“Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it.” — God, Genesis 2:16, JNP, 1985
“There was a time I could drink my cares away . . . but the whiskey ain’t workin’ anymore.” — Stuart, Marty, and Ronny Scaife. “The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’.” Warner Bros. Records, 1991.
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“Is it uphill like this the whole way?” a concerned new DCULer breathlessly asked Sophie (“Scrapple”) as we were hiking north on the Appalachian Trail. We were not more than 500 feet from the car that we parked shuttle-style, and was just beginning a day of hiking with 3,000 feet of elevation gain. There was no good answer. He had a great attitude, though, and I promised I’d hike at his pace and never leave him alone. I also told him about the great Scotch whiskey we’d have that night at the shelter, at our fittingly named destination “Whiskey Hollow.” Whiskey motivates everyone! Satisfied, he pressed upward.
After 4 miles, he was concerned about completing the trek. I considered the options. Our companions Scrapple, Yi (“Oranges”) and Bradley were far ahead of us. (Note: Yi has not yet accepted the trail name “Oranges.” So, I’m using it in this Trip Report on a one-time trial basis). The car downhill from us was Bradley’s, and I did not have his key. I checked my phone. No signal. I considered teleporting myself to Bradley, getting his key, teleporting back to my new friend, and driving him to a motel or a better spot to get an Uber. He would then taxi home or wait for us to pick him up from his motel when we finished the next morning. However, I then discovered a small flaw with that plan. Teleportation doesn’t yet exist. Shoot! If only we had a superhero to save the day—or a DCULer with evacuation skills like Aneesh (“Medevac”). Hmmm. Superhero? Hmmm. Hey! My trail name is “Spider-Man!” The Indiana Jones theme song began sounding in the distance. I told my new friend to keep hiking north at his pace as I thought to myself that I’d run ahead to the others, get the key, get the girl, and save the planet!
I jogged ahead. After a time, I came upon Oranges and, soon after, Scrapple and Bradley. After explaining the situation, Bradley exchanged keys with me. He did so with some hesitation in his eyes—he was handing the keys to his nice truck to a guy he just met less than an hour ago. I jogged downhill back to my tiring friend as if I were Indiana Jones being chased by that boulder.
We did not need to hike all the way back to Bradley’s car, however. A nice trail maintainer was packing his tools in his truck at a road junction and, fortunately, he lived in Alexandria. He agreed to do double trail magic by driving my new friend back to the Vienna Metro, saving him the expense of a motel or the expense of an Uber.
He wasn’t the first to extract from a DCUL trip and won’t be the last. I famously extracted from a trip I just wasn’t feeling and later wrote about it. It is the smart thing to do to listen to one’s body. I turned back uphill to fast-hike to the others. This trip was still on.
Understandably, I spent most of the morning hiking alone. The Appalachian Trail (“AT”) from Front Royal to Manassas Gap is good and bad. It has nice woods, a mountain top meadow, and a well-maintained, well-graded trail. It has streams, springs, and one of the nicest AT shelters—the Jim & Molly Denton Shelter. The trail wore the Spring season well, its trees dressed in bright green baby leaves and the Eastern Redbuds, with their dramatic purple flowers, in full bloom. The weather was unseasonably warm, ultimately rising to 80 in the valleys. I prefer cooler weather for hiking, but it was not bad. However, the trail follows a chain link fence for many miles, downgrading the wilderness experience. The fence encloses the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute where, among other things, they are breeding scimitar-horned oryx. I didn’t see a single one.
While I was aiding the extraction, Sophie, Oranges, and Bradley, were hiking as planned together northbound. They reached a cooler with water and oranges left alongside the trail. It was then the hottest part of the day. Oranges, who did not yet have the trial-basis trail name “Oranges,” considered the wisdom of eating fruit from an unknown source. It was the day before Easter and she seemed to remember something about “forbidden fruit.” However, the fruit was pleasing to the eye and a nearby snake assured her it was safe. She ate.
I caught up to Oranges in the late afternoon just after Manassas Gap at the start of the climb up to the Manassas Gap Shelter. She was dragging. The oranges did not agree with her. Her stomach felt awful. Now that I had practice, I steeled myself for the day’s second extraction. However, Oranges insisted she recognized her stomach discomfort from a prior experience and knew it would pass. She also mentioned that her friend, Bradley would never let her forget it if she extracted after successfully talking him into this trip. We hiked very slowly up the mountain together.
We arrived at the Manassas Gap Shelter later than planned but with enough time to continue to Whiskey Hollow Shelter. However, at Oranges’ pace, we would hike a few miles in the dark. I mentioned the “whiskey theme” to this trip to motivate the group, despite my confidence in whiskey as a motivator shaken from the events earlier that day. However, everyone chose to stay at Manassas Gap. I concluded that whiskey as a motivator doesn’t work anymore. If DCUL’s founder, Evan (“Whiskey Fairy”), is reading this, I imagine he’s disappointed in me and is planning a future “Whiskey Does Work!” backpacking trip to fix things. When I told Scrapple and Bradley that I had tried to talk Oranges into extracting he said, “If she did that I’d never let her forget it!” I can see why these two are friends.
We spent the evening together having dinner. Oranges went to bed very early—she said her stomach was better, but she was visibly tired and would not eat much. Bradley and I had some of our whiskey as we chatted with Scrapple and two other long section hikers staying near the shelter. Not knowing how Oranges would feel overnight, we planned to have Sophie and me wake early and hike the 10 miles to my car while Bradley and Oranges would leave two hours later and hike back down the mountain to the nearby junction with I66. Sophie and I would then pick them up. The plan set, the sun down, our legs sore from the 3,000 feet of elevation gain that day, and the whiskey doing its work, we all retired. The cool evening was nice, but it was an odd temperature. It was too cold to lie down without a blanket but too hot to have a blanket. So, for me, my night consisted of pulling up and off my quilt.
The Sunday hike was delightful. It was cool but not at all cold. After a brief climb the trail leveled out with few rocks. It was hypnotic. The original plan was to stay at Whiskey Hollow Shelter and wake early Sunday to watch the sunrise on top of Sky Meadows State Park. However, I’m no meteorologist and my plan was not practical. The hike from that shelter to the Sky Meadows overlook was over three miles, with a steep climb out from the hollow. When I last did this hike I called for a start time of 6:15 a.m. However, that trip was in December. In April, we would have needed to start at 5:15 a.m. Waking at 4:30 a.m. would have been unpleasant. It was cloudy anyway. The sunrise would not have been spectacular.
Sophie is not a fan of my penchant for scoring “10 before 10s”— ten miles before 10:00 a.m. However, she gamely went for it and we would have earned it had it not been for the fact that my car was less than 10 miles away. I asked Sophie if she was interested in hiking the extra 0.7 mile past my car to make it an even “10.” However, knowing that Bradley and Oranges would be waiting for us, I dropped the idea.
We picked up our friends at the I66 junction, had a great breakfast at the Apple House, reversed the shuttle, and ended this trek. At the Apple House we toasted Bradley’s promotion to “Member.” Oranges complained that she did not get Member status until after her second DCUL trip and felt it unfair Bradley got it in one. She is very competitive. She even bragged that she ate more of her breakfast than he.
And with that another DCUL low mileage trip is in the books. It was fun even though it did not go as planned, a hiker extracted, I just missed a “”10 before 10,” and the whiskey ain’t workin’ anymore.
—David O (“Spider-Man”)
DC UL Backpacking 
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