Earlier this morning I got back from an overnight trip into St. Mary’s Wilderness (along the Blue Ridge Parkway). A couple friends and I left yesterday to do a quick trip. For one of them, it would be her first backpacking trip! Our aim was to hike along St Mary’s River and see some of the cascades. After a 2 mile hike down a fairly low-flow creek, we met up with St. Mary’s trail. At this ‘T’ intersection, we could either turn right and head to camp or turn left and make a side-trip to see St. Mary’s falls. We’d made very quick time getting that far, so we decided to take the side trip to see the waterfall.

As we were still dropping down towards the river, the hiking was fairly easy. After another couple miles, we started hiking upstream along the river. It was pretty late in the season so the river wasn’t flowing much. However, there were some very inviting swimming holes on the way up. We will definitely be heading back there during the next warm spell. We started losing the trail as we got close to the falls. As a result of the dwindling number of hours left before nightfall, we opted to turn around and get to a campsite. On our way back out to meet St. Mary’s Trail, we heard a rustling off the trail to the right. We turned just in time to see a bear-looking shadow scamper away through the trees!

The rest of the hike to camp was rather uneventful, climbing up the slopes to reach the camping areas. As dinner time approached, we passed some remnants of the old mining operations in the area. Seeing an inviting location for camp, we dropped our packs and started picking up wood for a fire. With one match and some dryer lint, Ryan had a fire going in no time. Between the three of us, we had no trouble finishing off the 8 hot dogs we’d brought. Topped off with some Mac&Cheese, we were all pretty full by the time darkness fell. We spent a bit of time watching the fire die down before calling it a night. First time I had gone to bed at 8:30 in a long time!

It was cloudy when we went to bed, but when I woke at 3am, the sky was perfectly clear! Gorgeous views of stars through holes in the tree canopy. A bright shooting star flashed in and out of existence just before I drifted back off to sleep.

We got up the next morning around 7, broke camp and ate breakfast. We’d hiked around 8 miles the previous day and decided to call it an early day and take the short route out (due to soreness, the need to write lectures, and the need to write telescope proposals!). We booked it up the trail, finishing the last 2 miles in just over an hour! An excellent first backpacking trip for Clarissa.

We hopped in the car, and were back in town before noon. Sadly, I left my camera at my office, so no pictures. However, next time I go….