St Mary's River and Indian Rocks
Oct. 6th, 2003 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rootofnewtYesterday, we decided to hike the St. Mary's River trail to the waterfall. We've never hiked this trail, which turned out to be a problem. This trail is not blazed. It's in a wilderness area, too, which means there is no upkeep. It's also basically a trail through a ravine.
We had a hurricane recently. Lots of water was dumped on the Blue Ridge with nowhere to go but down.
Oy.
For starters, the groundwater is definitely doing well as things are wet, wet, wet. Lots of seepage and dripping. Interesting lichens or fungi abound. The river (those eroded banks are high enough I could stand beneath them) itself is averaging between two and five feet deep and there are plenty of deep pools here and there. There was also a distince lack of riverbank where the trail guide indicated there was plenty.
In some places, there was no trail to follow. The trail tended to follow the river or tributary creeks which looped in and out of the area. There were many rocky deltas. And there was sand. Fine silica sand underfoot or washed up at the bases of trees. There was a *lot* of sand--far more than I'd expect to see in the mountains. Saplings and vines were swept down and water debris came up to about my height in the tree branches. There were masses of large logs and debris strewn about.
The water was a brilliant blue, which I totally did not expect. Evaporation pools showed oil, which is a byproduct of long-gone surface mining operations up in the mountain above us. Most of the streams in the Pedlar District of the Blue Ridge are contaminated with oil from these defunct mines.
I was threatening to jump here. The water was COLD, though. Boy shows his usual disdain for signs. boy wants you to know that he can spot bugs from a mile away.
We gave up. We couldn't find a river crossing, couldn't keep the trail... so we returned to the car. I'll return next (late) spring after the folks who *do* know the trail have traversed it a few times and after the river has gone down a little.
We set off for Indian Rocks, a point south of US 60 on the Blue Ridge and one we haven't visited.
Indian Rocks is a pile of huge boulders just a short hike off the parkway. Of particular note is a large column supported by two boulders. It's possible to walk underneath it, too--boy is barely visible in that picture. He enjoys bowing down to his primitive instincts and finding cave shelters. I like walking through such passages, too.
We enjoyed clambering over the rocks, finding nifty places to rest. We decided that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
twilight_spirit needs to visit this particular spot, since he's fond of hiking and of big rocks.
An interesting found composition. Lovely moss was everywhere.
We eventually left Indian Rocks and set off for the Blue Ridge Pig in Nellysford, where boy obtained some beef bbq. We then headed for home and exhaustion and band practice.
We had a hurricane recently. Lots of water was dumped on the Blue Ridge with nowhere to go but down.
Oy.
For starters, the groundwater is definitely doing well as things are wet, wet, wet. Lots of seepage and dripping. Interesting lichens or fungi abound. The river (those eroded banks are high enough I could stand beneath them) itself is averaging between two and five feet deep and there are plenty of deep pools here and there. There was also a distince lack of riverbank where the trail guide indicated there was plenty.
In some places, there was no trail to follow. The trail tended to follow the river or tributary creeks which looped in and out of the area. There were many rocky deltas. And there was sand. Fine silica sand underfoot or washed up at the bases of trees. There was a *lot* of sand--far more than I'd expect to see in the mountains. Saplings and vines were swept down and water debris came up to about my height in the tree branches. There were masses of large logs and debris strewn about.
The water was a brilliant blue, which I totally did not expect. Evaporation pools showed oil, which is a byproduct of long-gone surface mining operations up in the mountain above us. Most of the streams in the Pedlar District of the Blue Ridge are contaminated with oil from these defunct mines.
I was threatening to jump here. The water was COLD, though. Boy shows his usual disdain for signs. boy wants you to know that he can spot bugs from a mile away.
We gave up. We couldn't find a river crossing, couldn't keep the trail... so we returned to the car. I'll return next (late) spring after the folks who *do* know the trail have traversed it a few times and after the river has gone down a little.
We set off for Indian Rocks, a point south of US 60 on the Blue Ridge and one we haven't visited.
Indian Rocks is a pile of huge boulders just a short hike off the parkway. Of particular note is a large column supported by two boulders. It's possible to walk underneath it, too--boy is barely visible in that picture. He enjoys bowing down to his primitive instincts and finding cave shelters. I like walking through such passages, too.
We enjoyed clambering over the rocks, finding nifty places to rest. We decided that
twilight_spirit needs to visit this particular spot, since he's fond of hiking and of big rocks.An interesting found composition. Lovely moss was everywhere.
We eventually left Indian Rocks and set off for the Blue Ridge Pig in Nellysford, where boy obtained some beef bbq. We then headed for home and exhaustion and band practice.
