We woke up to a cold, brisk morning, but were few clouds in the sky and the sun made a dramatic appearance rising over Shenandoah National Park. Despite last night’s rain, the wind ventilated our tent quite well, and you’d never know it had rained. CareFree and I weren’t especially fast getting started this morning, but we were on our way before 8, heading back down the Kennedy Peak Trail to the Massannutten Trail, and resuming our walk south.
The trail curved around the west side of Kennedy Peak, then returned to the ridge and followed an ATV trail along the ridge to a small trailhead parking lot at Ediths Gap along VA 675 / S Fort Valley Rd, where we made our entrance to the Massanutten Range two days ago, on our way to drop off our first water cache. Along the way, we passed the only other hiker we saw today, a woman apparently out for a day-hike up to Kennedy Peak. This trail was occasionally rugged, but generally very nice, and we made good time.
At the trailhead, a cleared grassy area with a couple of windsocks served as a hang glider launch point, with an obvious landing area with another windsock about halfway between the mountain and the South Fork Shenandoah River.
After taking in the view for a few minutes, we continued following the trail downhill, taking a short detour to the Stephens Trail trailhead where we stashed a gallon of water two mornings ago. There was only one car in the parking lot, presumably that of the hiker we saw on our way from the peak.
We filled our water bottles and pack bladders, and then I strapped the empty gallon jug to my pack. Rather than coming back here to pick it up, it’s easy to take the empty bottle to our campsite tonight, which we’ll have to return to anyway when we’re done to pick up our two bear cans.
About a mile further down the trail, we crossed Little Passage Creek, which was flowing quite well; turns out we didn’t need the cache at all. (But at least it did save us time filtering water from the creek.)
After crossing the creek, the trail followed its valley gently uphill. An old road bed, this was mostly easy hiking, though a little gloomy as most of the hill to the west had been burned in a prescribed fire. The uphill was long, but it wasn’t very steep, so it was much easier than yesterday. As the temperature gradually cooled (and the blue sky replaced with clouds), we were hit by a few short snow flurries.
Climbing out of Little Passage Creek’s valley, we reached a trail junction with the Strickler Knob Trail. That trail leads south to Strickler Knob the end of the ridge, and if it had been summertime, I would have been very happy to take the trail to the viewpoint. But with limited daylight, we didn’t have the time for the mile-and-a-half out-and-back. Instead, we had to be content with one last view back to the eastern part of Shenandoah Valley.
After a quick drop off the ridge, we reached a trail junction with the Scothorn Gap Trail, and turned left, following the Massanutten Trail down another creek valley, this time for Big Run. We stopped for a break at the first of two crossings of the creek, collecting extra water for tonight. Given we had a gallon cached at our campsite up ahead, I regretted not dropping off an extra gallon there. (We did have an extra gallon in the car.) It would have made this next section easier, to not have to carry extra water, but either way, we needed to stop for a break.
After the second crossing of Big Run, we began a very steep climb up to the ridge of Waterfall Mountain. (Sadly, we saw no waterfalls.) This was the steepest climb we’ve had to do so far this trail, and the mostly straight-up-the-mountain climb felt simultaneously at home in the Appalachians, yet something I more expected to see on New Zealand’s Te Araroa.
Nearing the top of the ridge, we got a proper snow for a good twenty minutes, though the ground was still warm enough for it to not really accumulate.
The snow stopped as we arrived at our campsite, just short of Crisman Hollow Road. We were relieved to find that our water and food cache appeared undisturbed. When a flurry started, we quickly hurried setting our tent up; the snow stopped immediately after we finished.
With plenty of water, both from Big Run and our cache, I easily had enough water to cook my full dinner. The ramen, being more a soup than a solid meal, did a great job of warming my hands (and my belly), as it had gotten pretty cold out.
Not surprisingly, since we hadn’t cooked anything on our first evening on trail, we had more food than would fit into our bear cans, necessitating hanging the rest of our food. This was one of my better hangs; a tree with a long enough branch, sufficiently off the ground, and I managed to get my line thrown over the branch in only two tries (thanks to using one of CareFree’s sandals as a weight).
Today felt somewhat hard; the last climb brought our day to over 2,700 feet of elevation gain (and a similar amount of loss). Less than yesterday, but still pretty tough, given most of the uphill was fairly concentrated. Tomorrow should hopefully be easier; it’ll probably be a similar amount of climbing, but it appears it should be less steep.
Sometime several hours after sunset, a dog came by our tent, barking at us. Two people — we assumed hunters — driving along the road called out to the dog several times, before it eventually left. It was slightly unnerving, moreso for CareFree, but after the dog left, we had no further issues.