SNP south: The Turks

A triple Turk treat: Turk Branch, Turk Gap, and Turk Mountain, all in the same hike. I'd been waiting for a warm day for this one, and finally got it this past Saturday. This hike began shortly after sunrise from Bucks Elbow Mountain Road, east of Jarman Gap in the far southern section of Shenandoah National Park's south district. After spending twenty minutes lost in the twilight west of Crozet looking for Jarman Gap Road, I broke through the rapidly dissipating low clouds on the drive up the winding road. From the junction with Bucks Elbow Mountain Road (end of state maintenance, room for four or five cars), it was downhill a few tenths of a mile to the Appalachian Trail, and downhill a couple tenths more to the South Fork Moormans River Trail, which would lead me down to the Turk Branch Trail.
The sun was slow to appear from behind Bucks Elbow Mountain, but the air was already balmy. Having just come out of a cold snap, moisture was condensing on the rocks. Despite the dry air, the wet rocks would be with me most of the day, making for questionable footing and tricky stream crossings. The walk down the old South Fork Moormans River road was pleasant, with a couple of those tricky crossings. The first uphill of the day was on the Turk Branch Trail, which I climbed to Turk Gap. The trail marker indicated the AT junction was 1.7 miles and Turk Gap 2.5 miles. I knew this wasn't correct, but discovered why as I neared Skyline Drive. I could see faint remnants of white blaze where the trail paralleled the Drive, indicating that this was once the AT route, and I was retro-blazing! The Turk Branch Trail is a pleasant well-graded winding route, crossing the cascading branch a couple times. The crossings had remains of stone retaining walls, signs of days gone by. I hiked into the sun on the climb to Turk Gap, and the warm breeze flowing down the hollows quickly had me down to shorts and t-shirt and sweating up a storm.

From Turk Gap, it was an out and back on the Turk Gap Trail. The trail is wide and largely rock-free, clearly an old road. There were fine winter views of Turk Mountain, and the walk downhill in the warm sun was serene. I had an objective at the Park boundary- locating ponds of the old Crimora manganese mine. Not an easy task, as the area is now all private property. My only view of one of the ponds was from across a fence, with plenty of "private property" signs. I'd spent a half hour and nearly two miles meandering around outside the Park, and started considering the notion of changing my route by doing a road walk to Riprap or a boundary walk to Wildcat Ridge. I had my GPS, I could probably do it, but what if I couldn't? I investigated an established but unmarked trail that lead along the boundary north towards Wildcat Ridge, but I chickened out and returned to the Turk Gap Trail. Perhaps another day I'll give it a try.

I picked up the pace on the return climb, what I call "head down" hiking, as I needed to make up some of the time lost on my outside the Park adventure. Returning to Turk Gap, I headed north on the AT- way north- 5.4 miles to the Riprap Trail. The Riprap Trail was crowded. I encountered at least a dozen hikers (and several trail runners) on the AT and Riprap Trail. It's just wrong to hike Riprap at my pace, although I stopped at the usual spots, but there's a lot to savor here- views, rocks, pools, cascades, and more. A gem of a hike in the southern district. The several crossings were tricky but manageable. Being a warm day upped my fluid needs. I'd done a similar distance a week earlier on only 48 ounces water, but I'd already gone through 64, and loaded up 64 more here. The batteries in the SteriPEN died, but I had spare. What I didn't have spare was time. I'd forgotten to carry my watch, so trusted my cell phone time (the GPS could tell me, if I knew which buttons to push). The phone told me I was way behind schedule- I wouldn't make it to the Drive before sunset. The sun looked higher, but what do I know? I abandoned the out and back on the segment of Riprap to the boundary. Another time. I climbed the Wildcat Ridge Trail in "head down" mode.

The sun was still well above the horizon when I reached Skyline Drive. I was either hiking very fast or my cell phone clock was an hour fast. Duh! After a refreshing break at Moormans River Overlook, it was a Drive walk back to Turk Gap. I was determined to do the Turk trifecta. I'd hoped to be on Turk Mountain for sunset, but I'd lost too much time looking for Jarman Gap Road and lingered too long looking for mining ponds. As it was, I was treated to a nice sunset from Turk Mountain Overlook. OK, it being 5pm, I had anticipated having the Drive to myself. The Drive closes at 5pm in December- what are all these folks doing here? My only conclusion is that they stop letting cars in at 5pm, and don't really get around to locking the gates until much later.

The hike out to Turk Mountain was in fading twilight. I watched "last light" from the rocky summit of Turk Mountain. I'd done all the Turks! Donning LED lamps (one forehead, one hip level), I returned back to the AT, then followed the AT south to Sawmill Run Overlook, where I picked up the Drive for the walk to Jarman Gap. I got to the Drive as a ranger drove by, and he asked me where I was headed. The rangers probably don't encounter too many nighttime Drive hikers. Still in shorts and t-shirt, it was a quiet dark road walk in a cool breeze, with great views of the sky and Shenandoah Valley's lights from Sawmill Run and Sawmill Ridge Overlooks. From Jarman Gap, it was a short walk up Bucks Elbow Mountain Road to the car. A 30 mile hike with 6400 feet of elevation gain (and loss) in under twelve hours.

This hike completed the two longest segments of new-to-me trail in the Park- Turk Branch and Turk Gap. I'm now left with a handful of short segments to do, Lewis Peak (beyond the summit trail) being the longest and most remote. Pictures from this hike: https://goo.gl/photos/s1xxUnhmRA47Rq7e8

GWNF "The 25 Mile Circuit"

 Halfmoon Lookout, Big Schloss, and Tibbet Knob, three golden gems in the George Washington National Forest, all in a single-night backpack outing. All accounts that I could find on the web suggested this as a two night backpack, and while I think I'd have preferred doing it as a long day hike, my friend Steve (who's considering an AT thru-hike) and I set out on this 27 mile Great North Mountain trek this past weekend.

The northern GW is easy access from the DC area. Leaving from Beltsville at 5:30am, we were on the trail at 8am, heading north on the Long Mountain trail from SR-691. We looked like we had just transported in from the early 90's- both of us were using our Kelty external frame packs. Most of my gear was 14+ years old. Our packs weighed in at close to 40 pounds (I need new gear). We were on a time schedule, intending to rendezvous with a friend at Sandstone Spring on Mill Mountain at 5pm- 9 hours and 17 miles away, with about 2600' of uphill and unknown trail conditions ahead of us. This was our first backpacking since 2000, but we'd both trained locally prior to this trip.

The Long Mountain trail was in good condition, following a woods road for much of the way. The one rough patch was the 400 yard block field, which after having just done the AT in eastern PA, was a piece of cake (though Steve did tumble there). We restocked our water at the recently bridged crossing of Trout Run at the 8.5 mile point (Trout Run was quite low). We were halfway through the distance, but only one fifth the way through the elevation gain. Onto Bucktail trail a short distance, then up and down along the Bucktail Cutoff trail (around a bend in a somewhat confusing area, but the pink-blazed trail was easy to find) to the Halfmoon trail, where the real climbing began. A little ahead of schedule, we opted to visit Halfmoon Lookout. An excellent viewpoint, where one can see Long Mountain, Trout Run Valley, Big Schloss, and Tibbet Knob. Well worth the side trip; a "must do". After the break, we continued our climb up Halfmoon trail, rocky (as in PA AT rocky) Tuscarora/Pond Run trail, and Mill Mountain trail until we reached Sandstone Spring and met our friend Jae (and black Lab Lulu) right at 5pm. Jae had backpacked in from Wolf Gap.

 Sandstone Spring was flowing, not a lot, but enough to scoop and filter (Jae) or SteriPEN (Steve and I). I set up my 16 year old North Face Tadpole tent (I think this was its last stand) and Steve set up his new Big Agnes Seedhouse SL 1 tent. We thought about having a campfire, but we were too worn out, and the area had been picked clean of firewood. There was one other group nearby. We turned in when it got dark, a little after 8pm. Unfortunately, the nearby group stayed up much later. If we'd looked around, we could have set up further away.

We broke camp around 10am next morning, continuing south on Mill Mountain trail, headed for the prime feature- Big Schloss. Last time at Big Schloss was on a rainy day many years back, but this day was very nice, and the views were great. It was quite prominent on the approach from the north. Big Schloss was fairly busy, with some overnight campers, rock climbers, and day hikers. A wonderful place.

On to Wolf Gap, where we said farewell to Jae and Lulu, but not before unloading half our gear on him, which he dropped off at our car on SR-691. Tibbet Knob was a fairly steep climb, but the advertised rock scrambles were easy, and the views from the rock ledges at the summit were superb. As with Halfmoon Lookout and Big Schloss, one can see the entire circuit from here. Very rewarding. After dropping to SR-691, it was a easy road walk back to the car.

 The Bucktail Cutoff trail was described as having "terrible" footing in the 2001 "Great North Mountain Trails" booklet, but it was quality trail- much better than what we were expecting. This was true for all the trails (well, maybe with the exception of the Tuscarora trail, but I see the book refers to as a "continuous block field", which it was). The PATC crews have done a terrific job maintaining these trails.

Route from long mountain trailhead (sr-691):
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Long mtn:
bucktail:
bucktail cutoff:
halfmoon:
halfmoon lookout:
tuscarora/pond run:
mill mtn:
big schloss:
tibbet knob:
sr-691:

Pictures