Va. 613 to Va. 630

Va. 613 to Va. 630

Day Eleven – Thursday, April 3, 2014

14.9 miles

7:40 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

 

We got started at 7:30 a.m. this morning and quickly reached Va. 613, Salt Sulfur Turnpike.  Down this road 5 miles is the Mountain Lake Lodge and Conservancy, site of one of only two natural lakes in Virginia.  This is one of the locations where the movie “Dirty Dancing” was filmed. 

After the amazing view at Wind Rock Lookout, the trail became VERY nice and even on top of the mountain for about two miles then started a long descent down to War Spur Shelter.
We met two middle-aged men coming toward us –an unusual thing lately—and stopped to talk with them.  They were section hiking southbound. 

As we came out onto Va. 601, we encountered two vehicles parked there with three men—one sitting in the driver’s seat of the car and two others standing outside.  They were drinking their beer and watching a dog walking around.  I couldn’t help but be glad that I was not a woman hiking alone.  We stopped to chat awhile, but couldn’t really get a feel for what their intentions were.  I guess they just wanted to meet up and shoot the breeze awhile.

The ascent up from Rocky Gap is a very steep old forest road.  The mountain was green on top with mountain laurels and rhododendron bushes.  Then we went down again and across Va. 42.  Between Va. 42 and Va. 630 was nearly a mile of a Max Patch-like bald hill.  Nice. 

We stopped beside the bridge at Va. 630 and made our way through the briars down to the side of Sinking Creek to fill our water bottles.  A young man (about 14) came along and I asked him if he lived around here, he said he did.  I asked him if there were any good camping spots going up the next mountain.  He said he didn’t know, he’d only been up there once looking for his dog.  Huh?  What a shame to live so close to that beautiful mountain and not be all over it. 

We made our way on up the mountain with the intentions of stopping making a stealth camp as soon as we found a good spot away from the road.  Shortly we came upon an old deteriorated barn and made our camp in its yard.   It rained all night.