Target: Ramseys Draft Wilderness
Type: Rightpoint
State: Virginia

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As usual I left after work and had to drive several hours to get to the Forest. I also stopped to pick up a friend (the same friend from Cherokee National Forest) so we arrived in the wee hours. I had located a Forest Service road with likely campsites and sure enough we found one easily. After a brief night walk to stretch our legs we settled in to camp.

The next morning was sunny and cool, making perfect hiking weather. We drove the short distance to the trailhead and made ready before realizing that we were in the day lot and there was an overnight lot further up the road. We made the move, grabbing the last of a small number of spots, and hit the trail.

My primary goal was simply to hike in the Draft (an old Virginian word for a creek or stream, but also the drainage it carves), but I also wanted to see if any of the ancients hemlocks that once made these woods famous were still standing. Through chance and circumstance this area had avoided the loggers axe throughout Western history, only to start falling to the wooly adelgid, a European import, in the last 30 years. Now the old, dead trees were known as Grey Ghosts, tall and majestic even in death until time finally brings them crashing down.

I also had in mind a reconnoiter of Freezland Flat (or Freezeland, the maps disagree). There are no trails to the top and I was curious how accessible it is. I would like to climb it someday and if conditions were right I would on this trip, but not at the cost of enjoying the wilderness. As it turned out, the vegetation is thick, the slopes steep, and the way long. I left it for another adventure.

The route we had chosen would take us on the Ramsey’s Draft Trail, then onto Jerry’s Run and finally the Shenandoah Mountain Trail. This circles the wide base of Freezland and passes through country with a high reputation for beauty. It also has a reputation for difficulty, although that mostly seems to be due to the frequent creek crossings and poor markings.

Both reputations were well earned. The forest runs alongside the eponymous Ramsey’s Draft and crosses it’s wide bed half a dozen times in the first few miles. Trying to avoid wet boots, I made it across the first few by hopping from rock to slippery rock, but eventually I mistepped and down I went. There must be a folks saying that covers this, but I chose expletives. to make matters worse, another hiker just happened to be nearby and saw the whole thing. He graciously pretended not to be looking while I pulled myself out. Now with boots AND clothes wet, I gave up and just trudged through as I should have from the start.

The scene was narrow, we would have no long-range views the entire trip, but stunning. The mountains here are subtly different than the appalachians farther south. The slopes are gentler and water carves the terrain more carefully. This less aggressive terrain, however, seems to lead to more variety of thick undergrowth which makes the whole countenance just as rugged. No easy stroll is to be found here without a well maintained trail.

As we traveled we started to see the first hemlocks lying dead along the trail. Many seemed quite recently fallen, having carved large swathes of vegetation in their thunderous passage down the mountainside. I had been unable to find recent reports on the state of the grove and these early indications were not promising.

Further up the trail we started to see dead trees still standing. As we gained elevation these turned into living trees, unhealthy, but fighting on against their inevitable demise. And then, shortly before the turn on to Jerry’s Run, we came across the first of many stout, undamaged hemlocks, standing as they have for centuries in these deep, unpeopled hollows.

There is something about ancient trees that makes me feel a connection to the past. America’s East Coast was once a land of great wildernesses and these few reminders are all that remains in small pockets tucked away in the mountains. Ramsey’s Draft, Joyce Kilmer, Black Creek, the names are as obscure as the areas are small. When you look out at the vast millions of acres of Appalachians woodlands and realize that only these tiny pockets survived intact it’s amazing and humbling to walk amongst them.

We saw many more forest giants as we walked, not only hemlocks, but uncut birches and maples survive here. The hemlock doesn’t share well though, and none of the other species seem to be as old. Sadly this stretch of woods is only a couple of miles in length and before long we were back in second and third growth, still beautiful and striking in it’s own way, but less majestic somehow.

The creek divides at Jerry’s Run Trail. Run is a word for the path of a waterway, so Jerry’s Run is the branch of the creek that someone named Jerry probably lived on in the past. The character of the Forest changed again here, growing thicker with less sun since there was no wide creekbed to hold the trees back. Riotous greens filled every nook and cranny. The trail narrowed and became less defined, but thankfully the creek crossing were much narrower as well.

Several miles up we came across a unexpectedly sprawling campground. Apparently this was a CCC camp in the 40s and there old stone furnace was still present. There were a few other campers present, the first people we had seen on Jerry’s Run, and we didn’t linger. The exit from the campground is confusing and we had a few false starts before finding the real trail passing right through someone’s tent. The whole experience was a bit jarring after the solitude of the day’s walk, but the campsites were spread out and could be private and there was water nearby. We discussed camping there for the night and maybe even leaving our packs now, but wanted to see what was up the trail before committing.

Shortly after leaving I realized two things. One, I had again forgotten the stove fuel. The only other time I’ve forgotten in the past is the only other time I’ve hiked with this friend. He probably thinks I’m an idiot. And I probably am. Two, I realized that water was going to be sparse and difficult to access on the section of trail we were entering. I started considering that we might need to head back to the campground we just left if we didn’t find something likely ahead.

We traveled another few miles, gaining altitude and leaving the draft behind. The trail here winds up the mountainside and the character changes again, becoming drier and steeper, with the primary thickness of the undergrowth coming from rhododendrons and nascent pines. As we went higher we had brief glimpses across the wide valley through the trees. This was the closest we would get to views and they were tantalizing, but I knew there were no open vistas ahead.

Eventually we decided to turn back, for no real reason except that we had seen what we came for and had no particular goal ahead of us. The campground had water and the possibility of bumming fuel or a pan from fellow campers. We hadn’t realized just how far we’d gone until we turned back. It was several miles before we spotted the handful of bright tents through the trees.

As it turned out there were only four other campers that night, and they were all of one group. We chose a spot at the other end of the site, around a rocky outcrop and out of both sight and earshot. We might as well have had the place to ourselves.

Water was plentiful, but the other campers had neither fuel that matches ours, nor the capability of boiling water. I briefly attempted to build a makeshift firehole for boiling water. Everything was wet, and there wasn’t sufficient wood nearby to start a big enough fire to dry it out, so I gave up. That meant our dehydrated meals were out and we had to settle for the emergency supply of tortillas, honey, and tuna packs. Not bad, but not enough, and not the hot meal we had our hearts set on.

Full enough, and more tired than hungry, we settled in for a cold, but peaceful night.

We hiked out the next day, retracing our steps. As we neared the beginning of the trail we spotted an old building that hadn’t been visible on the way in. Cutting off the trail to have a look, we found it was an old homestead, probably an inholding since it looking newer than the Forest. There was a what appeared to be a barn with a workshop and pens for various animals. An outhouse sat behind it and a strange foundation that may have been the living area once. The barn was painted Forest Service green so probably had been used by the USFS after taking it over.

It’s always interesting finding these places intact. Most buildings on Forest Service land were either burned by the homesteaders for nails, or razed by the Forest Service to return the land to a natural state. Very occasionally you come across a cabin or a barn and it is a treasure, a last glimpse of what this land meant to someone long ago.

The collapsing structures made a satisfying end to our adventure. We had walked a piece of the Draft and enjoyed it’s nature, both physically and metaphorically. We had also glimpsed something of it’s past in the massive trees still standing against all odds, and the finer remnants of man’s presence. Reaching the car, we had a quick snack, then set off for home.