Hi folks – just returned from a three day jaunt on the AT in Virgina. It was a great trip, the first of many this summer, and I’m excited to give you all the deets.

I began the trip at where the AT crosses Rt. 56 between The Priest and The Three Ridges Wilderness areas in George Washington NF in Western VA.

t was an incredible drive from Charlottesville to get there – rolling foothills and picturesque farms all the way. The final section along the Tye was particularly lovely – the town of Massie’s Mill caught my imagination. Who was Massie? I parked the car in what I hoped would be a shady spot and started north on the AT into the Three Ridges Wilderness. There was a bridge across the Tye, and then the beginning of a long climb. I felt great – I was hoofing it up that hill. It had been a while since I’d hiked, and it felt wonderful to be in the forest again. On the way up, I noticed a few wild edibles, but I was feeling too good to stop and harvest – hopefully they’d be just as abundant at the campsite. My main goal was to gain some practice wild edible experience – I’d brought my book, and I was ready to eat like a king.

It was a long up. On the way, I passed two old men with thin, muscular calves. Or, possibly, I passed the same elderly wizard twice – these men were identical, especially in their calves and nobbly (knobbly?) knees. Having passed him the first time, he teleported up the path a ways so I’d pass him again. Not sure why the wizard would do such a thing, but their ways are mysterious to men.

I stopped for lunch at a little bald with an incredible view to the southwest. It looked onto a cove on the side of the Priest (which I would climb the next day). A little road wound its way up to a tiny inholding on the side of the mountain. I could just see a tiny roof, and I imagined what life would be like in that lonely little house. Wonderful, I suppose.

Lunch was a mess. I attempted to make hummus, and managed to capsize my bowl, spilling excessively watery hummus all over my pack. It smells of chick peas and tahini to this day, which is worrying from a bear safety perspetive. Fortunately, bears hate Mediterranean food. I also made way too much, but I ate it nonetheless, guaranteeing myself an afternoon of foul hummus farts and the unpleasant experience of eating hummus with a spoon.

After lunch, I slowly wound my way up the Three Ridges. There was a lot of up, but I found a mantra that helped me overcome my habit of constantly trying to calculate how much further to the top. ”At least as far as I can see,” I’d say to myself, reminding myself that I still had a long way to go. Also helpful were the wildflowers and butterflies – indian paintbrush and trillium gave way to flowers I don’t know as a climbed, and butterflies swirled around me throughout the afternoon.

The top of the ridge was fairly unexciting, and by four or five, I’d wandered my way to Maupin Field shelter. I don’t like sleeping in shelters (wood floors are way too hard), and I was seeking solitude, so I slung my hammock a little ways downstream in a secluded spot near the creek. I took a quick nap, and then began my search for wild edibles.

This, of course, was the main attraction of the backpacking trip, and I set about it with gusto. I found wild onion, violets and fiddleheads of several varieties. I used too much water with the beans, and so I just decided to throw them all in there, thereby creating my signature dish: Weirdo Soup.

As I finished cooking, it was getting dark and chilly, and so a liter of hot bean and wild edible soup was a wonderful treat. The violets were pretty tasteless, the onions were pleasantly oniony, and though the fiddleheads tasted somewhat like vagina, they were at least fairly mild. All in all, I’d say the soup was a success. I dozed off feeling manly and outdoorsy.

It’s not very exact, but it’s just the Mau-Har trail south rejoining the AT. You can follow along on a real map. In any case, it was a wonderful creek hike – lots of little cascades and beautiful pools enclosed within the valley’s steep walls. It was dark and damp, which made me feel like I was in the Ewok forest (which, of course, is on the forest moon Endor). Trilliums of all colors proliferated – I have never seen so many supposedly rare flowers in one place. There were clearings composed entirely of trilliums and young ferns (both of which, of course, are edible). I got slightly lost when the Mau-Har trail became a spur to see the waterfall, but soon enough, I found myself back on the AT, and soon after that, back at the trailhead. I paused for a moment, considering whether I really wanted to spend another two days in the wilderness, and then set off south on the AT in the Priest Wilderness.

There is a lot of up in that route. In fact, there’s just about 3500 feet in about four miles, which is a shitload of up. The hike began pleasantly enough, but soon the clouds covered the sun, and the wind picked up. By the time I was 2000 ft. in, I was cold, tired, and extremely unhappy. I decided to eat lunch, and while I mixed my repulsive hummus powder, I discovered that my olive oil had soaked my lighter. I, it turns out, am a big dumb idiot, and as punishment for my foolishness, I would not have hot food for dinner. In fact, without a lighter, the menu seemed pretty much limited to hummus. Fortunately, a friendly looking elderly couple came upon me just as I cursed the gods for this bad luck. The gave me matches, and informed that I was nearly 2/3 of the way to the top, which turned out to be true, but somewhat misleading – all of the steepest, rockiest part of that hike comes in the final mile. By the time I reached the incredibly large summit (nearly a mile long, and quite wide), I was nearly dead.

The summit of the Priest, however, is extremely cool, especially on a cold, dark afternoon. There are immense boulders scattered all over the peak as though sprinkled by the hand of a giant, and many of them form creepy Stonehenge-like semicircles. They’re also covered in rock tripe, a brown and black flaky lichen, which gives them the appearance of slumbering beasts. If I ever need a suitable place for a pagan ritual or virgin sacrifice, I could do a lot worse than the top of the Priest. The commute, however, is not convenient.

There is also an incredible view on the northwest end of the summit. Truly astounding – this view alone justifies the grueling hike.

I set up camp a bit below the shelter just off the summit. It was only 3:30, and so I had plenty of time to search for wild edibles. Again, I found violets and fiddleheads, those these fiddleheads were of different species than the ones from the night before – much smaller and harrier. I also found rock tripe and reindeer moss in abundance. It took some soaking, but eventually I mixed up a big batch of weirdo soup. I expected another masterpiece, but I was disappointed – reindeer moss is foul, and the rock tripe is about as good as it looks/sounds (very disgusting, though not as disgusting as the reindeer moss). Also, these hairy fiddleheads were much more vagina-y than the previous batch, and the hairs (which I should have removed) seemed to form a gritty gelatinous goop when boiled, insulating the fiddleheads. They were unimaginably hot – sort of like performing cunnilingus on a unshaven Fire Goddess. The overal effect was nauseating, especially when I was scraping the bottom of my pot. I remember thinking the mixture tasted somewhat earthy, and when I inspected it more closely, I found that my sense of taste had not erred – the bottom of my pot was warm and watery mud. Evidently, I should have washed the rock tripe more thoroughly, or, perhaps, just eaten my beans without any wild edibles.

The next morning was an easy jaunt back to the trailhead. I returned to my girlfriend’s house, and began the process of recovering.