Joan and Tony set up a camping/hiking weekend at BSF, Bandy Creek Campground. 9 hikers/campers in 4 campsites. I got there late and the others were on a hike. I set up in the woods behind one of the campsites. It was the most level and had the right spaced trees. The first hiker back walked into the campsite I was setting up my hammock at, I didn't recognize him and asked if he was with TTA, he is, hi Jeff, I'm Lora, I thought this was Marietta's campsite. Oops.
Everyone had been at the Sunset Overlook Trail. They were ready for supper. The wind was blowing, not good for a campfire so the lucy light gave us a bright glow to sit around. Marietta had brought her own birthday cake, chocolate on chocolate from Julia's Bakery in the Boro. Yumm and Happy Birthday to Marietta! John got there just as we were getting ready to call it a night. So we stayed up later. After getting in my hammock I heard a whippowill and two owls.
Saturday morning Tony arrived, John cooked eggs and fried potatoes. We headed out to the Grand Gap Loop. It was cool to see the overlook where Craig and I said "I DO". Lots of memories on this trail. We admired the beauty of the overlooks and hiked on. My stomach was saying lunch was way overdue, but Joan wanted to eat at the next overlook. I told her there was no more overlooks, but we pressed on and came back to our exit sign where we sat down for lunch. We could have eaten in the cars that were parked 1/10th of a mile from this spot. When we got back to camp, we cleaned up a little and headed to the Visitor's Center. The Spring Planting Festival was winding down. We missed the mules plowing, and the garden planting. But we caught some of the music. John and Jeff found the food vendors. Swamp cabbage??? The rest of us found a shuttle to Lora Blevins home-site where we talked to the folks that planted the garden and gave talks on making moonshine. Lora was a man, a Baptist minister. The gardener gave us some left over tomato plants and marigolds. We walked around at the cemetery and then caught the shuttle back, going by the Oscar Blevins home-site that had some farm animals still there. The shuttle driver was nice enough to take us all the way to camp. Lazy hikers.....
Joan had made chili for our group dinner, everyone else had sides to go along with. Joe worked some magic with a dutch oven and a chimney with charcoal. Peach cobbler and it was yummy. No wind tonight, the ladies gathered firewood and I got the fire started, Joe kept it burning. We gathered around, good conversation, jokes from John, good and bad......Beautiful sunset, peaceful night. One hiker departed in the night.
Sunday morning was warm and pretty. John baked cinnamon rolls for breakfast, he packed up and headed for the Cornbread festival. Marietta headed for home. The rest of us headed to Pogue Creek Canyon. We were searching for the elusive exit on the gravel road just past the parking lot. We drove and drove and stirred up dust. We stopped a few times asking the dune buggy riders if they knew where it was, turned on some rough road that they play on and finally gave up the road became impassible. Headed back to where we saw a sign coming from Pickett's trails. Sara called the Park office and that was where our exit road was. It had a cable across the road and no signs for Pogue, no kiosk, no trail markings. We left cars here, Sara shuttled us to the kiosk, we looked at the map on the kiosk that only shows the loop and the spur to the overlook. We hiked the right side of the loop to the overlook, saw the Upper Canyon Trail sign just before the overlook. That took us down into the canyon. This is a beautiful/rugged/awe inspiring trail. One spur led to an arch. We saw a new segment being built that was flagged and roped off. On the way out of the canyon we found another spur trail to an arch and mesa. No indication of mileage to the arch so we looked around a little and decided not today. This requires some research. We had to climb a steep roadbed to exit the area. Wondering if the State is making a new exit with some switchbacks (I hope). More research to do.
Thanks to all for a great weekend. Joan, Tony, Sara, Jennifer, Marietta, John, Joe, Jeff.
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