The weather feels more like Easter than Thanksgiving! It was an amazing day..60 degrees, for our first ever Riverbend/Great Falls hike. Chimi cried and quivered in the car the entire drive. He thought he was going to the vet or something equally horrible. At first, Linda was kind of bummed when there were 4 or 5 cars all turning into the visitor center at the entrance to Riverbend. She loves the solitude of hiking in the forest and doesn't want a bunch of noise/people around her. Then she remembered that there is another tiny parking lot by a closed nature center about a mile up the road. Sure enough, we were the only people in the lot. It bought back such wonderful memories of Snickers that she got a tear in her eye. When Snicks was spry, they did so many hikes through those woods. She wanted to stay off the main path that runs along the Potomac and was hoping she remembered the deer trails and small paths that wound up and down the mountain. It took a bit, but we found the old fire road and the right path. When she reached this sign, she knew we were going the correct way.
It looked the same, yet different to her. There were many so trees down from past storms. At times she had to carry Chim over giant tree trunks blocking the path. Plus the leaves were undisturbed, so the trails were mostly covered. The first mile or so was tough, but when she came to the meadow the trail was clearly marked and very easy going for about 1/2 mile. (For the record, I wouldn't walk 10 feet, so she carried me the entire day!) Chim was having the time of his life. He was so excited to keep moving that he didn't pee once.
As you can tell from the little paint marking, we started on the orange trail. We crossed over a small road and that is when Linda got confused. She took what looked like a path, but she couldn't be sure since it was covered in fallen limbs. With the downed trees, she couldn't find any color chips designating where she was. They must not have repainted the chips. At this point, she was lost. She remembered the orange trail turned into the yellow trail and then the red trail intersected somewhere... but it had been a long time (since Snickers died.) Plus, so many of the trails they would take are not color coded. That is when she realized that she actually didn't know the way to Great Falls through the woods! Snickers always took the right paths and turns, she never had to think about it. We ended up coming out on main road near the red trail. For the first time in 60 minutes, we saw a person and asked directions. They advised her to keep on the road and take a turn into the main visitor center, but nooooo....Linda wanted to stay in the woods and away from visitors. She found another heading on the orange trail and finally came across this map posted on a board. By then she wasn't lost anymore, but she took a photo of it just in case.
As she was climbing back up the steep part of the trail heading back to the car, she tripped on a root hidden by leaves and fell. She was able to use her arms to catch herself so I wasn't crushed flat. She sat there a few minutes to rest and give us more water. At no time was she scared (she did update Taylor by text what color trail we were on) and her knees/back/hips had zero pain. The main concerns were not being still on the trails at dusk and also having the gate into the parking lot getting locked at 5 p.m.
It all worked out great and she can't wait to go back. The next time she is going to download and print off the map before she leaves. Who knows? Maybe Chim will turn into the navigator and eventually lead the way just like Snickers did.
