So here we go.
Saturday, Alicia, Katrina and I set off for a hike, something we have done in a few months. Last April, we'd attempted this hike on a section of the Appalachian Trail near us, only to discover that the Blue Ridge Parkway is closed near that section for basically all of the wintertime. Outraged, we found a different hike that we sort of invented, which involved fording a river. (We're the toughest! Totally could've made it on the Oregon Trail.)
This time, though, the Parkway was open and the hike seemed like clear sailing. We left one car at the end of a footbridge over the James River near US 501, and took car number two to Punch Bowl Mountain, mentioned in the description of our three-mile hike.
Off we went, expect two miles of gradual ascent, followed by one mile of steep descent, with gorgeous views of downtown Lynchburg along the way.
This is what our path looked like at the beginning. Pretty and nonthreatening, right? Wrong.
To prove that we're intense and were, in fact, on the AT.
We made our way down the trail, noticing some cool trees and feeling the grind of the allegedly "gradual" ascent. Our first hint that something might be wrong was the absence of any cool overlooks, but high on our own awesomeness, we pressed on, rationalizing that those overlooks might have been along the 10-mile route and not on the three.
This, although pretty, was not at all a scenic overlook. If I took the picture facing the other way, you'd note a formidable amount of mountain still ahead. WHY DID WE NOT SEE THE SIGNS??? Fools.
Without the satisfaction of the overlook, we began what could only be defined as an incredibly steep descent. It was pretty, there were woods and stuff, but it was super descent-y and fairly challenging.
Alicia dubbed this "nature's front door," one of the many lovely spots we encountered near the bottom of our descent. We had the gall, you see, to assume this was near the entrance to the trail back, if someone were to start at the footbridge. MISTAKE.
Just as we began to think we'd been descending for more than a mile, we glanced to our left and noticed two things: 1) A large body of water, theoretically the James and 2) A bridge! We were almost home! Or rather, almost to one of our two cars which was about 20 minutes from our second car and almost an hour from our actual homes. Still, progress.
Imagine our surprise, then, when we reached said bridge, and it was definitely not the lengthy, giant footbridge we'd been promised.
It was instead a monkey bridge-esque suspension bridge (I did not care for its bounciness) over a small creek. Foolishly, we convinced ourselves that this creek ran parallel and perhaps above the James, and we'd be headed down towards it any minute now.
Look upon my confidence, ye readers, and despair.
After crossing the far too bouncy but otherwise pretty bridge, we began to go up. That's right, dear readers, we were encountering a steep ascent, something we had not been told to expect.
"Maybe we have to go up in order to go down?" Katrina asked, describing poetically both the nature of life and of mountains.
Agreeing, we pressed on, though all of us were starting to feel a bit of uneasiness and trepidation. Just before hitting the bridge, we'd crossed a small road and AT markers which indicated we were walking North, the same way we'd driven from where we left Car A to where we left Car B.
As you may have guessed, we probably should have been walking South.
So after pushing on over the unexpected ascent, and hoping against hope that we'd spot the mighty James below us, we began to descend toward a body of water, but one that was decidedly not the James River.
At this point I decided it might be a good idea to consult Google Maps as to our position, and determined that we were near the Lynchburg Reservoir, much closer to US 60 than 501, and decidedly far from where Car B had been left.
And so we were left with four options:
A) Push on, hopefully until reaching 60, at which point hopefully some kind soul could return us to our cars. 60 looked reasonably close on the map, but there was really no way of knowing what the actual distance would be.
B) Turn back and hike the return trek, which would likely take us right to sundown but get us back shortly before, but would also require hiking back up the steep descent that had made me nervous on the way down and doing so already worn out and stressed from our initial journey.
C) Attempt to make our way to the reservoir itself and alert the reservoir keeper, or whatever his title is, to our predicament, in which case he would kindly boat us to safety or a location from which we could be picked up.
D) Return to the access road near the bridge and get Barrett to come pick us up.
We tried to make Option C work initially, pushing on with the hope that the trail would curve down to the reservoir itself, but as that became increasingly unlikely decided B or D were mostly likely go lead to our safe return home.
(Program note: at this point we became a bit too stressed about not being lost forever to continue taking pictures. Hopefully you're riveted by the human drama taking place and will keep reading.)
As we started to head back, in case we need to pursue Option B, I got in touch with Barrett to get the wheels in motion on Option D. He agreed to head out to Reservoir Road and we decided to wait at the bridge; an option that, if he could make it out to us in an hour and a half or so, would've been fairly logical and not resulted in our untimely deaths from exhaustion or hypothermia.
Fast forward two hours later - still no Barrett. Turns out, the road we were on was super long and super off-roady, severely limiting his ability to reach us in a timely fashion. Meanwhile, my phone was dead and Alicia's near death, while Katrina struggled to find signal.
Around 7:45, we tried to explore our environs a bit more and set a target time of about 8:15 or 8:30 when would call the police.
And at that moment, two wonderful things took place. We managed to reach Barrett on the phone, who said he was still alive but low on gas and had only made it down about half the road. So we knew he wasn't dead.
AND, some bear hunters drove by.
Alicia, who does not have the natural fear of stranger stabbing that I do, flagged down these bear hunters and asked them if they could drive us to a gas station on a major road where we could wait to be picked up. They asked where we were parked, and then told us they'd be happy to drive us to the Parkway.
Never mind that they were apparently illegally bear hunting, enjoying beers while driving us through the mountains, or at one point offering to sell us to some buddies they ran into for $3,000, these men are the greatest living human beings alive.
That's pretty much the end, give or take some frantic phone calls from Barrett's mom and her decision to share our adventure with all the attendants of their church. We learned some important lessons, though, namely the importance of compasses and maps.
And never, ever hiking again.
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