Perhaps it's the name Wildcat Mountain that works against this Northern Virginia friendly hike. After all, the hike's missing both wildcats and a mountain. There's no epic view, crazy rock scramble or monster distance to cover. In many respects, it's just 2.9 pleasant miles of hiking.
But that's just shows you how spoiled I am. I mean seriously, hiking this trail was a splendid hour and a half of trail time. The trail is well marked and there's a couple of decaying home structures to catch site of. There's even an audio tour you can follow. The biggest highlight for us, though, were the raspberries (or were they blackberries?). The trail was overflowing with them and so we noshed our way around the loop, opting to eat 100% organic fresh berries over the trail snacks we brought. How often is that an option?
Other than the berries, there wasn't much in plant or wildlife highlights. Fortunately, I'm on a fungi kick (more coming on that soon, I hope) and there was a quality spectrum of shrooms to observe. I have no idea what type of mushrooms I was looking at, but it was nice to notice the various colors, shapes and unique characteristics.
All in all, it was a wonderful hike and I applaud The Nature Conservancy for a very well maintained area. I wouldn't put this on my must-do list, but if you find yourself in the area, definitely check it out.
Details for the hike can be found here.
No comments:
Post a Comment