Today's Hike

The mountain is getting repetitive, but today's hike was a fortuitous find.

I was driving down the start of Blue Ridge Parkway, when a car followed behind me. I like when nobody's driving behind me, so I'm free to go at whatever speed feels good. Wanting to let this guy pass, I pulled into the closest parking lot. The entrance would be easy to miss if I were driving without paying much attention. The peak was simply named "The Rocks" on my map. It doesn't look like much of anything from the outside, but chance led me to a very nice trail.


When I entered the lot, there were already a few cars parked and people were making their way up the mountain.  I figured I'd stop for a bit and perhaps catch a nap. I'd only slept two stints during the night, for two then three hours, so the choice seemed prudent.

Well, there were so many people driving in that it made me want to hike the trail. The car behind me also turned in. I was trying to let him pass, but he would not be easily ditched it seems!

I put on my lightest outfit, my running shoes, and packed minimal. The trail looked flat and wide, so I figured I'd get a nice quick run in to see what all the hub-bub was about, before I turned in for some rest. Boy, was the trail different than I expected.

The start was wide and filled with gravel, but the climb was steep. Not a quarter of a mile in and I was breathing hard, my heart pounding. I did not stop, but I slowed from a stairs workout to a reasonable hiking pace. I was loving the climb.

Then the trail presented me a surprising delight. The man-made gravel gave way to a rocky snaking path up the mountain. Some rocks along the path were wet with trickling water and damp leaves. My heart was pounding the entire hike, but I did not stop! This was the workout I had been wanting the past few days.

At the top there was an outcropping of slanted rocks. Stepping out onto the summit provided a wide angle view of the forest below. The view out was not spectacular, but the rock was a great. There was one vertical formation on the left and a flatter broad surface on the right.

"The Rocks". Sneaking a sneaky-picture of some people-persons at the summit.

Sadly, the rocks were graffiti'd (wtf how the heck do you spell '-ed' at the end of a word ending in 'i'. LOL. I thought it was graffitiid, but that looks totally wrong. Ooh look, a dog with a puffy tail! c'mere puff! hehehehe. Attention deficit? Sorry what were we talking about?).

The graffiti looked like the work of high school students as a senior prank before graduation. One of the spray painted names was dated 2012, so the rest of the Crayola-grade art on the rocks probably was there for just as long. Cleaning the paint off would be difficult, I suppose. It didn't look like it was a priority for Nature or the State to get rid of it.

Oh yeah, LOL. I got to the edge of the trail, and I thought there was no peak. There was a white rope sectioning off some of the areas around the trail. I thought the rope was closing off access to the rock! But it was just the trees around the trail that were sectioned off. I nearly went down the trail without stepping out onto the summit! Ha ha! I would totally do that too. It's very like me to lack common sense.