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.
Here's the tepee last fall, somebody's work over a number of years . . .
. . . now is a very unattractive ruins. But why? (I ask) Why?
We continue our walk, despondently, to the Fern Gulley.
Another few loops down the hill, and we'll be there.
And here we are at the carefully calligraphied sign, but . . . |
. . . in fact, the sign's gone now. No sign! Why? It wasn't hurting anybody.
Luckily, we know well the lower, official part of the Fern Gulley and can manage on our own.
Nice gulley -- it's good to be back.
Amongst the ferns
This part of the gulley was carefully prepared for pleasant walking, and for conveniently combining parts of two or more paths in the park for a personalized experience.
The top sign for the official Fern Gulley path, up from the left to join the Expressway path at this level, has also been foully purloined.
We continue, as is our wont, up the unofficial, and unprepared, stretch of the gulley, in which care is advised.
The footing is often insecure, and there are sections of the way with broken glass shards potentially underfoot.
And some of the more scrambly parts can be awkward for some of us, thus provoking laughter from others.
Oh, and then there could be the odd poisonous copperhead snake. Step around it if possible.
That's only the second snake we've seen here, and the first poisonous one. We're stepping around it.
But now we've emerged onto an upper level of the Expressway path and will proceed back towards the southern carpark . . .
. . . with less anxiety about hidden snakes.
Back in the Old Y homestead, here's a intriguing adornment for our second floor corridor . . .
. . . provided by neighbor Jacqui; they're evidently survivors from a childhood set.
A mere week after unpacking the car and sleeping for several days, on 8 October we're here to renew our old acquaintance with our beloved Augusta Springs Wetlands, but . . .
. . . no Uplands Trail today. Just a quiet, measured walk round the wetland itself and a hour or so with our books on our favorite bench.
And some attention to the changing colors in the trees
Round the centre wetland on the boardwalk, towards the big pond
A wetland that, for the moment, doesn't look very wet at all. We'd learnt from checking out the Shenandoah weather on the Web throughout the summer that this has been a fairly desperate drought time for the Valley.
The relatively new path through the woods (wheelchair accessible!)
The bridge over the creek that's leaving the wetlands to join the Little Calf Pasture River nearby, but . . .
. . . not much to see here.
The boardwalk with the fascinating curves (how much easier it would have been for the US Forest Service and Virginia Dept of Wildlife Resources folks to build that thing out in an easy straight line, saving some time and dough, and boring us with its lack of imagination).
Over another creek coming down off the mountain . . . similarly dry.
We're walking round the main pond now, but the vegetation is presently so overwhelming that we can't get a very good photograph of it now. We'll have to come back when most of the leaves are yielding to their fates (of course we'll come back, historically we tend to come back here about every three weeks or so).
That's our usual reading bench, over the past year the only one of the usual two (besides the picnic benchs near the entrance). But today we've seen that the missing one has been replaced with a sturdy brand new one.
An hour or so later, we slap the books back into our little backpacks and start for home.
Wending carparkward
Autumn leaves expressing themselves beautifully, before they fall off and die. A lesson in that.
Northward up the Little Calf Pasture Highway towards Buffalo Gap, passing Denny's long-abandoned Lounge.
Our little condo apartment has two HVAC 'heat pump' machines, one of which we replaced when we moved in six years ago. Now the other one has been expressing itself in what amounts to objectional heat pump language, and these fine young gentlemen from E & E have just arrived to remedy the situation.
That's either our old machine being winched down to the crane in the parking lot, or the new York machine being winched up.
The old one was jammed into a closet behind that pumpkin-colored wall, in our laundry 'room', and the new one has been carefully measured and, we're assured, can be jammed into the same space.
Out go the various pieces of the nasty, unreliable old machine . . .
. . . to meet their fate somewhere we don't need to know about.
And here comes the new one (the outdoor part of the system has just been installed).
The cats, relegated to the mezzanine to stay out of the workers' way, had been watching the proceedings carefully, but Melvin fell asleep.
The mechanics part of the operation has been completed now, and the young leader of the team is calibrating the thermostat controls.
Which he'll explain to us shortly, but we'll forget. He's left behind a very large users' manual, which we won't understand. But we have a maintenance contract with E & E, which has paid off handsomely in the past.
The laundry 'room', with foodstuffs, laundry machines, recycling bins, etc., as well as a new York heat pump.
Melvin is always thoughtful-looking . . . but he explains nothing.
All the furniture has been dragged back into place after the workmen's departure. Back to normal, more or less, but with a heat pump that works now.
Sherando Lake. We're still a bit ragged out from the end-of-summer requirements and the long drive, so today we've come to another favorite hiking-and-reading spot just to read.
We're usually here regularly over the winter, after the Park officially closes, driving up the open back road at the far end by the dam, but it's still in season now, so we've paid our fee at the entrance kiosk. Eight dollars per car, which we paid regretfully because we'd forgotten to put our half-price pass into the new car.
Most of the campsite RVs have probably moseyed on at the end of summer, but there are a few day-trip family groups round today, some with kids playing about near the beach.
The beautiful little island, in new, temporary colors
That hump up there, part of the general Blue Ridge experience, is called the Torrey Ridge.
We consider those two little benches across the beach to be ours exclusively, because when the crowds are here in summer we're not, and when we're here over the winter, there's no one else except for a smattering of fisherpeople on the dam.
Time to go home now, though.
Melvin usually shows no inclination to enjoying documentaries on the telly, this one about the Crimean War (very good), and may fall asleep, but . . .
. . . he does fancy a good scary movie.
A classic stand-off, and staring contest, which may go on for a while, but . . .
. . . will normally work out okay.
Tommy Burrell's follow-up photographs of Mussent Point
Tommy's sent us this morning photo of Mussent Point from across the lake, showing the leafy colors and all of the trees that we've learnt to love or at least tolerate. Taken on 7 October 2025.
And this one, taken on 23 October, shows not only somewhat less color, but also fewer trees. After expert analysis, some of the most potentially lethal trees have been slung down and most of the others have been trimmed.
Next up: Coming soon -- the No Kings demonstration in Staunton, hugely successful.
Dwight Peck's personal website
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All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 27 October 2025.
