Soldiers Delight Fire

 A wildfire at Soldiers Delight 

On April 4, 2023, there was an unplanned fire at the Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area (Wikipedia) here in Maryland. 

Source: https://soldiersdelight.org/

Source: https://owingsmills.patch.com/

News Article: Wildfire at Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area April 4, 2023 (soldiersdelight.org)

Soldiers Delight is one of my favorite places to day hike, about 15 minutes drive from my home.

Wildfires are scary and often end in ecological tragedy. However, the Soldiers Delight area is a "Serpentine Grassland and Oak Savanna Ecosystem", and it is one of those ecosystems that actually benefit from periodic fires. Forest services create controlled burns in these types of areas on purpose, sometimes. 

The mechanics of why that is true are beyond my ability to describe here, but the upshot is that a fire here is not the tragedy that one might assume it to be. 

They reopened the trails and I took a stroll through it today and snapped a few pictures; while it looks devastating, life is already valiantly clawing its way back, and in time it will be even more robust than it was before.

Nature, how does it work? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Here's the pics:

Burned area 1

Burned area 2

As you can see, life will find a way!

Dahlgren Backpacker Campground

Free, easy camping on the Appalachian Trail

Really great for when you just want to do a gear shakedown and make a camp fire and practice cooking camp food

Where

Driving: 

Set your car GPS to:

Old South Mountain Inn
6132 Old National Pike
Boonsboro, MD 21713
Google Maps

About a solid hour from Baltimore on Interstate Route 70 to Frederick, MD and then some easy back roads

Parking: 

The nice people at the Old South Mountain Inn have graciously allotted two rows of their restaurant's parking spaces to Appalachian Trail hikers for free parking, including overnight. You won't get towed, if you park where indicated by signs. Very generous of them. Be nice and park where they say.

When

Dahlgren is just another approved (camping, fires) spot on the AT, so it's always open to everyone, year-round. 

Facilities

Dahlgren is acknowledged by thousands of AT through hikers (start in Georgia, walk to Maine, or vice versa) as the Ritz Carlton of AT campgrounds. There's a blockhouse that has sinks, toilets and showers with hot water. The blockhouse is only open from April to October; when it is closed, there is always a Porta-Pot set up outside the blockhouse.

The Campground

The campground has a large grassy area for tents, plus several flat tent pads, and some picnic tables you can move around. There are also several places perfect for hanging your hammock between trees.

Click here for a 360 degree pic

Other activities

Rocky Run

Rocky Run AT Shelter is about a 45 minute hike south of Dahlgren It has camping spots, a new shelter, an old shelter, and a clean spring that always seems to be running. It's one of my favorite places to camp.

GaiaGPS.com Route

Washington Monument

No, not the one in DC. This is a stone tower built by hand, supposedly in a day, mostly. It's about an hour and a half hike north, mostly uphill.

GaiaGPS.com Route

That's all for now, hope to see you there!

Foraging: pawpaws and wild garlic mustard

Went foraging for pawpaws and garlic mustard last weekend with daughter and her fiancée, here's a few pix

Not gonna lie, we missed the peak foraging season for both by about a month, but we did manage to find a few

LOCATION

C&O Towpath, Sharpsburg MD

Parking: Google Maps

We walked east along the towpath for a while, then dropped down into the (dry) canal itself on the way back. There were more finds in the canal than along the edge

WHAT IS A PAWPAW

Asimina triloba, the American papaw, pawpaw, paw paw, or paw-paw, among many regional names, is a small deciduous tree native to the eastern United States and Canada, producing a large, yellowish-green to brown fruit. It belongs to the genus Asimina in the same plant family (the Annonaceae) as the custard-apple, cherimoya, sweetsop, ylang-ylang, and soursop.

Pawpaw fruits are the largest edible fruit indigenous to the United States (not counting gourds, which are typically considered vegetables rather than fruit for culinary purposes, although in botany they are classified as fruit).

Pawpaw fruits have a sweet, custard-like flavor somewhat similar to banana, mango, and pineapple, and are commonly eaten raw, but are also used to make ice cream and baked desserts. The bark, leaves, and fruit contain the insecticidal neurotoxin, annonacin.

-- Wikipedia

SOME PIX

Pawpaws hang way up above your head in pawpaw trees. You grab the tree and shake it, and pawpaws rain down upon you. You may sometimes have to reach up and whack them with a long stick to get them to come down.

You cut them open, bury your face in them, chow out all the fruit and seeds, glomp it around in your mouth for a while, then spit out the seeds (you don't chew the seeds). 

"Sweet, custard-like flavor" is correct, they are remarkably delicious

C&O Canal (dry), looking up for pawpaws

WHAT IS GARLIC MUSTARD

Garlic Mustard plants, end of lifecycle

Garlic mustard is an invasive and prolific species of flowering plant. When in bloom, you can pinch off the flower tops and eat them, and they taste mildly like garlic. The larger leaves can be foraged, taken home and added to salads, raw or sautéed. 

Once a garlic mustard plant is past growing and starts drying out and dropping its hundreds of seeds, you can reach down grasp the stem very loosely, pull up around the branches, and if you do it gently enough you have a handful of tiny black seeds plus some chaff in your hand. Drop them in a bag or handkerchief and repeat.

Once home, separate the seeds from the chaff, grind them up thoroughly in a mortar and pestle, add a wee bit of olive oil, vinegar and water, and make a paste. Congratulations, you have made mustard.

I'll admit it doesn't look very appetizing. This late in the season, the seeds were pretty dried out, and the result was pretty bland. When they're in season though, the mustard flavor can get pretty powerful, really lights up your nose. I have made myself a mickle oath not to miss the season next year.

ADDENDUM

I've seen these guys all my life and never looked into what they are, until now. Mostly because I wonder if those berries are edible. They sure look appetizing. All of us fired up our phonecams and various image search thingies and it seems to be Northern Spicebush. Of course I cut a few of them open to investigate. 

The berries aren't really berries; the inside is about 90% inedible black seed, and the remaining "fruit" around the seed is a ghastly looking yellow ooze that Wikipedia reports "has a turpentine-like taste". So I guess they're off the menu for now. Birds love them, though.

I'm looking forward to learning as much as I can about foraging. That's it for now.

Patapsco Chevy Loop plus Secret Hideout 2021-09-25

 Decided to put up some pix from one of my favorite morning hikes near home, the Patapsco Valley "Chevy Loop". I hiked it this morning, takes about 4 hours total. Some days I do the hike and take a detour to the stone chimney ruins (my secret hideout), string up the hammock and read a book, or take a nap. More about the ruins shortly.

THE PLAN

I park at the Woodstock Inn overflow parking lot, across the street from the inn. They're really nice about maintaining Patapsco hiker/biker parking for free, even though they don't have to. Location: https://g.page/the-woodstock-inn?share

Here's the map on alltrails.com

Note that this part of the valley is a phone dead zone, though GPS works.

THE PICTURES

Misty morning in Woodstock, MD, with the Woodstock Inn across the street. An absolutely perfect fall day

Why They Call It The Chevy Loop

There is an abandoned 1958 Chevrolet Bel Air out in the middle of the woods. It looks like it's been there since 1958. How it got there, I can't even guess. People adorn it with skeletons and whatnot. Here are some photos from a previous visit:

So now you know.

The Stone Chimney Ruins

Listen: if you put "RUINS" on a map, I am going there, whether it's a good idea or not

I found an easy way to get to it from the thru trail:

I've visited this place a number of times actually; I'm just now finally taking some pix. It's very peaceful, with the sound of the trees and birds, and the Patapsco flowing by down the hill to the west. No one else has ever wandered by, the times I've been there. Top notch place to build a house, in my opinion.

Hand drawn in the mortar of one of the foundation piers are the words "WE MOURN OUR LOSS". Back when I first found this place, I looked it up on the internet, and found an article about it - the family that lived there lost an infant to illness, something that happened with distressing frequency 200 years ago. I looked for the same info today and for some reason I can't find anything. I wish I knew more about this homestead but that's all I know.

My main goal this morning was to keep practicing stringing up the Eno Sub6 hammock, especially to see if I could fashion a perfect ridge line (the short line that makes the hammock a banana), one that I could just hook up next time and onward, and not have to fiddle with it ever again. I think I got it, we'll see next time.

This is a Loop Alien guy line tensioner. No knots required. These things are so simple, clever and functional that I use them everywhere I can. Here's a straightforward YouTube video showing how to use it.

That's it for today. Did you see "Blair Witch House" in the first map up top? Yep. Maybe I'll take you there soon.

AT Wolfsville to Raven Rock Shelter 2020-06-13

 I made this hike over a year ago and I'm just now getting around to uploading the pictures. Not much to say about it, unlike the last one. Just a day hike, out and back. 5 miles each way. 

Park here: https://goo.gl/maps/nENohUKhAU6D6VsWA

"Wolfsville Road Trailhead" on some maps

Dirt lot that can hold about 12 cars, so you probably want to get there early.

THE PLAN

"For some fool reason, they always lead you right up over the biggest rock to the top of the biggest  mountain they can find" 

-- Grandma Gatewood

Like I said, I don't have a lot to say about this one - have some pix

ONWARD

6am, Wolfsville MD, absolutely beautiful day

Parked as above, hoisted pack, headed north past Ensign Cowall Shelter, which is right off the road - didn't snap any pix for some reason

Okey dokey

Great news - didn't drown 👍

Large rock wall with small cave that of course I stuck my head in

Halfway there, a nice big open field, and some sky, a rarity on the
Green Tunnel that is the Appalachian Trail. Note the AT white blaze on the little post.

Fernsville, once you finally get up on the ridge where the shelter is

Meet DudeMan! A through-hiker, headed to Maine. Like most of these people, he was very friendly and fun to talk to. He has a YouTube channel if you want to drop in on him: 

https://www.youtube.com/c/DudeManAppalachianTrail2020

The Devil's Racecourse

A geological formation caused by freezing and thawing of the river that runs beneath it - you can hear it, but you can't see it. It's a river of boulders, pretty amazing. 

You can get to it from the Raven Rock Shelter, if you follow the blue blaze trail east down to the spring, you're about a 2 minute walk from it. Easy peasy. Observe:

The view from the eponymous Rock

That's all, folks

Pennsylvania Adventure 2021-09-04 2021-09-05

My first time setting foot in Pennsylvania (hiking, not driving)

THE PLAN

PREPARATION

Want to hike the AT in PA from Maryland? Start by parking here: 
https://goo.gl/maps/7gfq7nhfPoGVy6618

~~~IMPORTANT NOTICE:~~~

If you want to park overnight, you need to let Washington County know; they will send you a PDF to print out and put on your dashboard that says DO NOT TOW, and they will advise the towing company of your car's make/model/tag so that they don't, y'know, tow you. It works, I've never heard of anyone having a problem. Get one here:
https://www.washco-md.net/parks-facilities/overnight-parking-pass/

Overnight parking is not allowed in the paved, gated parking lot. Park in the gravel lot across the street. You'll probably see a number of cars with the DO NOT TOW printout on their dashes.  If you ignore this advice, don't come crying to me

OK, let's get going!

ONWARD 

An auspicious beginning, sailors' warning notwithstanding

🚗 1 hr drive from Balmer to Pen Mar

We talked about this

Happy Hiker Trash who has no idea what he's in for

The civilized overlook at Pen Mar, looking northwest. Super clear day, amazing weather 👍

I decided to go North

Actually actually starting, about 5 minutes from the parking lot

"Gandalf, which way is Mordor?"

"To the left"

Pennsylvania Actual. First boot/shoe/foot into the great state! Whoopee!

Hiker log book full of fun comments, you should always read them when you come across them (and add your own too). Sidereal was here! 9/4/21

Informative sign

A very nice babbling brook, before the endless up and down begins

I really need to pay more attention to this stuff before I head out

Hey, what's that - think we should check it out?

INTERLUDE

I saw something intriguing on Google Maps while researching this hike beforehand

A bit off the trail...what could it be? Other than a lookout tower

I decided to bushwhack a bit and investigate

I got pretty close, but ran into a Wall of Boulders that would have been pretty hard to climb

 

Might not look like much, but it was a wall to me and my 30 lb backpack

So I kept sidling around it, trying to find an easy way up, to no avail; eventually I hit a gravel road and shamefacedly took that to the summit, as you can see:

My valiant attempt, and its outcome

Almost at the summit, there was an old, retired radio tower and blockhouse

Looking retired

At the summit proper: Ah, the tower! It turned out to be a lookout tower

It was not locked up at all, I could have climbed it. But the steel stairs had all been replaced by wooden boards, and they looked pretty mossy and soggy and kind of rotten, so I decided not to go up. Even with hiking buddies I probably would not have tried it; solo, I could only imagine them finding my skeleton, halfway up, dangling by its ankle, sometime in February 2022. I decided I'd gotten into enough trouble and headed back to the trail

ONWARD

The PA AT passes through several civilized public parks with lots of informative notices. I really want to get some PATC topographical maps when I remember to

FLORA

Lots of flora along the way (though not much fauna - unlike Patapsco Valley, I saw nary a deer nor squirrel nor any other mammal. Weird. I'm used to elbowing deer out of the way in Patapsco.)

Brown-eyed Susan (not Black-eyed Susan)

Rudbeckia triloba, the browneyed or brown-eyed susan, thin-leaved coneflower or three-leaved coneflower, is a species of flowering plant in the daisy family Asteraceae, native to the United States. It is often seen in old fields or along roadsides. It is also cultivated as an ornamental.

Chicory

Common chicory (Cichorium intybus) is a somewhat woody, perennial herbaceous plant of the daisy family Asteraceae, usually with bright blue flowers, rarely white or pink. Many varieties are cultivated for salad leaves, chicons, or roots, which are baked, ground, and used as a coffee substitute and food additive.

Wild Carrot

Daucus carota, whose common names include wild carrot, bird's nest, bishop's lace, and Queen Anne's lace, is a white, flowering plant in the family Apiaceae, native to temperate regions of Europe and southwest Asia, and naturalized to North America and Australia.

White Wood Aster

Eurybia divaricata, commonly known as the white wood aster, is an herbaceous plant native to eastern North America. It occurs in the eastern United States, primarily in the Appalachian Mountains, though it is also present in southeastern Canada, but only in about 25 populations in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec.

A rather startling leaf in my path

ONWARD

Deer Lick Shelter - halfway point. Very nice shelters, and a nice spring, though it was about a 10 minute walk uphill to it, not exactly fun but whatevs

Rested here for a while, because my dogs were already barking after going up and down all the rocks and roots of Mount Dunlop. That was harder than I thought. I considered just staying at Deer Lick and calling it an adventure, but it was only noon, and I kind of promised myself I'd at least make it to Tumbling Run, and I didn't want to let me down, I've done enough of that. Four more miles? Walk in the park, I said

Okay let's do this

What ho! Tumbling Rock Shelter! My destination! Hoo dang my legs are tired!

Super nice campground, attended to regularly by a couple and their dog, whom you will meet shortly

Shelters swept out, fire pits thoroughly cleaned, nothing in disrepair, privy not bad at all, as these things go

Shelters labeled "SNORING" and "NON-SNORING", lol

My legs were so tired and achy after 8 miles of pure up and down over rocks and roots and boulders, I was starting to get worried about hiking all the way back. But, I figured 12 hours of rest, good food, lots of hydration and some Tylenol would sort me out

Let's get camped out now. First question, always: where's the spring?

Tumbling Run spring, a very feisty beautiful spring bursting right out of the hillside, about two minutes from the campground, even has a pipe jammed into the hill to help you fill your water thingies. Very nice.

MEET THE PEOPLE

Curt, Tanya and Mocha, the caretakers of Tumbling Run shelter. They don't live there, they just stop by frequently and do a lot of work. Simply wonderful people, checking in on the grounds, making sure everyone's ok, seeing if they need anything. (THIS is my retirement job) Me and a handful of other hikers spent some quality time chatting with them. 

Other hikers, each super friendly, fun and interesting, full of stories:

Trouble

Megaphone

Krunk

There was also a through hiker headed to Georgia 🏆 and a group of three young people and their dog, doing the same Pen Mar in/out hike as me, whom I will mention anon. Sorry I didn't get any pix of them

CAMP

ENO rain tarp, doublenest hammock, underquilt, gear sling. REI Helio Down 45°F sleeping bag. USB fairy light string (not shown) because wee twinkly fairy lights at night in a campground are cool. I sleep like a rock in this setup, the kind of sleep doctors are always telling you to get and most of us never do. I don't know why, it just works.

This is the only AT campsite I've seen or heard of that has a section specifically for hammock hanging. I mentioned this to Caretaker Carl, and it turns out that he personally petitioned PATC to clear out a new section and put an official PATC post in the ground that says Hammock Camping with routered letters and official brown/gold paint. They agreed, so he cleared it and surrounded it with big logs to demarcate it, all by himself. Really nice! Amazing guy. Wish I'd taken a pic of the post, it's a real achievement.

Honkin' big cluster of Jack O' Lanterns

Omphalotus olearius, commonly known as the jack-o'-lantern mushroom, is a poisonous orange gilled mushroom that to an untrained eye appears similar to some chanterelles. 

It is notable for its bioluminescent properties.

👆

woooo

Dinner time

This trip, planning meals, I noticed I had a couple Mountain House freeze dried dinner bags still knocking around in the food box, so I figured I'd finish them off and brought one. Italian Style Pepper Steak, never tried it before. Conclusion: not bad at all*

*Mountain House Conjecture: anything tastes amazing if you are starving

Ate this, cleaned up, chatted a bit with the fun interesting folks, then completely zonked out, sore as hell

SUNDAY

Okay kids, not gonna lie, here. I bit off more than I could chew on this trip.

In case you missed the foreshadowing: I woke up Sunday and I could barely move my legs. They were so damn sore after all those rocks and roots, up and down, that I could barely walk. It felt like any second, they would seize up in cramps and leave me literally unable to walk, instead of just hating every second. And there I was, eight miles of difficult trail away from my car.

I started thinking, for the first time ever, that maybe I was in trouble. 

I got up, it hurt, I walked around like a penguin, it hurt, I drank a lot of electrolyte water, I made a robust carb/protein breakfast, I did leg stretches, it hurt, I took 600 mg Tylenol and just chilled out for a while.

After an hour or so, I felt like I wasn't in actual, medical trouble any more, just stupendously sore. So I packed up and decided I'd walk/waddle, slowly, to the first sign of civilization, and call an Uber to get back to my car.

I made it to the Old Forge Picnic Grounds about a mile south and used my Uber phone app for the first time ever and - surprise - No Drivers Available. I poked at it for a half hour and gave up, hoisted the pack and, yep, walked back to the car for the next five hours, up and down two mountains, very slowly, and not having much fun. 

It started raining too, sprinkles, but honestly it felt good, kept me cooled off. Not enough to break out the poncho and backpack cover.

Look at this typical PA AT trail:

This is a "trail"

Long story short, I made it, at approximately 0.25 miles per hour, took most of the day. But I made it to my car, which was not towed (we talked about this.)

AFTER ACTION REPORT

Failure to pre-assess elevation changes

Failure to pre-assess terrain

Honestly, if I'd done my homework a little better, I would have gone to Deer Lick shelter and back and called it a PA Adventure. 

Regrets: nah

UPLIFTING CLOSURE

Seriously, you read this far? Donut for you next time I see you

Remember I mentioned the group of three young people and their dog? I told them all about my leg woes (I told everybody.) They were headed back to Pen Mar, same as me. I started out about two hours ahead of them, and, surprise, they all passed me about halfway, giving me lots of encouragement. When I made it back to Pen Mar in the late afternoon and was about 500 feet from my car, I heard, "Jack! Jack! Jack!" and there they were, in the parking lot, whooping it up at my successful return. I raised my trekking poles up over my head and pumped them in the air like Rocky and when I got to the cars they congratulated me on my ordeal. You meet really amazing people on the trail.

No plans for my next hike, but you can bet it'll be a bit flatter