Last year, I did not conquer the Death March in good form or in any form at all. The blisters were legendary. So this year I was determined to succeed. I remembered that my first successful completion of the Four State Challenge was also my first time organizing it, so perhaps there was a strategy there. My task was clear.
By the time we (Ben, Maddie, Alyssa and myself) were driving out on Thursday afternoon, I was starting to worry about my choice to schedule the hike in mid-April, rather than the customary time of March. Not for myself – I don’t mind hiking in warm weather. But as it was close to 90 degrees that first day, I was afraid that more cold-loving hikers might soon be cursing my name.
We arrived at the trailhead, met up with Brian from Ohio, and started off in good spirits, crossing paths along the way with others who had started earlier. It was a beautiful evening despite the warm weather, with the first evening’s signature views of the Shenandoah River bends on the way down to Veach Gap. On the descent I enjoyed talking with Shane, who was determined to complete the Death March this year. (Alas, he would be deterred on Friday by a dental emergency! Fortunately his beloved “spousal unit” completed a swift extraction. Pun intended. Next year, Shane!)
When we arrived at the shelter, we were greeted with a sudden disturbance in the calm post-hiking energy of the warm evening. Four young guys were occupying the shelter area for what appeared to be some of their number’s first-ever camping trip. They were “having struggles,” as my four-year-old niece would say, and the mood was sour. The ringleader appeared to be a very earnest, bearded young gentleman in a flowered shirt who was the keeper of most of the group’s collective knowledge about how to survive an evening in the wild. He was nervously trying to wrangle his comrades into the various activities of tent-pitching, fire-building and food-cooking. There was a lot of rebelliousness in the ranks. I looked at the roaring fire in the fire pit with a large burning log that was half-sticking out of the pit and thought of Beth’s repeated warnings that there was a fire ban that evening. Ringleader was trying to get food prep going to stave off an even worse mood among his friends, but one person was much more interested in the elaborate preparations of other ingestible substances. Their tent site was off in the woods, yet they had managed to spread their stuff the entire width of the shelter and take up some bunks as well. Most DCULers had already retreated far into the woods to make camp and then have a decidedly more chill log-sit in a clearing that was well away from turbulent atmosphere of the shelter area. Only James opted to sleep in the shelter, declaring with a big smile on his face (I’m not making this up) that he was excited to observe their interactions after the manner of an anthropologist. He did have some great quotes to report the next day.
As we settled down for the night, a whippoorwill (yes, that is the correct spelling, even though it looks weird) started calling incessantly off in the trees. This would become a recurring theme over the weekend. I remembered my parents’ stories of living in rural Wisconsin when I was little and how my dad once threw a boot at a whippoorwill on the roof to get it to shut up. After a few minutes, I too wanted to chuck some footwear. Trail runners seemed insufficient for the job.
Veronica and I started before dawn on Friday morning to try to get in as many miles as possible before the hottest part of the day. As the sun came up over the ridge, I really started to appreciate my choice to do the hike in April. So many spring wildflowers were out to encourage us! Tiny irises, wild azaleas in different shades of pink, and lady’s slipper flanked the path. Throughout the weekend, whenever my energy was flagging as I struggled up a field of rocks, I’d come around a corner to find a cluster of azalea blossoms bouncing on the end of a branch, as if cheering me on.
After a morning of ridge-walking, Brian, Veronica, Logan, Ben, and I convened at the stream near Duncan Hollow Road for lunch and water-filtering, while Beth and others took a side excursion to Kennedy Peak. Veronica went to soak her feet in the stream and was particularly delighted by a crawfish that came to join her and nibble on her toes. (She insisted the crawfish must go in the trip report, so here he is!) Then, it was up the logging road section toward the inevitable suffering of Waterfall Mountain. Many of us were grateful to find that last year’s dense thicket of blowdowns along the trail just before the Waterfall had mercifully been cleared. Nevertheless, some still arrived in camp after the Waterfall ascent cursing and grumbling (okay, maybe only one person that I heard of), a sign that the most difficult part of the trail was alive and well. Chet arrived seemingly in a very cheerful mood, but more recently at a DCUL happy hour, he confessed to cursing and grumbling at a blowdown on the Waterfall that was particularly difficult to traverse and sent his sit pad rolling back downhill.
As we settled in for the night, we heard that poor Mocha, DCUL’s iconic Hiking Dachsund, was undone by the many rocks of Massanutten and would be sleeping at the foot of Waterfall with his support crew (Haigang, joined by Marika) before bailing the next morning. The “little dog with a much bigger opinion of himself,” as Haigang aptly describes him, will no doubt return to hike another day.
Saturday morning called for another early start, as those rocky ridges that break people’s spirits awaited. As Veronica and I ascended Short Mountain, we crossed paths with a trail runner who was six miles away from completing his second consecutive loop of Massanutten. Veronica commented that he looked fresher than we did! And yet, the morning passed, and eventually Michael’s gleaming red convertible came into view by the road in Edinburg Gap, with the promise of beer, Gatorade, chips and cookies. He didn’t forget the beloved pickles! (Or perhaps that was Jen’s doing.) We refreshed our weary feet and empty water bottles in Michael’s much-appreciated company.
Then it was time to tackle the ascent to Waonaze Peak, one of my personal least favorite parts of the hike, which combines both a steep ascent and the classic it-looks-like-a-bomb-made-of-rocks-went-off-here Massanutten landscape. But the beautiful azaleas cheered me on, and eventually I was on the ridge. It was a lovely afternoon, warm but not too hot, and just before the descent to the Little Fort campground, I stopped to relax on the bench below Woodstock Tower to take in the unusual view of the very steep downhill slope there, the ever-looping north fork of the Shenandoah River, and the farms on the valley floor.
Down at Little Fort campground, hikers finishing for the day were greeted by Michael and Jen, who had spent the afternoon faithfully rescuing and shuttling stranded hikers, including Alyssa, who arrived with harrowing tales of being almost run over by dirt bikers – not on the road crossings but on the trail itself! Fortunately, she escaped with just a few scratches. Eventually everyone hiking the full as well as the half loop converged on Little Fort, except Veronica and David O., who were intent on pressing on to Mudhole Gap. The rest of us questioned their judgment many times, but they claimed to have had an enjoyable evening as well. However, they didn’t get to enjoy the sausages cooked by Jen, abundant supplies of beer, and two kinds of brownies. Mark Via also showed up to offer his camp stove and an extremely gourmet potato salad. A good time was had by all before making our way to our tents, mostly scattered along the paths in the woods near the stream that Brian rightly described as “a labyrinth.”
I think Mark Via wins the DCUL Trail Magic Award of the Year (is that a thing? If not, it should be!), for getting up before 6 am in a cold drizzle to make… homemade donuts rolled in sugar on his camp stove! We huddled under a canopy to eat them along with his freshly perked coffee, which I savored after the two previous mornings of cold soaked instant coffee. The coffee and hot donuts gave us the caffeine, calories and motivation we need to start the last 15 miles. The chilly and drizzly morning warmed up just a bit, and eventually everyone arrived safely at the Signal Knob parking lot. For some, it was just another successful Death March completion of many, and for some of us it was a first! We celebrated with beer and lunch in Front Royal. Ben and I decided to order a giant s’mores brownie sundae dessert, which had an entire Hershey’s bar melting on the top of it, and as many as seven or eight DCULers ultimately descended upon it in an impromptu post-hike communion… it was gone in no time. A fitting end to a great weekend!
Also, thanks to Brian for classing up our act with badges! If you don’t have one yet, let me know and Brian or I will get one to you. Thanks to all hikers, drivers and trail-magickers who made it the best Death March yet!
DC UL Backpacking 
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