Mildred didn’t know what we were getting her into. To be fair, she’s an 00’s Subaru Outback, if she’s sentient we sure as hell didn’t know it. I’d normally drive on days like today, but Baby Blue had been making me paranoid lately. Turns out my paranoia was just psychosomatic, with the CO2 sensor I bought afterwards showing she’s completely fine and I just have bad anxiety. Regardless – I’d normally drive on days like today, so I was grateful to Audrey for driving as me, Lucas, and her headed up to Harrisonburg to meet up with Stilly and Elaine for the day.
This trip continued a trend this year of trips actually having some semblance of preparation and not just being conceived hours before it happened. Guess I’m getting old. The original plan was for us to go to St Mary’s Wilderness to hike, get into some class 4 scrambling/low grade climbing, and check out abandoned mines. A combination of colder temperatures and St Marys’ river crossings being higher than usual put that idea on the backburner, so we moved our attention northwards up I-81 to the Harrisonburg area. We roared out, blasting tunes on a JBL speaker with Mildred’s aux not working. True dirtbaggery. The gang met up at Texas Inn, a veritable Virginia classic, for breakfast. I made the mistake of having a breakfast burger. Nothing good comes from that. From there, we headed towards High Knob Tower Trail.
The trail is about 30 minutes west of Harrisonburg, nestled along the Virginia-West Virginia border. It’s a lovely area, with Switzer Lake nearby. The trail was in that mushy in-between state where there were enough icy spots it was nice to have microspikes, but enough of it was just dirt the frat boys coming down the trail just in vans and sweats didn’t look all that dirty.
There’s nothing more humbling than being prepped to the max hiking, and then seeing a group with no water, no packs, in all cotton, with the wrong footwear, doing the same thing. I have ill intentions for them, sometimes. Normally on steep trails like this I’m the mountain goat zipping up, but Lucas took that honor this time around, and honestly, thank the divine. That greasy burger came to haunt me as my camera bag pressed into my chest, making me feel nauseous while sober for the first time in maybe decades.
At little over 4000 feet above sea level, we reached the fire tower. It’s a shame most of them are gone now. We unloaded the beer from our packs and each took a dart from Stilly as our reward, paying more attention to one another than the views around us. I do love a good overlook, but the greys of winter in Virginia don’t lend themselves to all that much awe after a while. We joked around as Lucas and I continued being everyone else’s photographers for the day. It was one of those days where everything just was, there wasn’t any trying, just being.
Our beers and darts acted as makeshift hourglasses, when they were up we knew it was time to head back down if we were going to make our reservation at Melrose Caverns in time. I joined Stilly in putting on microspikes for the descent – we knew better from our time in the North Country. We took maybe a bit too much time getting to the parking lot, realizing we were crunched for time. Audrey was in desperate need of a bathroom break, so Stilly and Elaine blazed on ahead down the winding road.
We made up those lost minutes behind them. Audrey pushed Mildred down that spiralling mountain descent like Burt Reynolds outrunning Jackie Gleason, my summit Coors making me feel at peace with the speedometer. Eastbound and Down never felt more relevant.
We got into Melrose just in the nick of time to find out they would’ve waited a few minutes for us anyways. Ain’t that just the way. It’s one of the lesser-known caverns in the area, with it only being reopened to the public recently. The history of it is the most interesting aspect, having some of the oldest indigenous petroglyphs this far east and having been used as a Union hideout during the Civil War. Our tour guide was great, only slightly ribbing us for looking like we had all grown up in a cave. I’m no cave expert, but this one certainly felt worth the price of admission.
We headed back into Harrisonburg to enjoy some putzin n pizza. We always seem to find ourselves visiting whatever the local gear shops are, this time stopping through their Walkabout Outfitters. We were greeted by an attractive tall brunette – unfortunately my type. Stilly tried ribbing me into chatting her up, but all I felt like doing was blushing. Goddamned embarrassing (not that much, though). After stopping through some other shops, we found ourselves at Benny’s for dinner. Benny’s is a Virginia classic, found wherever drunk college students are in the commonwealth, with cheap, huge slices of pizza. After gorging ourselves on PBR’s and pizza, we headed our respective ways back.
It was a good day. More than anything, it felt like an affirmation. I’m doing the right things for myself with the right people around me. It finally feels like I’ve got a proper social circle in Richmond. I know what I’m about and what I enjoy, for the time being. I have trips planned, grad school come fall, and the excitement of continuing to make this a year of doing after last year’s chess board setup. It’s been a process of finding myself and where I belong since undergrad. It’s nice when the image I have of myself reflects who I am and not just who I feel I claim to be. I have my people, I have my place, I have my fun, I have my future. Self-discovery is a constant, changing process, and I know as soon as I’ve explored every nook and cranny in Richmond it’ll probably be time to leave to start everything over again. It’s scary, but exciting. For the time being, though, I’ll take what I can get for as long as I can get it.
Stilly’s moving down in May, and I’m excited for the prospect of renting a house with a proper yard and space to be able to get up to some tomfoolery. As much of an island I can make myself out to be sometimes, it’s always easier and more fun to have an accomplice. I’ve been getting out climbing a lot with Lucas lately, and it’s been nice to see some fruits of that labor. Alex, who sadly couldn’t make this trip, continues to be my best and oldest friend. I truly don’t know what I’ll do when she isn’t always just a few minutes away. Richmond has been a good mixture of the old and new in more ways than one, and I’m just happy knowing there’ll be more days like the one we just had. The weather’s getting warmer, my skins getting tanner, I may have some clouds on the horizon, but I’ve got some peaks that’ll break above them to climb.