This is supposed to be one of the easier sections of the AT in Shenandoah, and it was pretty flat. It had just rained when I got there, so everything was a little misty and foggy and just perfect.
AT: Milam Gap to Lewis Falls Trail
10/30/21
3.48 mi.
243 ft. elevation gain
4/5 stars
Even though it was well into October, I kept missing all the fall foliage. The trees on the trail were still pretty green.
Saddleback Mountain & AT Trail Loop
10/23/21
5.16 mi.
725 ft. elevation gain
4/5 stars
This trail is rated “easy” and it pretty much is, until you get to the very last part that goes up to Mathews Arm campground. This part of the trail was muddy and steep, so I turned around, figuring I’d get the other part of it from the other side later.
This bridge is lovely.
Elkwallow Trail
10/10/21
3.9 mi
469 ft. elevation gain
4/5 stars
I’m not sure what made me think I was ready for an “intermediate” (a la AllTrails) hike, but I optimistically chose this 5-mile round trip loop.
The leaves in the park were just starting to change on this trail. It was beautiful.
The first part was, as is usual in SNP, all downhill. Not bad. The uphill was pretty steep between Little Hogback Mountain and Hogback Mountain. Whew.
Sugarloaf/Keyser Run/Hogback Loop
10/8/21
5.66 mi
978 ft. elevation gain
5/5 stars
For my next hike (a rare second weekend day hike), I looked on the internet for “easy” hikes. Like, really easy. I walked down the Rose River Fire Road from Skyline Drive to where the fire road meets the Rose River Loop trail at Hogcamp Branch.
I briefly considered taking the trail up to Dark Hollow Falls, went up a few steps, said “nope,” and turned around.
I visited the cemetery that is off the fire road.
Rose River Fire Road – Fisher’s Gap to Hogcamp Branch
10/3/21
2.44 mi
285 ft. elevation gain
4/5 stars
This was supposed to be a 4.5 mile “easy” loop hike on the Sugarloaf, Appalachian, and Piney Branch trails. I started off from the parking lot at the old ranger station, where I saw a deer.
After walking down the Piney Ridge Trail for a while (downhill), I reached the Piney River.
It was hot, I was tired, and by my look at the map, I’d gone about 1/4 of the loop. I decided (wisely) to turn around and not do the rest. I hate turning around on loops, and giving up, but it was definitely the right call.
Piney Branch to Piney River
10/2/21
3.19 mi
512 ft elevation gain
4/5 stars
One day, in September of 2021, I was feeling worn down by a lot of things: the pandemic, my job, school. My husband said, “Why don’t you go take a hike?” So I did.
My hike was in one of my favorite locations, Shenandoah National Park. I had long loved SNP since I first visited in my early 20s. But I’d only ever done a few hikes in the park, and they had been long ago. This hike was rated “easy.” It was easiER than some, sure. But for an out of shape person who had sat on their butt in a desk job during the pandemic, it wasn’t easy. It was also overgrown, and hot. Also no scenic views. But I loved the feeling I had after finishing it. I had accomplished something! I had communed with nature! I didn’t think about all my problems because I was focusing on hauling my overweight, out-of-shape butt to my car!
I decided to come back to the park to do some more hiking. And so it started.
9/11/21
2 miles
230 ft. elevation gain
3/5 stars
Surrounded by cornfields, this simple country church seems lovely and peaceful. According to Find a Grave, the cemetery associated with this church has 572 memorials. The earliest seem to date from the mid-19th century (the Kerns family). Other early burials in the cemetery include Fletcher, Whitacre, Oates, and Mauzy family members.
According to Carr and Carr (1988),1Carr, Clay B., & Carr, Mildred I. (1988). Historical Sketches of Places of Worship—Winchester and Frederick County Virginia. Winchester Printers, Inc. the church (as a worship body) was organized with the help of noted itinerant evangelist Lorenzo Dow “before the 1840s” (as Dow died in 1834, presumably before then). The Frederick County 250th Anniversary Commission has its founding date as 1832. Lorenzo Dow was an eccentric preacher who traveled and proselytized in England, Ireland, Canada, and the United States (particularly in the South). Dow was an opponent of slavery, going against many major denominations of the time such as the Methodist Episcopal Church.2Brawley, B. G. (1916). Lorenzo Dow. Journal of Negro History, 1(3), 265–275. As Dow wrote in 1840:3Dow, L. (1812). A Journey from Babylon to Jerusalem: Or The Road to Peace and True Happiness: Prefaced with An Essay on the Rights of Man. Haas & Lamb. p.71
As all men are created equal and independant by the God of Nature; slavery must have Moral Evil for its foundation, seeing it violates the Law of Nature, as established by its Author.
Unfortunately, probably few of the original (and later) church members shared Dow’s abolitionist feelings, although more research may turn up new information. Lorenzo Dow and Elder Christy Sine (1789 – 1858) organized the church body that would become Ebenezer Church, and the first building was “brought over the frozen drifts 10 feet deep during the severe winter of 1840 by a team of eight horses several miles from the farm of Ezra Miller.” 4Carr and Carr, 1988, p. 16 The Reverend Sine was also an unconventional religious man; before marriage, he was an itinerant preacher like Dow, and after settling down, fathered 17 children with three wives.5The Rev. Christy Sine. (1996). Hampshire County Historical Society, Fourth Quarter, 1–2.
Land for Ebenezer Church was donated by George Whitacre and his son donated land for the current building, which dates to 1876. The Whitacre and Anderson families donated additional land for the church and cemetery over the years.6Carr & Carr, 1988
An 1890 photograph in the Stewart Bell Jr. Archives at the Handley Library shows about 40 parishioners (men, women, and a lot of children) outside of the church. Little of the church is visible in this photo, aside from wood siding and shuttered windows.7https://handley.pastperfectonline.com/photo/53A1EB5D-F63D-466A-AF7B-108099092384 The church and cemetery received a “generous endowment” from Charles Ray Oates’s estate in 1965, and the current facade and steeple of the church date to a 1969 renovation. 8Carr & Carr, 1988 The church belongs to the Disciples of Christ denomination.
Film photo a day project roll one is back! Wow, I’d forgotten how grainy Tri-X 400 is, although the non-adjustable metering of the Olympus XA2 isn’t doing me any favors. I suspect I could improve some of these by rescanning, but that takes a lot of time on my ancient Epson photo scanner.
There’s a bunny hiding in the photo of the front of the house/front yard.
My A-11 flash that attaches to the XA2 is broken, and I could really use a flash for this project on some days. Maybe I’ll nix my “same camera” rule so I can use one of my other Olympus compacts that has a working flash when I need some light. (I have an original Stylus Epic and a few Stylus Epic zooms that I picked up from a thrift store when I went to visit a friend in California).
My original thinking was that forcing myself to use the XA2 with no flash and 400 speed film would make me be more creative in my choice of subjects and compositions, and to a certain extent it has – but it’s also made me feel more annoyed and guilty when I realize at the end of the day that it’s too dark to take anything outside and there are few locations inside that work with no flash.
Ha! Well…there have been a few bumps in the road, but I’m still trying.
It’s day 27 of the month and I am on picture 32. Three more days of September and four more exposures (assuming I didn’t wind too much when I loaded the film). My goal is one roll per month, which gives me a little breathing room in case I flub a shot or find something I just have to take a shot of after I’ve already taken the shot for the day.
There have also been a few days where I either forgot to take a picture, or I was feeling really blah and just didn’t make myself when I got to the end of the day and had no picture. Perfection is the enemy of completion, though, so I’m not letting it make me quit again.
Since I’m still not done with roll 1, there are obviously no pictures to share yet. I haven’t figured out if I’m going to try to develop this at home or send it out. I have developing stuff, but I may have to get some fresh developer (I haven’t developed in probably 7 years – I used HC-110 and still have the bottle, but not sure if it will be too old to use). It may be worth it in terms of time and effort (and predictable, successful results) to just send it out.
To make this post a little more interesting, here’s a photo-a-day project I stumbled across that was done as a farewell to Ektachrome (which sadly I never got to shoot, even in the 90s).
And here’s one of my own favorite film shots, on Kodak Gold, taken about 8 years ago of decorations in a store window for Winchester’s yearly Apple Blossom festival.
