Collecting Rocks in the Appalachian Mountains (Part 2)

I will be honest here and say that I never really expected Virginia to be as beautiful as a state as it is! Of course I had been there numerous times before this trip, but I never really paid any attention to the landscape! Driving west from Washington DC is nothing but flat land. But soon enough, the highway starts rising up over the Piedmont and soon, looming in front of you is the gigantic mountain that is Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Skyway. It has the same allure as the Grand Tetons in that there really are not any foothills, but then BOOM - big mountain (granted, the Tetons are much much taller than the Blue Ridge). Charles, my classmate traveling with me, and I hoped to have time at the end of our trip to get into Shenandoah, but it never happened and we drove past the northern tip of the park, heading toward my next few sampling sites.

Just as out of place as the Blue Ridge is in a sea of flat land, just to the west is Massanutten Ridge, part of the George Washington National Forest. The ridge itself is underlain by hard, resistant arenite (a type of sandstone made of mostly quartz grains). The surrounding land sits atop weaker lithologies that are not as resistant to erosion. The ridge was my site. I needed to get up to the ridge crest itself and get those rocks! It was probably mid-day by the time we got to the trailhead at the northern base of the ridge. We parked the car and headed up the mountain. The Massanutten Trail is a hiking path that runs the course of the ridge we were on, so it was fairly easy getting up...that is, once we found it! We got a little lost at the beginning and ended up climbing up a very-nearly-vertical hill! But we found the path and headed up. And the rocks we found up there were perfect for sampling and mine for the taking - given I was strong enough to break some bits off the tops of the outcrops which proved much harder than it sounds! We spent the day collecting samples along various points of the Massanutten Trail, driving between sites too far to hike efficiently.

Looking north from the Massanutten Trail

Taking some notes at one of my sampling sites along the Massanutten Trail

The rocks are so hard here that in removing some bits of them, I bent the tip of this steel chisel!

Looking south from Kennedy Peak along the Massanutten Ridge

Winds picking up. View looking East from Kennedy Peak with the S. Fork of the Shenandoah River meandering between Massanutten Ridge and the Blue Ridge (Shenandoah National Park - in the background).

A long day in the field is only as good as the grub you can find whatever small town you happen to be in at the end of the day. Charles and I were lucky. We were both craving some good Mexican food and wouldn't you know it that in the little town of Luray, Virginia is a fantastic place called Rancho Viejo and it was DELICIOUS! The enchilada I got was heaping and cheesy and the endless chips and salsa was just what we needed!

The next few days were much of the same except that Charles and I switched off driving and navigating as we were both collecting samples. The weather started to get a little, rough, though, and we were worried because we didn't want to spend too much of our cash advance given to us on staying at hotels. But one night in Waynesboro, VA, we didn't have a choice. Spring thunderstorms were giving everyone a fantastic display, but it was raining buckets and we found a little Motel 6 offering cheap rooms.

By morning the weather cleared up somewhat - at least it wasn't raining - and we moved our trek toward West Virginia. The rain had made a lot of the dirt roads we took to get to our sampling locations a bit muddy and there were absolutely a few times we (well, I) didn't think the car could go any further. There was this one spot where Charles wanted to get a sample, but we had to drive down this steep, narrow, muddy, sloppy road. The wheels of our little Chevy Cobalt slid frequently and I urged Charles to find another spot. But he said we didn't have too much further to go and soon, in the middle of nowhere, the road became paved again right where the road crossed a little stream. We parked the car in the driveway of a vacation cottage that no one was presently living in. The clouds were starting to roll away and the sunlight lit up a very neatly manicured lawn surrounding the cottage right up to the banks of the stream and rain droplets were collecting on the leaves and buds of thickets of rhododendrons. While Charles collected his samples, I just wandered around. I wish I had photos because I never would have guessed that down a sloppy dirt road in the middle of nowhere would be this little cottage. But with the sample collected, we had to get back up and out of the steep and muddy canyon. It was grueling, but the Cobalt made it and as we neared the main road, I took this photo which I consider to be one of my better ones.

Recreationalists out on Buffalo Lake, WV

I collected a few samples from some ridges right on the WV/VA border at Reddish Knob in the George Washington National Forest. We drove to the top, eying out potential sampling outcrops and then collected a few on the way down. It was nice as no one else was really around and we had the road and nature to ourselves. It was also on the way down from Reddish Knob that we came across some more wildlife!

Black bear along the road coming down from Reddish Knob

Rock outcrops along Hone Quarry Rd. near Reddish Knob

I was determined to get the best samples I could!

A few days were spent zig-zagging back and forth across the VA/WV border collecting samples for both Charles and myself. We had just passed the one-week mark of our field time and our funds were running low. So I thought. We had been given a $1500 cash advance to help us out with food and lodging and gas, to which I rigorously kept us much to Charles angst. Our advisor failed to let me know that we would be reimbursed for anything we spent on our credit cards outside of the cash advance, so really we could have slept or eaten wherever, no worries, and been reimbursed, but we didn't realize that then. This caused a lot of tension and some unfriendly silences in the car. Unfortunately, we still had another week together, so we were going to have to get along.