  97.5 miles / 28,450 feet

Big Meadow Lodge. We'll have to stay here sometime...

And bask by the window...

Or the fireplace...

Or hang with the bears.

 

22. Hogsback Mountain:  This little wooded bump hardly gets a mention. I’d mistaken it for something else I thought would make a nice easy walk-up. The top is all radio towers and buildings and no views, an anticlimactic way to end a fun couple of days. But we were there and it’s September already, so darn tootin’ I’ll take credit here for summit number 22. There were a few nice spots along the way, so it wasn’t a total loss, plus we got to add a praying mantis to our East Coast wildlife sightings list. The mini-trek also put me over the 100-mile mark to date in attaining my sixty summits. But good grief, it’s September already and I’ve got 38 to go. Hmmm.

Miles (RT):  4.0 miles; elevation gain: 400 feet
Cumulative mileage and gain:  101.5 miles / 28,850 feet

Just below the top.