Highpeaking PA, MD, and WV mountains

I had been planning to be “Mountain Mamas’ with my good friend, Mel for about 2 years. But, you know how it goes…first she had some bad health issues and then the Covid lockdowns happened and, unlike me, she did not feel comfortable traveling. There were 2 winter’s in the mix too. Neither one of us was too thrilled at the idea of traveling and hiking too much in the winter. I’ve heard the roads can get very bad going to the WV high peak. And, also she’s very busy with her naturalist job in the warm months, as well. So, once she regained her good health, the lockdown was over, it wasn’t winter, and she had a free weekend from work, we were planning to summit the highest peaks of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia together (get it…Mountain Mama’s).

We tried to get more friends to join and eventually made plans with Kat, her 13 year old daughter Audrey, Melissa (a long time friend of Mel’s that i’d had never met in person, but loved already) and Mel’s mom Marla (although she did not plan on the hikes, but instead would read at picnic tables as we disappeared into the woods). We finally all settled on plans…

Friday, July 23, 2021:

I knew when I woke up in my bed at 11:30 AM that I didn’t have to jump in the shower and get ready to leave right away. Mel, Marla, Kat, and Audrey lived in Southern Ohio and Melissa was in West Virginia and had longer drives. Also, we did not plan on leaving until after they were all off of work around 5 PM collectively. We weren’t staying at the same places anyways, so It didn’t matter if we arrived at the same time. 

Mel’s dad booked hotel rooms for her, her mom and Kat and Melissa was driving over early in the AM to meet up. Mel’s hotel was an hour and a half away from Mt, Davis (where we were meeting Saturday) and I thought I’d rather find a campsite closer, so I booked one a half hour away from the highest peak of PA. 

So, with me taking my time and the one errand I had to do before I left taking about two hours longer than it should have, I ended up not getting on the road until close to 5. Haha! Story of my life… I think I have all the time in the world then panic when I realize I procrastinated too long.

I had visions of getting to the campsite early and chilling…maybe take a little walk around the area, but instead my errand taking longer than expected pushed my arrival time past dark. Also, GPS decided to take me on several dirt roads to the middle nowhere and told me, “I arrived“ when there was nothing but wilderness around me.

Um…

Thankfully the campground guy answered the phone when I called at about 9:15PM, obviously lost! When I originally booked the campsite, I told him I’d be coming in before dark, but then I texted him when I was finally on the road and said it would be closer to 9:30. I told him that I was very close, but didn’t see any signs, or any signs of life. GPS said 450 feet…GPS is a liar. So the guy on the phone said that I was actually about 20 minutes away once he found the road I was on. It took him and several others quite a few maps and phones to figure out where the hell I was. Haha I just sat there on the side of a dirt road and waited. It was pitch black. There was a bright amber full moon, but it was long gone from sight. I was in dense, dark woods.

Once they found me on a map, he directed me in while staying on the phone with me the entire time. He was out of town watching people skydiving at night. Random. It was funny hearing him talking about people falling from the sky when I was making my way to his campground. Once I pulled in, he told me to park at the log cabin and knock on the door. Since he was out of town, his son was there and was expecting me. But after I knocked on the door a few times and was talking with the dude on speakerphone loudly… No one was coming to the door. I knocked louder…no one still. The guy on the phone told me just to walk in and wake him up because he probably fell asleep. Uhhh… I told him that I did not feel comfortable just walking in like that, so I just knocked even harder. Turns out, I disrupted his poor son in the shower. He wrapped a towel around himself and peeked his head out. Once he got dressed, he took me to my camping spot. He walked over and I followed in my car. It was So dark. My adventures start the moment I leave my house …long before the hikes! Haha!

So, I didn’t get to the Mason-Dixon campground until about 10:15 PM I got a spot in a dark field right next to the bathhouse, so that was awesome news for my small bladder.  The dude turned off all the lights around me and turned on the bathhouse light. So nice. He told me if I needed anything that I knew where to find him…

I set-up my hammock and drank wine out of a Dora the Explorer Dixie cup while I wrote about the day. Ahhhh…

Saturday the 24th:

Well, I saw the sunrise. I wish I could say that I had a wonderful night’s sleep and I just popped awake early to start my day, but I can’t. That’s because it was a full moon and I rarely sleep well during them. I watched as the hours kept passing me by and I was not sleepy at all even though I took a ton of sleepy meds. By the time I was just getting sleepy, it was time to start getting ready. This was the second road trip I’ve started on a full moon. The last one was a beautiful eclipse.

I reluctantly dragged myself out of my hammock after about 30 minutes of microsleeps total and that was after 7am. But, I got to shower with the biggest moth ever so, that was cool until he eventually got spooked and flew right into my wet boob and got stuck. About the same time, an older lady walked into the bath house with a humongous dog that wanted to see what I was doing behind the curtain. OK…I’m done…

You might be thinking that this is probably the most perfect set up for a 7 mile climb. Half dead.

False. I hate my insomnia.

However, once showered I felt ready for PA! I was not about to allow a little thing like no sleep keep me from having a good time. I had a good night’s sleep the night before, so I think that’s what saved me from being completely miserable. My friends Mel, Mel’s mom and Kat were an hour and half away and Melissa was almost to the high peak by the time I was looking for food. By the time I was eating at Tina’s cafe, Melissa was waiting for us and reading a book in her camper van. The other Mel group was killing time shopping before heading to the HP. Mels group rolled in about 10 minutes after I did! The great convergence!

Yay! We were all together again, finally! Since, this was the weekend before my 45th birthday (gasp!), my friends gave me cat themed gifts in the parking lot. Cat butt magnets and cat lick food ties. They had both ends covered. I love them!

This was the first time I had met Melissa in person. However, we had walked and talked on video chat with my Virtual EverWalk group so much that I forgot that this was our first in person hang. It was really good to see my other buddies again too! Mel and Kat live 3 hours south of me, so we don’t get together as much as we’d like too. So we got all back packed up, peed out, bug spray on and headed onto the trail.

It was much more of a flat terrain than I had imagined it would be. What this high peak lacked in elevation, it made up in intense, vivid greenery everywhere. The trail was carpeted in bright green moss mixed with grass up the the HP, and nearly untouched looking green grass on the loop down and much of the trail was framed with large green Cinnamon ferns. Part of the trail goes through the woods to get to the high point and the other part is mostly a wide pathway covered in grass and still with the giant ferns along the side.

At the top, there is a rusty fire tower to go up, so Mel, Melissa, Audrey and I flew up it while Kat watched us safely from the ground below. She didn’t want any part of that Ha! I’ve been up some other High Point towers that made me uneasy. A couple were very shaky and swayed with the wind, but this one was actually steady regardless of how rusty it looked.  It gave a pretty awesome 360° view overlooking the lush tree canopy.

On the way back, we decided to take a little short cut trail back to the car instead of doing the fun 7 mile trail. They wanted to try to do the Maryland high peak the same day before sunset, but if I would have known that they were thinking that, I would have gotten moving sooner since I didn’t sleep anyways. So, instead of it being close to 5.5 miles (according to the all trails app. Some of the reviews mentioned it was closer to six or 7 miles), we did 3.67 miles.

Back in our cars, we headed towards a town called Accident, MD to look for dinner. Wow. That name just screams, “Vacation Here!”. As we were driving, Mel found an awesome place with veggie noms called Moon Shadow. Great name! Rustic hippy atmosphere with food as a delicious as the name! I got Ghost Pepper BBQ cauliflower!!!!  So scrumptiously spicy! I loved every bite of it! We all got something different at the table, but everyone seemed to love what they got. Hated to have to eat and run because they look like they have some awesome drink selections, but if we were going to do Maryland we had to get going. We hung around longer than we should as it was, but it was nice.

We had about an hour and 16 minute drive. I tried to convince the group to stick with the original plan to do MD and WV the next day, so that we could relax and not rush around, but the placement of the hotel they booked would have made them back track an hour which does not seem like a long drive to me, but it was to Marla (Mel’s mom…the one driving). I totally wish they would have picked something closer and planned that out to work better for them, but what can I do? Also, I still was running on no sleep, so spending more time hanging at the restaurant and calling it a day was most appealing to me, but I was outnumbered and I was tired. When I plan trips, I always allow for enough time to have daylight, at least at the summit. Pics or it didn’t happen, right?

Anyways, we booked it for the highest peak in the state where Edgar Allan Poe died. Since we are huge Poe nerds, we had plans to toast to Poe at the summit with Amontillado. Some of us even donned Poe shirts. Kat and I were representing the Ohio Poe Fans Facebook group that Mel started (and I help admin) about 3 years ago and Mel and I had our Ohio Poe Fans water bottles, although I left mine in the car. Again, I blame sleep deprivation.

So, we barely made it to the summit before the sun set on us and being in dense woods the photos are not what they could have been had we had done it the next morning. It’s good that I always have extra flashlights in my backpack! Mel reminded me to bring them because once again…no sleep brain was in full force. Not ideal. 

I flew up the mountain ahead of them because I wanted to take some photos before total darkness and it was setting quickly on us. When the woods got denser and darker, I kept calling out to my friends below to make sure everyone was ok. It was so nice to know that even though I was alone in that spot, I had my girlfriends down there and I wasn’t alone like I normally am. Even when I got a little apprehensive about walking alone in the deep woods, I would call out, “Marco” the hear a familiar voice call out, “polo”. It made me giggle. The times that I didn’t get a call back, I would get a little worried that I was there alone and they must’ve gone back to the car without me.  My worries went away when I’d send a photo or voice messages to the group and I’d get a response right away…whew they are still with me.

It gave me the encouragement to continue running up the steep 1 mile trail. I know, I know, it’s only 1 mile one-way, but that is a steady steep incline! I think Mel’s exact words were, “No one can say we didn’t work for this one!” The incline plus the speed that I was running / resting / panting / walking, my butt was burning. Must.beat.the.sun!

I took a few photos at the summit by myself, but the main photo I wanted to get at the sign, I needed help for. Normally, I would bring my mini tripod with me if I were solo hiking. So I waited. They were about 10 minutes later. We were all drenched in sweat and panting when we arrived at the summit. It was a super humid day! No view to really speak of because the amount of tree coverage at the peak. The views are on the way up to the left.

We saw many toads on the way down. Lots of babies! We heard ton of birds and later at dusk, a bat. Audrey had my head lamp and was leading in the front with me while Mel and Kat were behind with my flashlight. I gave my lights away and didn’t have one myself, but I was close enough to Audrey to see well enough. 

Once again, Mels mom hung out in the car reading her book. We casually hiked down past dark…sweaty as hell. She must think we’re nuts. Do I wish we would have had more time to not rush up before dark, have a picnic on the picnic tables at the summit, take better photos in the bright daylight the next morning and had a chance to relax up there together since I haven’t seen them in forever? Most definitely. But when i’m not solo, I have to consider others wishes. I guess traveling alone so much has made me more independent and stuck in my ways than I already was. Ha! It’s all good.

Back at our cars, we said our goodbyes and then headed out. Partway down the road, I remembered that we wanted to check out the smallest church that was just down the street, so I pulled off the road to get there attention. They got what I was doing and followed my lead. The church is very mini and completely cute. I felt like Alice in Wonderland. The landscaping was gorgeous out front and so well taken care of. Their Lavender smelled amazing!  The smallest mailing office was right next door as well, so we wandered in their too. I was surprised that this was all opened up still at almost 10pm, but I was happy that it was. THEN we parted ways again and I headed back 30 minutes to my campground and they had about an hour drive to their hotel, much closer to West Virginia’s high point than I would be. Because I get up later than them, it makes sense for me to be closer as to have less driving time, so they don’t have to wait as long for the insomniac, but I rolled with it.

Upon arriving to Abrams Creek Lodge and Campground, my bloodshot eyes needed help from other campers to find my number 13 campsite in the total darkness without a map. I prefer to roll into a campsite before dark to make it easier to find my spot. They are often extremely dark and numbered strangely, but it often does not work out that way. By the time I got set up, it was almost midnight. I had been going strong all day on mere minutes of sleep.

I sit writing notes in my car. I have my windows cracked and my no bug screens on. It’s cool, but not cold. I have my under quilt set-up this time, so thats probably why i’m not cold. Nature sounds wonderful and it smells clean. No cell service. No problem. 

I finally drifted off to sleep sometime after 1:30am.

Sunday the 25th:

I woke up after only 5 hours of sleep because I had to pee. Damn you bladder! I needed more sleep especially after the day of no sleep the day before. I did not get any more. I laid there suspended in my hammock for hours with no luck, but I was too comfortable to want to move. I listened to the sounds of water outside, but since it was so dark when I parked, I didn’t get to see the pretty view until morning. I eventually slogged out of my hammock and into the shower. It was around 10am when I took a guess on which way to turn out of the campground because I still had no cell service. Turns out that I was heading in the right direction and found service down the road, a bit. I contacted the team as soon and I had one bar to try to find out the meet-up plan. They were just leaving the hotel to check out Seneca Rocks National Recreation which was where the highest peak of West Virginia was. We knew the cell service was shotty and we would not be able to contact each other anymore, so we just agreed to meet at the summit of Spruce Knob. They were only about 30 minutes away and I was an hour and 40 minutes away, but they stopped to eat breakfast and I just ate car snacks and drove on to save time.

Somehow, I managed to make it to the summit before them. I drove the the various parking lots looking for their car when they just popped up right in front of me at the summit! Spruce Knob is a drive-up peak, but has a “Whispering Spruce Trail” that is .6 of a mile, so that was our planned hike.

We had gorgeous views around the summit. This was the favorite mountain of the 3 for all of us, just because the vistas were the best! It was the tiniest bit drizzly on the drive up the mountain, but we didn’t have one drop while on our hike. It was perfect weather with a great cool breeze at the summit. Much cooler than at the bottom. We still had a clear enough view to see for miles, but got lucky with great moody clouds as well.

So, before I talk about what happened next, let me give a little back story. This explanation is my attempt to make me appear a bit less insane…On my Vermont trip, there was a photo (see below) taken of me sprawled out at the summit relaxing and taking in the most spectacular view. Upon returning home and showing everyone I could the photos, someone blurted out that I looked like a “Mermaid..but a Mountain Mermaid.” That was it! In that moment, I decided that I wanted to collect shells on my next Florida trip to visit my parents and make a mermaid outfit. I needed to be a real Mountain Mermaid! Even though I grew up in Florida, I’ve always hated the ocean, so it never occurred to me that I would ever be a mermaid. I developed a fear of drowning due to my older brother’s constant attempts at drowning me when I was little. I mean, that will do it. So, as someone who has always loved The Little Mermaid, the thought that I could be a mermaid and not be anywhere near water was super exciting to me!

The “tail” skirt was a $20 Amazon score, but the bra was made entirely by me. I was not able to find large Oyster shells, so I ended up buying those for $3.00/each at a touristy beach shop in FL. in the Johns Pass Village area. Some other round shells were purchased at Joann Fabrics and the rest were found by my parents or me on various beach walks.I bought “fish netting” and a bra and fabric dyed them a light lavender. Then I painted the shells with watered down lavender acrylic paint and then added acrylic glitter paint. Always with the glitter.

The assembly was not so bad. I used a fabric glue called E600 and put the fish net on first, then oysters, other shells, the seahorse centerpiece (also, Joann Fabrics), and then finished with a ton of pearls to fill the gaps and added some hanging down in the front. I LOVE the way it turned out! It was exactly how I imagined my Little Mermaid inspired top would look like.

Now getting back to the trip…So, on the hike we walk by the boulder. The boulder that I saw in photos while planning the trip and KNEW that that was my mermaid rock! I sat my bag down and waited for my moment to do a quick change like Superman, but from behind a boulder and not a telephone booth. While I’m on the subject, why the hell did he change in a telephone booth?? I mean, it’s all glass and you can totally see him changing. It’s not like he’s hidden. It’s glass! He might as well just change out on the sidewalk instead of being all cramped up trying to get his tights on. It just doesn’t make sense. I digress…

So, because it was a weekend, there were lots of families out and it was pretty much a steady stream of people the moment I wanted to change. Then even more when I wanted to change back after a few photos. The cutest thing ever happened while standing there waiting for a chance to change. A large family came around the corner and this little girl looked up and gasped. She stood there open mouthed and said, “Someone said there was a mermaid up here!” Awwwwwwwww! She seemed like she wanted to talk to me. I was going to ask her if she wanted a photo with the mermaid, but then thought better of it when I saw that they appeared to be a Muslim family and already felt the looks of uncomfortability for showing some skin. To each their own, but I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers, so I offered no photo.

I had a great time playing mermaid in front of the gorgeous view. The wind was blowing my “tail” around a ton which made it hard to pose, but it was still a fun time! Much better than getting covered in sticky salty water and having the sand stick to me like a damned powdered doughnut. Lets not even talk about humid hair!

We were back at our cars when we realized that we forgot to find the benchmark. Retracing our steps back to the the observation tower, we found it on the side of the path. THAT was the actual high point, but we had so much fun on the trail that we nearly forgot what we were doing. Moss, moths, and a mermaid! On the way back to our cars, we took fun photos at the sign and reconvened.

It was about 2:30pm when we started trucking our way back down the winding mountain road. On the way up, we noticed a little family restaurant called Gateway at the very bottom. So, we decided to meet there for dinner. There didn’t seem to be many other options and we didn’t wanna search around, so it won by default. After dinner we indulged on some of their yummy pies. I had blueberry pie a la mode. Mmm!

Our final stop together was about an hour past the restaurant. We had to stop and get photos by a Poe road sign that was on our way home. I rolled into my driveway about 9:30pm. What a whirlwind of a trip. I had a great time seeing my friends and having this experience with them!

These three mountains were extremely easy comparatively to other ones I have done in the past alone. But, I still learn from every mountain hike. What did I learn from this trip? Even when I’m running on empty and have friends with me (safety net), to be mindful of what supplies I may need on the trek and to stop assuming nothing bad can happen on just a 2 mile hike. I didn’t even have my backpack full of first aid, food, etc because of a quick decision that I didn’t need it and took out what I absolutely needed and left the rest in my car. I had only a small bag of things that I carried up. Thankfully, I didn’t need it, but that thinking could get me into trouble.

This weekend trip was 685 miles through 3 states and 3 more high peaks which brings me to a total of 24 now! It was wonderful to share this experience with good friends. Obviously driving separately and coming from 3 different locations and having little cell service makes things a bit complex, but we did it and we rock! Do I feel like a badass for doing 2 mountain hikes on minutes of broken up sleep and half in the dark? Um…yes.Yes, I do…

As I’m finishing this blog, I glance over and see my bags that I just pulled out of my closets again. They are ready to be packed for a weekend trip to hike Tennessee’s highest peak in a couple of days. Eeee!

The big 25 mark!