rootofnewt | Stony Man, Limberlost, Crescent Rock

So, after managing to get myself medicated and hydrated yesterday, I let boy drag me up the to the mountains. As always, it was refreshing, if ache-inducing. Of course, I'd ache, anyhow, so what does it matter?

We started off with a hike to the summit of Stony Man, the second highest peak in Shenandoah National Park.

On the hike, we saw a tree coming out of a rock. That was cool.

From the top, the view was amazing. Well, it would've been amazing, had it not been so hazy. We could barely make out the outline of Massanutten, across the page valley. View to the WNW. We sat down for a bit. I sat with the map and compass, identifying landmarks. Boy ate, as usual.

We chatted with other hikers and tourists and scrambled around on the rocks. I made faces. The talus slope of Stony Man is rather loose and not terribly safe for those who weren't sure-footed. My new shoes are awesome--I didn't turn an ankle even *once*.

We spent so much time on Stony Man that we decided not to hike Miller's Head and Bushytop. We opted to spend some time at Limberlost. Now, Limberlost was once renown for its virgin hemlock forest. Now it's a graveyard, thanks to the wooly adelgid beetle, an import from Asia. As the only wheelchair-accessible path at SNP, Limberlost requires fairly strict maintenance. All dead hemlocks which could pose a threat to visitors or the integrity of the path have been cut down. Due to a gypsy moth invasion, the white oaks are also dying. I saw several places where a dying white oak and a dead hemlock were intertwined. I saw a lot of stumps attesting to other former tree-mates.

Want to know how big an old hemlock would be? Those are my feet. My heels are on the edge of the stump. I wear a 7.5B in New Balance sizing, a 38 in the Stonefly italian leather sizing.

The beginning (CCW) of the Limberlost hike actually goes through an old, old meadow. Poaching is, well, illegal, being poaching, so I didn't bag this Tomelope, even though it was obviously challenging me.

From Limberlost, we decided to go to Crescent Rock overlook to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, a weather system was moving in, so we'd *just* missed the most specatular part of the sunset behind the cloud front. If you have an LCD screen, tilt it back. Below the yellow/pink area, there is a darker purple line, above the dark purple lines of some hills. That dark purple line has a dip in it--the New Market Gap through Massanutten. We sat on the cliffs and watched the mist settle down.