After testing many models of “teardrop” camping trailers for a few years by renting them through Outdoorsy, I finally ordered a small Hiker Trailer in Nov 2022 and we drove to Indianapolis to pick it up in February 2023. In the 2 years since buying it we’ve made 11 trips, including the one to bring it back home, when we camped at the Red River Gorge in Kentucky (beautiful). Nine trips have been in Virginia and one in nearby Watoga State Park in West Virginia. Most recently, we headed out for just 2 nights to a site north of where the AT crosses the James River.
Day 1: Nitty Gritty
We drive up Hercules Road (FS 812), one county over from where we live, whose campsites I’ve learned about through the free version of the app “The Dyrt,” looking for pulloffs. The thing about camping in the George Washington National Forest (any National Forest as I understand it) is that you can camp for free anyplace you can get all the way off the road (and a certain setback from waterways), but frankly most places you wouldn’t want to just pull off the road. The desirable places are mostly near water. In some locations the Forest Service has made convenient pull offs for cars, with access to really nice walk-in tent sites. Then there are some (but fewer) drive-in sites that work well for tenters, camping vans, and our very small tow-behind trailer. I look on the FS maps for roads that have steam crossings that are within a less than 2 hrs drive from home. All the better if the creeks or streams are marked with a little blue fish. This means they are stocked streams, which tends to mean more and better campsites….but you want to avoid the actual specific dates in spring when the streams are being stocked, because the fisher folk know about it and will have filled up these first-come-first-served sites.
So on Rte 812 the first site we see is for walk-in tenting—no room for the trailer before the big stones the Forest Service places to stop people driving where they shouldn’t. Next we pull into a large circular group campground, with a grassy open area in the center and a big fire circle and tent sites all around it—beyond the big stones—but also 2 sites in front of the stones with room for an RV or trailer. One of these is closest to the creek, which is ideal, but when we walk down to it we see the water is very low, despite recent rains, and we decide to drive on up the road to see if there are better spots. We pass one or two, either not suitable for the trailer or occupied, get to the end of the road and turn around.
We decide to head back to the group site, but when we arrive someone is parked exactly where we would want to put the trailer. We ask if she is going to be camping. Oh no—I’m just here with my son for a few hours, “creeking” she says, so we explain we are going to camp for a few days and ask would she mind moving her car—no problem. So we pull in and begin the process of adjusting the jacks to level the trailer and deciding that since the weather is supposed to be fine and we’re in the shade—we won’t bother with the 270-degree awning.
I have a new “privacy shelter” I got at our local camping gear consignment store (High Tor) for substantially less than full price and am eager to set it up. Over time my knees have become less and less fond of squatting over a cat hole, and the process of digging in the dark in rocky or root-bound soil discouraging, so I got one of those “luggable loos” that is basically a bucket with a toilet seat on it, but it comes with a set of sturdy double bags into which you can make your deposits and add sawdust, and bag it all up and place it in the regular trash bin when you get home. So this has been fine for me (R still prefers to dig a cat hole) and in fact after reading about all the trouble parks and public lands rangers have had with so many more people camping during COVID, not knowing how to behave or choosing not to, and not even bothering to dig but leaving their sh%$ on the surface, I feel better about collecting it all in one place and taking it home. Some state and national forests now will not allow dispersed camping unless you have a toilet system of some kind.
But once I had my loo, the problem became privacy. Some of these FS sites are near enough the road and sometimes there isn’t a lot of deep woods to wander off to and other sites could be nearby, so I started to shop for the privacy/shower tents that folks use—but whew they are pricey. So I was thrilled when High Tor had one on offer. It is so lightly used it still has the tags on the bag. It’s well-designed and has glow-in-the-dark tabs on the clips that hook the tent to the poles, so it’s easy to find at night. It is a real relief—especially in this group site that anyone could pull into at any time—to be able to take care of business behind closed tent flaps.
The Neighbors
There’s what looks to be a trail behind the ring of the group site, so we head up to see what we can see. There are more campsites. Then when the path peters out along the stream, I see a trail above us. We scramble up the bank and find a comparatively well-trodden trail and follow it until we’re uncertain whether to keep going. Along the way there are mushroom sightings, and a small toad. One of our topo apps that is usually reliable (US Topo) won’t pull up, but the other one (Gaia GPS) does, and we see that the trail proper heads one way to Peavine Gap and Peavine Mountain and the other goes to the end of our road—where the lady whose son is exploring the creek told us there’s an abandoned quarry. Deciding that following it either way is an adventure for another day, we head back to camp.
On out walk we saw some mushrooms but haven’t ID’d them yet. Once the camp chairs are set up, at my toes I notice the telltale caps of two small Russula fungi poking out of the ground. R says his mycology friends call these JARs (just another Russula). If you wish to read a side-splittingly funny analysis of just how difficult Russula identification is, take a look at Michael Kuo’s article on Mushroomexpert.com. One of the Russula species we sometimes see in the woods in this region has a green rather than a red cap, is unlike any other mushroom, and is edible, which I know because my foraging offspring have collected and eaten them with no ill effects. But we leave these 2 little red ones alone. A moth, a Baltimore Snout, comes to sit on our camp table.
The lady and her son head out—he has caught and released several crayfish and a few minnows. I’ve been reading Robert Macfarlane’s Is A River Alive while R was interacting with the 6 yr old over all his exciting finds. Now I wander down to the creek & watch the fish, some as little as my pinkie nail, some up to about 2”. I see no crayfish. There is also a juice label, a tissue, and a plastic bag (left by others, not the recent visitors), which I collect to add to our trash. As I walk up to throw these away I also pick up bottle caps and cigarette butts. An American crow caws at me and when I turn to look it in the eye it flies away still cawing. Black butterflies flit—likely Red Spotted Purples but I wouldn’t know unless they’d settle to let me see if they have a swallowtail or not.
We check our butterfly field guide to reaquaint ourselves with the photos of the candidates that do have long tails—Black Swallowtail, Spicebush Swallowtail, and the black form of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. You can usually tell the latter because the blotted-out stripes of the dark morph are still slightly visible through the wings when the light shines through them, but the other two can be hard to distinguish.
It’s 4 PM and the cicadas are getting louder. The stream burble is gentle. Despite all the rain the flow is modest and we wonder if it would be dry in a dry season. Last season we went to explore Ramsay’s Draft only to find the waterways next to which we recall hiking in earlier times were rocky, arid paths.
The Meal & the Night Chorus
We have rice noodle ramen and peanut sriracha sauce for dinner, and a big Greek salad. We only ever have sriracha noodles when camping—so for me the very taste signifies the pleasure of a trip to enjoy the outdoors. I’m happy to just sit by the stream and read a book—a focused time I often don’t taken when I’m home. R does the dishes. Now the fireflies begin and frogs start up—at about 8:40. First I said bullfrogs but R corrected me and now I remember—these are Green Frogs—they make a plucked-banjo sound. I can always remember the Pickerel Frog, which sounds like a thumb running over a comb, but the deep plunk of the Green Frog sounds to be like it ought to be a bullfrog, until you hear the actual bullfrog—which sounds more like a rumbling moan, or a deeply-troubled truck engine. Although it’s getting on for 9 it is still light and we are under an enormous spreading beech tree, whose girth is about 6 or 7 feet. We guess the height at about 90 feet. Alas, there are many carvings on their trunk & I silently apologize for the callousness. A sense of the animate in everything around us—something I’ve felt since childhood—is strengthened by the Macfarlane book, which uses pronouns for all the waterways described, and has given me permission to use them for this beech tree. Ah—now a whippoorwill. I haven’t heard one in a few years—not since the last time we camped in a wilderness area. Also the katydids start up, with their 2-stroke shaker-egg sound, and the tree frogs and tree crickets add to the roar. This is the best white noise machine there is. We sleep soundly.
Day 2: The Creek
In the creek pool the shadows of the water skeeters have 4 paddle-like blobs for legs and a paddle-shaped body. These shadows zip over the creek bed while the almost-translucent creatures on the water surface that are casting the bulbous shadows are, by contrast, slender, tiny, and hard to see. R has got out his Freshwater Fishes of the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, & Delaware guide and is trying to identify the “small fry.” He’s using butterflying binoculars which have a short focal distance. “Minnows” as commonly used refers to any small fish, though properly some fish in the Family Cyprinidae (carps and minnows) are minnows, and some can be fairly large (reaching almost 10 feet in Asia). It is the world’s largest family of fishes, but in the mid-Atlantic we have 86 species. None of the fish R identifies today are minnows. What we have aplenty in Rocky Row Run, is Mountain Red-belly Dace (Phoxinus oreas). The males have distinctive red coloration along the belly, a lateral line, and yellow fins. What we assume are likely females swimming alongside don’t have the red bellies. Another species, paler, is possibly a Bluehead Chub (Nocomis leptocephalus) and R saw a Northern Hogsucker (Hypentelium nigricans). I did not have the patience to make these identifications, but was more absorbed in scanning the rocks for crayfish. I began to tease that he and the little boy had been making them up, when I spied a claw and part of the crayfish body extending from under a medium sized rock. Then R coughed and it scuttled back under the rock; apparently they can sense surface noise. I look over to the right and see a very small frog, about 2 inches long, sitting stock still. It has a green color under its chin. It stays unmoving for a long time until R gets close enough to get a photo – then off it hops.
Appalachian Trail Along the James
After a relaxed breakfast we head to where the AT intersects the James River. According to the maps the AT actually crosses our road.…but we must’ve missed it because we’re at the bottom of the road before we know it and didn’t see any signs. But by turning onto the road that hugs the river we get to a parking area for the footbridge that is part of the AT, which runs a little ways east of the C&O railroad bridge that carries trains across the water. The AT North ascends from the river to a ridge with marked views, but as it’s one of those stifling hot days, we opt for the AT South, that crosses the bridge and follows the river, and then turns uphill along Matt’s Creek to the eponymous shelter.
The river is wide and green and calm. There’s a big family crossing the bridge ahead of us so we slow down to let them get farther ahead. At the end of the bridge the grandfather, who has a small poodlish dog on a leash and a boy maybe 6 or 7 in tow has stopped and is gazing intently at the water. There’s a turtle he says. I’m waiting for it to resurface. We look but the turtle doesn’t reappear. One of the other children comes back from the other side of the bridge to look too. A flash hurtles by. It’s a kingfisher R says. No one responds. A turtle is maybe of more interest? Then he says it again, a bit louder, I saw a Kingfisher. What’s a kingfisher, the girl asks. Ah that was the issue. I say it’s a bird that has a crest on it head that makes it look like a punk rocker. The girl looks like she’s taking that in. Then the rest of the family reappear, Mom with sleeping toddler in arms, grandma, and a few other adults and kids, and they are off back to the parking area. Whew. I should have guessed—they are not dressed for a longer walk. We will have quiet on the trail.
Just along the trail from the bridge a tremendous cliff face rises up. The signs say no camping, no climbing, and warn that there are a lot of untended snags on the trail that could fall at any time. Hmnn I think – is that to avoid liability if I get hit by a falling tree? Why is a standing dead tree called a snag? Is it because it is a perfect perch for birds, especially birds of prey, and thus “snags” them?
The dictionary provides that a fallen tree or limb in a waterway is a snag—in that it can catch or tear at a boat; this usage dates from the 1590s. The word is thought to be of Scandinavian origin, and the figurative meaning “hidden obstacle, unexpected impediment,” according to Etymonline.com, goes back to 1829.
We mosey along looking at everything. The photographs show what caught my eye: Yellow Jewelweed (Impatiens pallida), which is fun to see, since back in Nelson we mainly see the orange kind (Impatiens capensis). By no stretch if the imagination do I know these scientific names! I have the Flora of Virginia app, which requires no active internet connection to use (thank goodness as we have zero bars here). It is not free (was $25 when I got it and maybe still is) but over the many years I’ve owned it, I have used it on nearly every hike and wander; it is updated often, for free, and it has proved invaluable with its lovely (now clickable) glossary of terms, graphic key and more. I cannot say enough good things about it.
Jewelweed loves moist soil, is fun for kids because its seed pods, lightly touched, will fling the seeds out in an explosive curl that they get a huge kick out of (another common name is touch-me-not) and I can attest is not lightly called “weed” as R—with an adoration of all native plants no matter to what extent they spread—made what I consider an error in planting it at the wettish bottom of our yard. It is now everywhere, such that I feel no hint of regret in pulling it up nearly every place I find it. (Also, not so sotto voce, the aptly-named Common Milkweed, and a plant that ought to be re-named Cupweed instead of Cup Plant, that has lovely sunflowery blooms at the top of hardy 8 to 10 foot stalks and is not choosy, inviting itself into every bed). A more successful transplant (IMO) to the wet bottom strip of the yard is the Black Cohosh, which is just now, after 3 years, putting forth its Dr. Seuss-like wands of white blooms each late spring/early summer.
But I digress. Along the edge of the James we saw Maidenhair Fern, Leafcup, Bleeding Hearts (the flowers already “gone,” but some sporting seed capsules), Wild Ginger and Bloodroot growing together, and a patch of wild yam leaves with what seemed to be a mystery flower. It is on a stiff stalk and is not necessarily associated with the yams, but we could not find a leaf that did belong to it. I took some macro shots of it. Then R gets down on the ground with my 10 X hand lens to have a close look and says “I don’t think it is a flower—feel it.” I oblige and then use an alternative method I have for looking at things very closeup on the trail—I whip off my glasses and put the object right next to my eyeball. Indeed, this seems to be composed of left-over sepals, dried and with dots on them that looked a bit like petal decoration—so maybe more likely the remains of a berry? Or another type of seed array? The seed pods of wild yam, which is a vine, I find on searching in the Flora, do not look like that—they have 4-part papery pods that are pretty distinctive. One photo of the mystery “flower” also shows the leaf of what looks like a broad leaf sedge mixed in with the wild yam…but also its flowers don’t look like they’d leave this papery remnant, so it remains a mystery. Other beings we met: basswood, houstonia, the invasive spotted lanternfly—practically coating an ailanthus, its host plant—and many red-spotted purple butterflies.
Whenever there is water, R is called to dip in it. I am perfectly happy to sit on the shore, unless we are talking hot spring. My idea of the ideal water temp is “bathtub,” so I find a log to sit on while R wades through a bit of squishy mud to take a swim. Beside me are blooms of monkey flower. Now we see a few water birds – blue heron, cormorant, and some type of duck – maybe a merganser, a hawk. There are some early asters, polypodium fern growing next to some ebony spleenwort (this is one of my favorites because who doesn’t enjoy saying “ebony spleenwort”). There are rocky cliffs on the south side if the trail all along – some intact and some having crumbled down so that the path is more a trail of scree….not such easy going even though it is flat. We hear voices when we are lounging at the shore, but never see anyone. Once we get to the James Face Wilderness we realize that a) the path bends uphill out of the forested cover and into bright sun, and b) Matt’s Creek is now Matt’s Trickle and we decide turning back to walk in the shade is the better part of valor for a blistering summer afternoon. The rest of the hike will be a good bet in the fall – when we might return to try another nearby Forest Service road that the Mom of R’s creek buddy told us about.
Not Snagged
Back at camp I’m writing about the day’s walk while R is naked again, in the creek pool, looking at little fish. Suddenly there’s a ripping sound and a huge crash. Five yards or so down the creek, a large 1.5 to 2 foot diameter branch has fallen off a tree and crashed down into a lower pool and broken into many pieces. There were maybe 2 seconds of sound and then the fall. No one who had been under that branch could possibly have moved fast enough to avoid it. Snag danger indeed. We are extremely relieved that snag was downstream from where R was sitting. He looks at it later and measures up the shattered pieces, estimating it was 24 ft long.
Playing Dead
We’re having snacks before dinner. Sure, when we go on our cross-country trip (someday, when I retire) we’ll probably be eating weird dried camping food. But in the meantime I prep ahead (very little cooking at camp) and we eat well. This has become more important as I’ve been diagnosed with IBS and am determined to keep enjoying being a foodie anyhow despite sensitivity to sorbitol, mannitol (the polyols), wheat fructans and the fructans in alliums. So I invented a new dip – it’s sour cream (about 1 cup) with about 1 tsp chipotle chile powder and ¼ to ½ tsp asafoetida. This latter was a new ingredient for me after my brother gifted me the Madhur Jaffrey cookbook Curry Easy. We already had her World Vegetarian, which we regard as a bible, so it was great to fold this new one into a repertoire. Anyhow this dip is lovey with corn chips (I’m now avoiding the onion that usually comes with salsa, the former go-to).
As we are enjoying this and I relish a sip of my Inkling cocktail, invented for my book launch, (if you ask for the recipe I’ll send it to you), a black beetle trundles up my leg. When I try to scoop it off it wriggles its feet momentarily and then goes utterly stiff in my hand. In its false rigor mortis state I bring it up on to the table so we can get a better look. It plays its part well. For about 15 minutes we photograph it, place it back on the ground and leave it alone, and still there is no discernible movement. At last R gently pokes it and it trundles away. (I tend to reach for the verb trundle when it comes to beetles…I had to do a search-and-replace to remove several iterations of it from my book Species of Concern). Back home we search and determine it is likely a Rough Hermit Beetle (Osmoderma scabra).
Dusk – Better Than a Symphony
Again, similar to last night, but it is magnificent, is a multimedia show, and I want to make note of it once more. I enjoy a symphonic rendition of something dramatic – Finlandia or The Eroica, but this is superb in it own right. Cicadas and crickets go first. Then fireflies make a visual splash that accompanies the sounds. We see mainly Big Dippers and possibly others.…we don’t have our firefly ID book with us.
Also punctuating the chorus, without sound, are small slightly-bigger-than-pinhead sized beetles that fly into my hair, down my shirt and into my food, for about ½ an hour – then they are gone. The yin that makes the yang possible. Next the beloved whipporwill. When I came to live in the countryside, away from a small city, in the early 90’s, they were not beloved by me. They were plentiful and sang all night. And when I was raising infants, this was hard. I am a light sleeper. But now they are so endangered, nearly gone, rarely if ever heard where I live any longer, I feel nostalgia and sorrow that we have been so destructive, so greedy (of course I have been greedy too – I after all, have a house that displaced some trees.…there are so many of us humans, and of course everyone needs a decent place to live, which doesn’t seem on the face of it at all greedy, but the policies that would make that available for all and at the same time be sustainable for the planet, those have not been put into place because other competing interests are…greedy, and our governments woefully short-sighted). Oh – was I on about the dusk chorus and quickly slid into a rant? Well, that’s normal these days.
Why is the whippoorwill in such steep decline? I have ranted, but I don’t really know, so I do some sleuthing. It turns out not much is known by anyone about this decline, and there is a great need for citizen scientists to help ornithologists figure it out—because if we don’t know the answer, we can’t make pertinent changes to aid in conservation. So I have registered to help at the North American Nightjar Survey.
After the whippoorwill, the katydids, and now that it is full dark, in the synesthetic space, like a final chord, a red star appears. We have so much tree cover from the enormous beech, many oaks (mostly red, & chestnut), and sycamore, that it is impossible to tell if this is Betelgeuse in Orion or Mars. Luckily my Stellarium app does not require connectivity, so I apply it to “see” through the tree cover to learn that Mars is hovering above, at the tip of Virgo – which I cannot see.
R has gone to photograph a frog. I went to help at first – over to a small pond behind the camping circle. We heard several green frogs, but were unable to see them, no matter how we shone a flashlight around the edge, & into the depths of the pond. One hopped away from one spot to another on the verge – and we could not see it through the plants. A salamander was on the bottom, still as a twig. After the insects dive-bombing my headlamp got to me and I retreated, R was able to photograph the Green frog, which plucked its banjo and sat as if Kermit, for a portrait, knowing he would go viral (the one at the very top of this post).
Day 3: Crayfish
Over breakfast we close our eyes for 3 minutes to listen. This soundscape is subtler than at dusk. Cicadas, a fly buzz near me, and under it all the sound of the creek, faint, with an intermittent rockier burst of a deep, drumming sound. While our eyes are closed, the Vireo, Acadian Flycatcher, and Pileated Woodpecker that we heard earlier, are silent. Then we carry our chairs down to the creek for a last time. An Eastern Tiger Swallowtail is patrolling its territory. Through a trick of light I don’t entirely understand, the trunk of a small pine across the creek is reflecting the dance of light on the water. Up and down its trunk waves of light move and shimmer. Off in the distance one quick gulp of a frog. I wonder if the tiny one we saw on the creek shore could be back again today so I get up to look.
No frog, but I get to see the crayfish jousting. But I forget at first and speak, “there’s a crayfish.” It instantly scuttles under a piece of bark. Then it moves out, encounters another one, & they claw at one another until Crayfish A retreats into a hole beneath a rock. A third one arrives on the scene, stage left, to joust with Crayfish B, who backs up rapidly —an adroit maneuver—and Crayfish C goes to investigate the hole where Crayfish A is hiding. Whenever sunlight hits the water I move my hand to create a shadow that allows me to see through to the bottom. After a while my position leaning on a rock is getting harder to hold so I retreat to my chair. A silver spotted skipper lands on a rock on a white line of what looks like bird shit. It stays for many minutes; at about minute 3 or 4 the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail that is flying up and down the creek returns – it is making sure no other males are in its patch. The female can have up to 3 broods per season in the southeast. Now a blue is flitting – is it a Summer Spring Azure (yes that is a strange name), probably, because I see no tail, which would make it an Eastern Tailed Blue. Time to pack up. It’s going to be another hot day.
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