I’ve been a terrible blogger, again. I have two drafts, sitting in the queue, that almost seem silly to try to publish. It’s been almost two months … again. Just like last year around this time, I got caught up in training, and so tired that I never seemed to find time to update.
I shouldn’t dwell upon failures though, I should just push forward.
It does bother me, though. This cycle of procrastination that I get in. If I cannot maintain my own blog, what hope do I have that my new opportunity, doing some volunteer social media stuff that maybe, just maybe might work into something real … what hope do I have that that will work?
My life is an endless series of self-sabotages. Ah well. I kinda want to just delete this all and start over with something more positive, but I won’t. Naught to do but push forward, get back on the horse, and so on.
So, GR Thompson WMA is a state-maintained park of sorts. It’s not a state park, but more akin to a state forest … but it isn’t one of those either. It’s basically a state-maintained wildlife preserve. So, if you want to fish or hunt, this is one of the places that you’d go. The Appalachian Trail also happens to go through it. I’ve actually hiked most of the AT section before – last June, during National Trails Day. I’ll be back to this same area again, this upcoming day.
Maybe I’ll be a better blogger and post about it!
So anyway, this hike starts out at the Thompson Lake parking lot, which is nice and spacious. There’s a little road that leads up to a second parking lot with handicapped parking and a boat loading ramp. I had two choices – go straight, or go left. I chose to go straight. The trail led uphill for quite a good ways, passing in and out of shadows and light. The day started out hazy and a little bit overcast, but by the time I reached the top of a ridge behind a vineyard, the sky was blue and the sun had come out nicely. It seemed like it was going to be a pretty hot day.
The ground was pretty wet in places, and on one part of the trail where it went across a stream, the trail itself had become a little bit of a river, which make going a little bit slippery, but otherwise not too bad. There weren’t too many insects out yet, but there were quite a lot of wild geranium, lining the trail with their purple blossoms.
This wasn’t actually the flower that I’d come to this place to see, but they were a pleasant surprise nonetheless. The biggest reason I’d come was to see the trillium.
Trillium grandiflorum. The great white trillium. They’re one of those wonderful spring ephemeral plants, along with Virginia Bluebells, that only have a quick window in order to be seen. I missed them last year, and I wanted to make sure that I was able to catch them this year.
At first, I thought that I had failed. All I saw were shriveled up flowers, all over the place. I was a little bit disappointed. I thought to myself that it wouldn’t be until next year that I would get my next chance, and I was a little bit bummed out as I turned into the Appalachian Trail.
However, as I hiked along, I started to see ones that were in better and better shape, and then I saw an almost perfect one. I was pretty happy. I also encountered a few AT thru-hikers, all of them a bit faster than my dog and I, especially since I have a habit of stopping often to take pictures.
Trillium weren’t the only flowers out this day. I also saw mayapple in bloom (you have to look under the large leaves to see the flowers!) as well as jack in the pulpit and showy orchis. There were even plenty of violets and some blackberries in bloom – I may have to make a late summer blackberry picking trip.
I stopped at Dick’s Dome shelter for lunch and chatted with another thru hiker who wasn’t sticking around very long. He asked me for the weather forecast, which I happily provided (chance of thunderstorms, which never materialized.) I backtracked to the side trail that led back to the lake.
You can tell that this trail is rarely maintained, because I ran into quite a few deadfalls, one of which required getting on hands and knees (and fairly muddy) to get through. There was no real way around it otherwise. One of the things I did notice though is that, even when a tree is knocked over, it does still try to reach its way back up. I guess that’s something I should remember myself.
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| GR Thompson WMA |
Hiking Northern Virginia 