A Full Moon Night At Halfmoon Lookout

Saturday, 13May06

It's 7am at the designated meeting spot and we see other hikers meeting to head off in different directions. Ellen and I were ready to hit the road. We were headed to the Great North Mountain region of the George Washington National Forest.

Bristol and Heather made the 5-hour drive from Virginia Beach to Columbia's Furnace, VA. We left Wolf Gap Recreational Area at 10am. After a short climb to get the blood flowing, we reached the ridge and every 40 yards or so, you could see the valleys on either side and the ridgelines of the neighboring mountians as we hike along the Virginia/West Virginia border. The weather was beautiful on Saturday, unlike the forcast for Sunday, so we decided to check out the Big Schloss views as we passed. Breath-taking scenery. Worth every minute of the 2 hour drive and the 1 hour hike up to the top. Our group seperated slightly for the first leg of this trip. Bristol and Heather stopped to take lots of pictures of the beautiful spring flowers. We didn't see many hikers on Saturday.

Ellen and I arrived at Halfmoon Lookout around 2:30. We set up camp on the peak and chatted while admiring the views. After a while of waiting for Bristol and Heather, we decided to nap for a while. A brief, light rainshower blew through the area while we were napping. Around 6:30 we awoke and ate dinner. Bristol and Heather had set up their camp on the cliff below. They came up to the peak and we all sat on the west side of the peak to watch the sun set. Then we built a fire and chit chatted into the night.

I slept out by the fire, watching the moon rise over the heavy clouds to the east. The temperature when the sun went down didn't sink below 55. It was a comfortable and breezy night with the trees slowly moving across the moon. It was absolutely serene. I climbed out of my sleeping bag to go out to the cliff's edge and look across the valley below in the moonlight. It was lit brightly from the moon with shadows from the clouds darkening some areas. A light fog had decended in the valley, and with the moonlight, the town looked like I had dreamed it.


Saturday, 14May06 - Happy Mother's Day Mom & Marianne

I remembered it was Mother's Day. I stood on the very edge of the peak holding my cell phone as high as I could while I watched the sun rise. I couldn't get any cellphone service, so I just had a cup of tea and reflected on the morning. It was beautiful. At 6:30am, there were no clouds - the sky was blue and clear for as far as the eye could see. By 7:30am, the entire peak was wrapped in low-lying clouds. You could barely see the trees along the edge of the trail in front of you. We broke camp at 8am.

We hiked down along Stoney Creek out to the gravel Road 92. Here, Bristol and I hiked up the Big Schloss Cutoff Trail and across the top of the ridge while Ellen and Heather continued along the road and then bushwacked up the side of the mountain to the road. We finished the hike about 2pm and hit the road. We were back to the Baltimore area by 4:30. It was a great hike and I'll be leading this route again in the September/October timeframe.

For the record, Bristol, it was 1100 feet over 1.9 miles in 43 minutes (48 for you) and then 3 miles over 1 hour. You need to make time to get out or else you're gonna be huffing on the easy ones. (I'm done lecturing).

View pictures from the trip at Cham's page (check May 14th's entry).