We hiked this section on May 29, 2011.
Total hike time: 4 hours
We met our shuttle Ken at Long Mountain Wayside at about 7:45 AM. We first met Ken last weekend at the Dutch Haus when he dropped off Mothership.
The USFS 63 road is a gravel road and Ken told us there was one section that is always bad because it gets washed out. Fortunately, the bad section was passable and Ken was able to get his car up to the trail head. Some nice person had left trail magic next to the road.
We started hiking around 8:30 AM and the weather was already warm. The initial climb was all under tree cover and the gnats were pretty bad. Virginia loves their switchbacks, but they can be brutal. The climb up Tar Jacket Ridge was not bad, and we passed thru an old stone wall and had a view of the north mountains.
We had been told that the road to Hog Camp Gap was impassable, but there were a lot of cars in the parking lot, even a Porsche. Couldn’t have been that bad?
We passed thru a fence and a blocked gate and began to climb again. We came to a small open field with a sign about not camping in the area. It was very hot so we hiked faster to stay out of the sun. We went into the woods again, but came out into a very large open area, which I believe was an open field across Cold Mountain. The views were open and we followed the white blazes on posts in the field. We began the ascent to the summit of Cold Mountain and and then descended into Cow Camp Gap.
We came to the sign for water and the shelter, but had heard the shelter was .5 miles down the side of the mountain so we opted not to go. The sign for water, said “leave your pack here, 1600 ft’. Is that the descent for water? I don’t need water that bad.
If we stopped the gnats were pretty bad so we just kept on moving. We entered the woods again, and there was an old barbed wire fence that was falling down. There was also an old stone wall – it looked like an old army barricade.
We started to climb again to Bald Knob and it was really hot and the air was heavy. Even though it wasn’t a real tough climb it seemed like it as the air was not moving. This climb better be for a great view! Got to the top and 2 ladies out for a weekend hiked stopped Dirigo and asked if she had any bug spray. They had not brought any and had gotten torn up from the bugs. Dirigo let them use her spray and off they went. There was NO view.
The descent off Bald Knob was hard in the toes and knees. Lots of switchbacks but some were pretty steep.
Python came across a man sitting on a rock with his head in his hands. She asked him if he was taking a break and he raised his head and said that the trail was beating him up. She asked him if he needed any water or food – he said he was alright but needed to rest. This was his 5th day on the trail and his pack was huge! She offered him some candy but again he refused. He just wanted to rest – this was just before noon time and the heat was miserable.
We both start to run down the switchbacks. It seemed to be less pressure on the knees and helped take pressure off the feet.
Dirigo had lost sight of Python and came to a group of Boy Scouts who were struggling down the trail. The scout leaders looked whipped. I asked if they had seen Python and they all said she went running past the group and had way too much energy for them. Again they all looked pretty beat down. I started running again and ran past 2 of the scouts and then caught up with Python close to the end of the section. A man was coming towards me and asked if I was with her, he pointed back to Python. He was very out of shape and looked like someone had beat him up, and he was only about 100 yards from the cars. He was walking to meet the Boy Scout troop.