Time: 1203
Location:
Dragons Tooth Ridge, Va
37.36095489687221, -80.17346873283658
970m of elevation
Weather:
9°C
Cloudy w/ intermittent light rain
1mph wind gusting to 6mph
38.2% relative humidity
902 mbar
Hiking trip with Holly and Bug to the summit of Dragons Tooth Ridge
Observations
After camping in the car at the trailhead, we started our hike at roughly 0900. Along the trail up we stopped several times for Bayleigh or for Holly and I to look around, however for the most part we had a slow yet very steady pace for the bulk of the way up. We stopped breifly at about 1 km below the summit where the ridge trail intersects with the AT.
There we as a quick snack before making our way up the last 1 km of trail, which while it is not overly difficult, consist mostly of steep rock hiking and rock scamblings. This section is a good split between Class 2 and Class 3 scrambles on the YDS. We summited just before 12pm and the moment we broke the top were met with the gusting summit winds. Until that point we were largely shield by the mountain and canyon below from the winds of the low pressure system moving through. We took shelter in a small alcove where we ate our lunch and drank our summit beers. Bayleigh got a vanilla coke for her summit beer.
It was cold and windy enough that as soon as I got my entry down in my field notebook we packed up our trash and our day packs and made our way back down the hill.
This part of the hike was considerably harder and longer. Bayleigh was mostly in good spirits but Holly's knee was starting to flair up. We quickly made our way back down to our earlier snack site needing to make relatively few stops. Once there we located some acorn tops we have dropped there earlier and picked them back up. Bayleigh started to complain of stomach pain, which we knew was from her not eating much of her breakfast, lunch, or snacks. We tried to get her to eat some chocolate by she fought us on eating it. This would pretty much be the theme of the rest of the hike. For a short period about 1.5 km from the trail head I put her on my shoulders and carried her, but soon my legs were starting to struggle with the weight of my daypack, here, and the down hill, but I pushed through till we made it to one of the small creeks. Here, we collected some water and an adventure vial and made Bayleigh eat some more chocolate.
She cried the last 800m of the hike but we were able to distract her a bit with jokes and singing. We got back to the car and she was supper happy again and excited that she had just hiked her first mountain. Holly, while sore and tired, was happy to have completed her 2nd leg of the Virginia Triple Crown. We loaded up the car, took a bet on how long it would take Bayleigh to pass out on us and headed to Jack Mason's for dinner. After dinner we took a short detour to take Bayleigh to a cave Holly and I had explored last year, and then made our way home.
P.S. I won the bet. It took bug less than 10 minutes to fall asleep in her car seat once we left the trail head, with a slice of pizza in her hand.
Collections Notes
This trip we brought back 2 vials of dirt from the Summit, 2 vials of creek water from springs feeding Catawba Creek, and Bayleigh grabbed a rock from the trail and from the cave. I took a small cutting of Polypodium virginianum (Common Rockcap Fern) with sori on its Pinna and a small leaf of an herbaceous plant that I later identified as the basal leaf of Zizia aptera (Meadow Parsnip).
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