A hot day in the lowlands this past Saturday, but fairly comfortable in the Park. An early start, out the door at 6am and on the trail before 8am. Another familiar route from the Mount Marshall trailhead at the end of SR-625 north of Washington, VA- Mount Marshall Trail to Jenkins Gap, Appalachian Trail north to Compton Peak west view, AT south to Gravel Springs Hut, Bluff Trail, with return down Mt Marshall, a 21 miler with 3900' accumulated elevation gain & loss. With me was fellow hiker Steve.
We burned through the 5.7 mile Mount Marshall Trail in under two hours, leaving plenty of time for the Compton out and back. There was a thru-hiker note on the trail near the spring on the south side of Compton alerting thru-hikers that this was the last water source before Tom Floyd Wayside shelter, 4 miles to the north. A couple section backpackers were refilling here, and later we'd encounter NOBO thru-hikers asking about that water source. Compton Peak west view was all ours for the duration of our visit. Early starts often do pay off with solitude.
The next leg was the 7 mile trek south on the AT to Gravel Springs, down Compton and up from Jenkins Gap to a Drive crossing, the climb up North Marshall, down and across the Drive again, and the easy up to South Marshall before the drop into Gravel Springs Gap. I found some ripening black raspberries near the top of the climb out of Jenkins Gap. There were indications that bears have found the berries as well. Plenty of bear scat on the trail, but no bear sightings. The last of the blooming mountain laurel was up on North Marshall. I've seen mountain laurel in bloom every weekend since May 8th! North Marshall provides a big payout with excellent views from the AT just south of the summit. They were very hazy views this day. I ventured over to the rocks a bit further south and took my standard "hazy ridges" shots. We had a nice long break here.
The next stop was Gravel Springs Hut, where we met three SOBO section hikers on day one of a three week trek. We talked with them a good while before continuing along the Bluff Trail. We met a fairly large group of weekend backpackers looking for a place to set up a quarter mile from the Mount Marshall junction. They'd been at the shelter, but felt it was too early in the day to set up there, and had passed good sites near Big Devils Stairs. Their prospects weren't good, and they looked too tired to backtrack. We wished them luck. I doubt they had a pleasant evening, but likely it was a memorable one, as thunderstorms popped up early evening along the length of SNP. I was home having a beer by then.
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