To get this shot, you have to be on top of the mountain at sunrise and let me tell you, that wasn't so easy. The Dragon's Tooth is one of the top 3 places to see while hiking in Virginia, and Virginia has the reputation of having some of the best views on the whole Appalachian Trail. I feel quite fortunate to have had this opportunity...but I sure didn't at the time.
It started back at the shelter with the group of hikers trying to decide if the weather people missed the call or what. It was one of those deals where you watch the weather channel and they show a bar moving across the USA, causing flash floods, tornados and just general destruction. I had no desire to be out in the open when that thing hit, but it was already 2pm and there was not much of anything in the sky. The weathercasters blew it, and I was antsy, ready to hike and get me that photo of the Dragon's Tooth.
We took off and started hiking up the mountain, dealing with our personal issue of needing more water than we wanted to carry. Those fast hiking folks can get there in half the time we can, so they can take less water. We needed to conserve water, get to the top, get some photos and get down the other side before dark, hopefully stopping at a water source, and another shelter.
We hiked for a while, looking at the sky, and noticing that the difficulty of the hike was cutting our speed in half. In other words, we had more of a water problem than we thought before, and were now contemplating hiking down the other side of the mountain in the dark. And, that is about when the storm hit hard. At least we no longer had to worry about water. My thoughts were now consumed with the fact that it was almost dark at 4pm in the afternoon, and I was starting to wonder just how waterproof those cheap knock-off bags I bought were. Truthfully, I had often wondered what it would feel like to be miles from anywhere, with everything I owned on my back, and have the sky open up on me...it pretty much felt just like I thought it would.
It was then, about the time I was thinking that we were the only people crazy enough to be out in this weather, when a withered old man approached us from the other direction. He seemed to be my Dad's age, and my first thought is what was he doing up there in this weather? He told us his name was Dirty Ernie, and he was doing his 3rd round of hiking the whole trail, and this time, I believed the guy. He said that it was very dangerous to try to camp at the top if there was lightning, but it was even more dangerous to try to climb down the other side in the rain. The best idea was to turn around and go back, but we were having none of that. We said goodbye to Dirty Ernie and his dire predictions and continued.
It wasn't long after that I took a big spill while navigating some large rocks with my trekking poles. What happens with the poles on rocks is that your foot slips on algae and you depend on the pole, but the pole is not that helpful on rock and you go down hard, lacking the use of your hands to break the fall. Add forty pounds of turtleshell weight on your back, and any fall is bad news. I lay there for a minute, assessing and hoping that I would not find anything broken. I was seeing blood and feeling big hurts on my arm and ankle. Paul's suggestion was that we stop while he had a cigarette and pondered the situation.
While laying there trying to hold my blood in, I had a vision of the future: Fox and Friends news is on and the hot young Anchor woman is talking about the mysterious death of a hiker in Virginia, and was now going to Bert, who was on the scene in Daleville, Va. with a group of State Police and yellow tape wrapped around a stand of trees in the woods. "All we know right now is that two brothers were hiking, one got injured, and then they found they were being followed by a pack of wolves. The injured hiker had his brother drop his pack and run for help while he fought off the wolves. We are still trying to piece together the rest of the story. The only details we have right now, is that we found "Vahalla Awaits" carved into a rock near the body, carcasses of 7 dead wolves around the body, and one larger grey wolf carcass with his jaws embedded in the neck of the hiker and the hilt of a knife protruding from one of the wolf's eyes. We can only assume that the hiker fought bravely to the......Seriously? They don't even have wolves in Virginia! Come on Princess, I'm going to see that Dragon's tooth, even if it kills me!", said Paul, stubbing out his cigarette butt.
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