You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.
The Sherando Lake Recreation Area, operated by the USDA Forest Service, opens its campgrounds on 1 April, but in the off-season this little back road up to the dam, the 'Anglers' Road', remains open for the fishing folk and walkers like us if any.
It's a slow sort of fun, the fishing is, but the lake is stocked and some we've asked have said there can be a pretty good catch. The anglers can comport themselves at ease on the dam as well as at certain shoreline spots along the lakesides.
The 600-meter long Lake Sherando in its sunny afternoon glory.
Today we're having another go at the 'Cliff Trail' backwards, i.e. starting up the cliffy part of it and returning along the higher lakeshore trail on the far side.
It's a zig-zag operation . . .
. . . not climbing up any cliffs, we're pleased to say, but rather zigging and zagging back and forth amongst the outcrops.
Like this
Another zig
This is the longest zig, but well worth it.
With the long passage of time, walkers everywhere begin to realize that the uphill efforts can be much more pleasant that the knee-jarring downhills.
Mind the step!
Another zag, and then . . .
. . . another zig.
Topping out eventually at a high point with a rather awkward view of the lake . . . and once the vegetation starts getting serious, there'll be no scenic lake view at all. Very disappointing for some newcomers.
Now for a long casual (non-steep) walk down to the beach end of the lake.
We're catching up with our party after a semi-strenuous march up the zigs, and the zags.
Down to the beach area -- the bench at lower right is our favorite reading-and-lunch bench when the weather's warmer.
An opportunity to make some new friends?
(No. They could bite your nose off.)
The lodge, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s, in their inimitable style.
The length of the lake from the southern end
We're crossing the short Williams Branch workaround of the North Fork Back Creek just here, which resumes on its own after a sluice run onward from the dam.
The lodge from the far side of the Williams Branch
The only structure on the lake, at the end of the spacious picnicking area
The west side of the lakeshore trail runs up a good deal higher than the eastern side does.
There is a little path up to the left there, signposted as the way to an scenic overlook, but we've never taken it.
A helpful bridge over a little mini-gorge
The view down onto the dam as we pass it by for a ways
The helpful staff have wired this short space over a proper cliff with a little support for any icy conditions on the path.
Zagging back now to recross the North Fork Back Creek (on its way to join the South Fork Back Creek down the road a ways)
The final stretch (at one point last year that little bridge was under a rushing foot of water)
The North Fork Back Creek coming down the sluiceway
The tour of the lake, including the Cliff Trail, normally takes us about an hour or an hour and a quarter, which is an expedition that pretty much suits us well these days.
On the drive home, an attractive log house (not many we see from time to time round here are still usable).
The Montgomery Hall Park's Fern Gulley again
Nice Sherando walk yesterday; now that the weather's become a little more charitable, it's time to renew our acquaintance with the Montgomery Hall jungle, and particularly our special favorite in recent times, the 'Fern Gulley' (1 March 2025).
The blue markings are for the Scout Trail, around the western perimeter of the park.
We're following the various loops and convolutions of the Scout Trail northward in perfect weather.
Here's the teepee, which last year acquired a sort-of-split rail fence (and a little doll's baby pram, now residing inside the teepee).
And now here's the Fern Gulley, splitting off from the Scout Trail and traversing up a ways to join the MHP Expressway up the hill.
This was a new feature of the Park's various amenities, a few years ago, and we've grown to love it. Sort of.
But after the newish Fern Gulley path meets the Expressway, the gulley itself continues upward, and we've been taking it upon ourselves to explore that as well.
(At one point, there were some forestry machines left at the bottom of it, which we took to be a sign of future planning. There's been no progress on that though.)
Clearly, there will need to be some work on this before the management can turn the general population loose on it, safety liabilities and all.
One big problem, though, which may have dissuaded the workers from continuing here, is that there are a lot of broken glass shards stuck all over the muggy earth.
Having emerged at the top of the gulley onto the Expressway path, we've elected this time to bushwhack a little bit and join the shorter Yulee trail, which ought to be just a short ways up the hill.
And it is -- the Yulee Trail is a short and easy loop of just about 45 minutes' duration at a casual pace. That's the teepee over there on the right.
Back onto the Scout Trail to award ourselves with another summiting of Black Dog Mountain.
And now down to the . . .
. . . new car.
Certain antipathies about Ben Cline, not without good cause
The Virginia 6th congressional district runs from Roanoke in the southwestern part of the state right up through the Shenandoah Valley, on the western side of the Blue Ridge. Since 2018 the congressional representative has been an apparently regimental Repug named Ben Cline.
We know little about this guy ourselves, but our liberal Stauntoneers obviously know a great deal, and none of it is good. So we've decided to help populate this outpouring of citizen grievances.
There go Kristin and our friend Margaret taking up their positions now.
One point of complaint is that, we're told, the gentleman introduces nothing to anyone, but occupies his political life with applauding any and all things that the craziest of the Trumpist MAGA freaks call upon him to vote for.
So in a way, Ben Cline can be seen as a stand-in for the profoundly retrograde movement of the Trumpians into the cruelty and ignorance of the country's worst moments in the past. And about half of the signs here are aimed as much at Elon Musk and his 'boss' Trump as they are at Ben Cline himself.
But the other half of the complaints have more to do with the fact that Ben Cline dwells wholly (again, we're told) within the Washington DC party circuit, and has never, or at least seldom, visited his constituents in the district for transparency speeches, policy explanations, town hall opportunities for the voters to voice complaints or suggestions -- in fact, we're standing in front now of his Staunton campaign headquarters, and no one will own up to ever having seen him here.
A parade of cars have been honking their way past the protesters, everyone of them getting cheers from the crowd.
The lady in the red jacket is Jennifer Lewis, a mental health specialist who has been campaigning for this 6th district for the past few elections, mostly a thankless task in this countryside of a handful of intelligent, liberal cities and a vast wasteland of biblical beards and Trump flags otherwise.
Jennifer Lewis' political CV is impeccably progressive, from women's rights, the environment, income inequality, health rights, conservation and the climate crisis, all of it, and here are Kristin and Margaret either providing their support or asking more questions.
Both of them were suitable impressed by Ms Lewis, and all of us will be voting for her in the next election (as in fact we have been since we returned to the US, but this cultural backwater of a countryside, outside of a handful of small cities, is a very tough row to hoe).
Sans paroles
Ben Cline's Staunton HQ, somewhere up there in the old Staunton Creamery building. Possibly it's a good omen that Ben Cline's fake offices, in case Jennifer Lewis runs against him again (and we certainly hope that she does), are on South Lewis street.
The cute little girl in the blue shirt is holding up a handwritten sign that says 'Ben Cline You Stink'.
Notably, despite all this simplified talk of progressive towns and backward countryside, a considerable number of the protesters here have their own very serious grievous fears for the future.
A poignant inverse reminder of Melanie's embarrassing jacket flaunt.
Campaigning with a smile? (We hope so.)
Even some of the district's serious Christians, as well as the countryfolk who are worried about their Medicaid, have turned out for the event.
All honkers and wavers, and there has been a right parade of them, get a chorus of cheers.
Oh, NOT a paid protestor -- unlike all of those town hall protestors that the congressional Repugs claim were paid to disrupt their perfectly honest and sensible praises of the Orange Jackanapes and Musk's demented attacks on the country's government.
This was fun, though not obviously too productive -- to someone who's acquaintance with political demonstrations is rooted in the Vietnam War riots in the US universities (like Ohio U.), this is mainly heartfelt symbolic stuff.
Yet just a month later, we attended a 500-participant demonstration against the whole Musk/Trump conflagration outside the county courthouse, 4 April 2025.)
Many thanks to daughter Alison, back at New Mexico Tech in Socorro now, for my new tee shirt.
A suitcase is out for packing for something -- Choupette is not taking any chances of being left behind. (Kristin was headed to Sante Fe, New Mexico, with no room for Choupette in the carry-on.)
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All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 9 April 2025.
