The diner waitress looked sympathetic as she poured the coffee. “Tough night, Sweetie?” she asked Kyle (“Water Dog”). Water Dog sat at a booth sized for eight people but with only one person, Logan, across from him. Seven people followed him into the wilderness in the aftermath of the region’s first major snowfall in two years during a cold snap that dropped temperatures down below the teens. But now there were only the two of them. Water Dog’s hair was wild from wearing a hat all day and night through the weekend. The hair on his left side defied gravity, protruding stiffly from the side of his head over his shoulder like an unaffixed toupee. Walking for hours in bright, sun-reflected snow without the sunglasses he forgot at home left his eyes bloodshot. He looked exhausted and smelled strongly of smoke. The waitress was right: he looked like a horse who had been ridden hard and put away wet. He replied to the waitress, “tough night; you could say that!”
Water Dog annually posts winter DCUL backpacking trips aiming for deep cold tempered by primitive cabins. This year he chose “Jones Cabin” in the Shenandoah National Park (“SNP”) near Grave’s Mill. He wrote: “I’ve booked this cabin to serve as a base camp for a weekend of (hopefully!) snowy hiking. Regardless, it’s gunna be a cold one.” He planned a 3.5 mile hike from the Grave’s Mill trailhead to the cabin on Friday night by headlamp and a hike around the SNP and the Rapidan WMA.
The trip almost did not happen. Mother Nature delivered the heaviest snowfall Northern Virginia had in over two years with a one-two punch—schools and governments closed Tuesday and then again on Friday. Then, a cold front visited from the Arctic, featuring daytime highs in the frigid teens (before wind chill). Water Dog frantically texted the DCULers who signed up for the trip. After having had two recent DCUL trips cancel due to winter weather making getting to trailheads dangerous, he wanted to break the cancellation curse. Of course, he wanted everyone’s buy-in. Only one hiker dropped out. The trip proceeded with a hearty group of seven DCULers.
We began hiking from the Grave’s Mill trailhead single file in the dark. The snow stopped only a couple of hours prior to our arrival, so we marched through the untracked powder up to our ankles. It was below freezing, but not by much. The extra effort to break snow combined with the 1500 feet of elevation gain warmed us and we took off layers.
We arrived at Jones Cabin around 10:00 p.m. Having been on Water Dog’s winter cabin trip last year to Corbin Cabin, I had low expectations. I even brought my tent, prepared to sleep in it Friday and Saturday nights as I did that year despite the expected deep cold front. This was unnecessary. Jones Cabin was rustic and primitive, but much more chic then Corbin Cabin. In particular, it was clean with no mice droppings.
Mark (“Brightside”) and Water Dog quickly lit a fire in the wood stove while everyone else claimed spots in the single room cabin with a loft. The wood stove and log enclosure was much warmer than any tent, but the wood stove was no match for the ambient conditions. There was never a time one could not see one’s breath in the cabin and everyone wore jackets and hats while inside. Brightside played from his Christmas music playlist with a Bluetooth speaker he brought. The Peanut’s jazzy piano sounds offered a touch of class. We enjoyed each other’s company until 11:00 when Jonathan (“Shenanigans”) pointed out the late hour. We all retreated to our spots and covered ourselves with down covers.
We woke to the smell of biscuits and gravy that Brightside brought to share and had warming on top of the stove. We packed for the hike and entered the frozen outside. It was 15 degrees.
We chose a large loop from the cabin that started with a nice hike along the Staunton River. I spent of lot of time in front breaking snow and leading the fording of the river crossings. Naturally, none of us wanted to have wet feet in cold weather, so we took the crossings seriously. On two crossings, we faced a “leap of faith” where one had to jump from an icy rock in the middle of the river to a frozen snow-covered bank. One could not know if the momentum of the jump would propel one to the the other side, or backwards into the drink.
We climbed to the “Sag”—the saddle of the mountain chain near us. Of course, the extra elevation plus the wind blowing from the west now unprotected by the mountain we were climbing made the cold temperatures more pronounced. We instantly zipped up zippers, donned hats and hoods, and replaced gloves with mittens. Water Dog led the charge forward off the Sag announcing it was too cold to do anything else. We positively flew down the other side the mountain—called the Laurels—with the wind pushing us back. Because of that steady wind we descended through snow drifts occasionally up to the knees. Maddie, the only one with snowshoes, stopped to put them on. The rest of us scampered down the mountain to escape the wind. Wind chill is a real thing!
At the bottom of the mountain we stopped for lunch at Camp Rapidan. This was the presidential “Camp David” during President Hoover’s years. Brightside pulled out his stove to boil some ramen on Hoover’s porch. The rest of us ate snacks standing up. The cold was so strong that water I had boiled that morning and poured into my water bottle was now ice cold and showing signs of crystallization. I drank all of my water thinking that the only thing worse than carrying heavy water was carrying heavy water one cannot drink because it is a frozen block of ice. I figured I could get water from streams along the way. This was not the best strategy; I wound up drinking much less than I usually do.
After lunch we climbed an unmarked and unmaintained trail up from Camp Rapidan to Monkey Head Mountain with Shenanigans and Logan breaking trail. Two years ago, Kyle led a trip to Jones Cabin and the DCUL crew tried—and failed—to summit. He sought redemption this year.
The trek was tough. With the mountain named “Monkey Head,” I felt like Mario in the video game “Donkey Kong.” In that classic game, the player “Mario” tries to climb a series of ladders and ramps while a giant monkey throws down obstacles to knock down the player. I imagined a monkey at the top of the mountain throwing down several obstacles at me. He threw down the subfreezing weather and wind. He fed us the deep snow. (Walking uphill in deep snow tires a hiker)! He tossed deadfalls into the mix. (Because the trail was not maintained, we had to break out complicated yoga poses to squeeze, shimmy, and limbo through a maze of dead branches).
Despite everything the monkey threw at us, we arrived near the top of Monkey Head and took a group photo.
However, looking up toward the summit it looked like a never ending run of deadfalls and deep snow. Also, time was no longer on our side. If we closed out the loop right then we might arrive back at our cabin before sundown. If we tried to fight the last half mile up to the Monkey Head summit and back this would be much less likely. Also, we were getting tired and still had a lot of miles through the snow. Of course, unlike in the Donkey Kong video game, one does not get an “extra man” if you die. So, for the second time, Water Dog’s crew fell to the monkey and we gave up on the summit.
This turned out to be a wise decision. The trek along the ridge away from the summit was overgrown with more deadfalls. It led to an extremely steep descent down to the river. It almost felt as if we were skiing down the mountain, but without the skis.
At the river, we started a climb back up the mountain back toward the Sag. However, Water Dog pointed out a bushwacking option. If we walked through the unblazed wilderness we would cut off 2-3 miles of fire road walking. In three different groups we each took off-trail shortcuts. Water Dog, who previously did the bushwhack there, cut off the most of the road walk. Brightside, Maddie, and Wasal won second place. Shenanigans, Logan, and I lost. Shenanigans’ strategy was to follow deer tracks on the theory that Bambi would never lead a hiker astray. We learned that deer do not always take direct routes to rivers from mountain ridges. However, as consolation, when we returned to the cabin shortly before sunset, our friends who found the better shortcuts had the wood stove roaring and the cabin warming. We had hiked 15 miles with almost 5,000 feet of elevation gain.
The second evening in the cabin featured good food and fellowship. Maddie, who risked earning the trail name “Martha Stewart” with the goat cheese stuffed dates she served up, passed around her canapés which seemed out of place in the primitive cabin. Brightside threw me a bone with a steady stream of rock songs from the 70s and 80s. As we had dinner, drank, and talked, we could hear the wind increasing in intensity outside. It felt really good to be in the cabin even though the temperature inside was only in the 40s. We went to bed around 9:00. We clearly slept well. Shenanigans told us the next day how he exited the cabin in the middle of the night to relieve himself and could not unlatch the door to reenter. He assumed his loud clumping around the wood floors of the cabin, his efforts to pick the lock like a skilled burglar, and his frustrated groans of “let me in, I’m freezing, for the love of God open the door!” would have woken everyone. He woke no one. Well, actually, it turned out he woke Wasal. She later confessed to having heard “something” but did not think to investigate. Shenanigans just shot her a look.
The next day was unlike any DCUL trip in my experience. I woke at 5:15, as usual, but lay quietly in my quilt so as to not disturb my friends. I didn’t want to be “that guy”—the one who wakes everyone up too early. We did not call for a set wake up time. So, I went back to sleep. I woke again at 6:30. Everyone seemed to be still sleeping. I lay still, looking outside the window as the outside brightened. I gritted my teeth. “Don’t be ‘that guy,’ don’t be ‘that guy,’” I thought again steeling my patience. Surely, everyone will wake up at 7:00. However, nothing happened at that time. I waited until 7:30. Still nothing. The sunlight grew so bright that one did not even need a headlamp to see around the cabin. For a group that customarily wakes before sunrise, this was odd. At 7:40 I could not hold myself back. I shouted, “You know, Kyle, everyone is awake pretending to be asleep, waiting for you to make the DCUL witty and inspiring wake up call!” As it turned out, Kyle was the only one then still sleeping. Dazed from the wake-up shout from “that guy”—me—he said he couldn’t think of anything witty and asked me for a suggestion. I was glad he asked! I had been thinking of a good wake up call as I lay bored on my air mattress for the past couple hours. I let loose with “Good morning, DCUL! As the National Park Service tweets, ‘you know it is cold when you go outside—and it is cold!” Nailed it!
We all quickly began packing up gear, making breakfast, and performing cabin departure chores. One must leave the cabin better than one finds it. So we swept, sawed firewood for the next occupants, extinguished the stove, and battened down shutters.
We locked and left the cabin in the late morning for the easy hike back to our cars. The river along the trail bubbled, the snow under our feet wasn’t so bad to tread since we compacted it a bit on our hike up that path to the cabin Friday night. The sun shone brightly.
We arrived at our cars within minutes of each other and drove to Culpeper to a nice diner for breakfast. Water Dog and Logan arrived first, at which time the waitress commented on Water Dog’s appearance. Naturally, it didn’t occur to her that people would have been outside all weekend in the snowy-cold weather. The rest of us arrived and huddled into the booth rapidly thereafter. On Friday I was nervous about this trip due to the snow and icy weather. So my Sunday brunch tasted extra good knowing I handled all that Donkey Kong had to throw at me. And, I still have two more lives in the game. Hopefully, Kyle will post another cabin trip next year so we can finally conquer Monkey Head!
—David O. (“Spider-Man”)
DC UL Backpacking 
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