Sugar Knob Resort & Conference Center

19May07-20May07 - Cabin Maintenance

As many of you already know, the PATC is an organization that maintains hiking trails and remote mountain cabins all throughout Virginia, MD, WV and PA. They have the best maps of the area, I recommend you get yourself the maps - a lot of work goes in to keeping them current. Keith is overseer of Sugar Knob Cabin which is in the Lee Ranger District of George Washington National Forest. We went out there knowing there was work to be done, and I had planned a thousand excuses to get me out of work detail and out on the trail for some day hiking. Of course I wouldn't avoid all of the work, but with the weather forecast, I had to get out on the trail at least a little. Friday night I was tired from the work week. I decided that getting up before the sun on Saturday morning was not something I was interested in doing. I drove down and hiked in to the cabin in the dark, in the rain, carrying 65 lbs of gear. The 5k hike in took longer than I expected and the trail seemed unfamiliar to me by the light of a headlamp. I had to slow down on the wet rocks. Around 10:30pm, I arrived at the cabin and Keith handed me a beer. We sat up and chit chatted until about midnight and then we went to sleep. The rain had let up a little by that point. The next morning I slept in. That was so nice. The sun was up and the weather was absolutely perfect by the time I had my hot tea and cheeseburger for breakfast. The girls were excited, they love being out in the woods. I got to work digging out the fire pit and doing a few other chores around the cabin. Around noon, the rest of the group started trickling in. We all went to work - the list of chores was long. Fill in dips in the floor with quick dry cement. Paint the privy roof. Supplement that patio with more large, flat rock. The back window had been sticking, wouldn't open - Keith filed it down and cleared out a mouse's nest from the frame. Gather fire wood. Sharpen the blades of the axes and saws. We worked until about 3. Then everyone was eager to go on a day hike. Went up to Halfmoon Lookout for the view. When we got back we enjoyed happy hour and conversation long into the night.

Sunday morning everyone woke up and took their time getting back to work. Kisses had gotten into some canned oysters during the night and threw them up in my sleeping bag. I wonder how many times I need to wash oyster barf out of synthetic sleeping bag before there is a small enough parts per billion that a bear doesn't think I smell like a seafood treat? Any suggestions are welcome. We finished up a few things with the patio, then we hiked out to the cars. The weather the entire trip could not have been more beautiful. You only get so many weekends like this in your lifetime. There were a few members of our usual crowd missing this weekend - Hungry Ted, Art, Tuna, Terri, Ron S., Cham. Hopefully they can make it next time. Bristol, Heather, and I stopped for lunch on the way out. Place called Paisano's in Woodstock. They had a pretty decent cheesesteak, so I think this will be a new favorite lunch spot.

Sugar Knob 2007