Hwy 60 to Spy Rock Rd.

From Helen:

Lady Slipper - still beautiful

Mark and I met Jay in Buena Vista, VA on Friday over Memorial Day weekend and hiked and camped with him Saturday and Sunday up to the Montebello, VA area. Virginia's forests through this section are beautiful, and the tread on the trail is kind to the feet and well maintained. We passed through acre upon acre of ferns covering the forest floor interspersed with various wildflowers. Even though the mayapple and trillium flowers were past season, we could still see their distinctive leaves asserting their longevity. We saw two lady slippers side by side.... One was already past its prime; the other was hanging onto its bloom still.

Dropping Jay off at the trail head at Hwy. 60
near Buena Vista before Mark and I shuttled
ahead to drop our car and join him

Jay is doing remarkably well. He looks healthy and he's enjoying the hike. Mark and I slowed him down for Saturday and Sunday since we are not in the hiking shape he is. We enjoyed sharing stories and jokes and talking to some of the people we encountered as we hiked. There were many weekend hikers out since it was a holiday weekend. We kept intercepting a group like us - thru-hikers with family and friends joining them for the weekend. They offered us trail magic in the form of snacks and drinks from a large cooler, but, since we had recently started hiking, we moved on.

As we took a short break there was a young group of Boy Scouts that passed us going south. Jay brought them out of their plodding reverie by asking them if they had seen a bear yet. As one unit they stopped short and turned raised eyebrows and slack jaws toward him. "Really? A bear?" they breathed. Jay quickly reassured them: "I've been out here for about 2 months and I haven't seen a bear yet." Their faces relaxed, slightly, but you could see their eyes darting about nervously. As they started walking again they hoisted their packs a little higher and crowded each other for security on the trail.

Old tree on the camper-sized boulder at our tent sites

We camped near Piney River by a camper-sized boulder. It had tremendously thick roots blanketing it from a huge tree perched at its rounded top. Sadly, the tree was no longer living, and we half-jokingly wondered aloud if a strong wind would take the hefty trunk down across our tent sites. With the number of roots anchoring the trunk we decided we had nothing to worry about, for now.

More about hiking with Jay in Virginia in the next post....