Weather forecasts are potentially a reflection of what your day will look like. What they aren’t is a reflection of what your day can be. The forecast for today was awful, rain, low cloud and lowish temperatures. Not on the face of it a great day to be outside. But Lordy, was I glad we hiked.
The team met at 7 a.m. at Total Wine and head up 270 and then on to 15 to the Cactoctin Mountain Park visitors center. It was a pretty grim drive with windshield wipers moving and grey, damp, low skies all around. We met at the trail head, questioned our decision making (not the safety of the trip, just the concept of hiking in the rain!) and headed off on our loop around the park.
The initial footing wasn’t great and when we headed “up” to Chimney Rock the talking stopped and it was at the higher end of lumpy (i.e. steep). At the top we got a great view of low, wispy clouds and not much else, but it was still pretty in its own way. We headed off, more up, to Wolf Rock, a lovely quartzite escarpment. The rain was holding off enough not to be much of an issue. We pottered off for another mile and ended up at the Thurmont Vista for lunch. Define vista in your mind and that was not what we saw! We ate our sarnies and as we prepared to move, the cloud lifted enough for us to see the valley floor, just.
We headed around the north side of the park to the Blue Ridge Summit Overlook (not much to see here folks) and then headed back down towards Cunningham Falls.
Why was this hike great? Well, it’s hard to explain. The weather was miserable, but we got to see the park in a different light. At the top of the mountain, because of the rain, there were lots of little streams babbling down to the swollen river below. They didn’t affect our hike, just added to the experience and the noise. Constant water running which was in its own way was very therapeutic, and naturally beautiful.
A special moment.
When we got down to the road at the bottom, we headed the 0.2 miles up the wooded walkway to look at the Cunningham Falls … now they were great to see, flowing aggressively and worth the photo op taken.
After that we headed back to the parking lot, a tad damp, some soggy socks, but hopefully happy to have been out.
As your scoutmaster says, some of this scouting stuff we do is outdoor and with that comes the chance of rain, cold, wind and anything else mother nature can throw at you. I assure you we take safety very seriously and will NEVER do anything reckless, but we will go out in sub-optimal conditions. Scouting is meant to get the boys prepared for life … and I assure you at some time in their lives, it will rain!
This hike reminds me why we do this. Beautiful!
Our next hike in January is set, thanks to Brandon for choosing, and a sign-up will come out in the next couple of days … I bet you’re jelly you didn’t join us today!
You can find the photos of this hike over here.
-Matt Salt