Marty, Bear Dog #21, and I made it out to Strickler’s Knob on New Year’s Day and in the waning light of the afternoon were treated to a spectacular view of the Shenandoah Valley and the surrounding mountains. Now it took a bit of scrambling and bushwhacking to get out there because there isn’t a trail, but with no trail, it’s impossible to get off course, so no worries there.
We parked off Crisman Hollow Rd. and headed up Scothorn Gap, met up with Bear Dog #21 and continued up the MMT to the top where we made a hard right and headed out to Strickler’s. Now #21 was initially very happy to see us coming up the trail because he was lost big time. (Lucky for him he happened upon me and my exceptional navigational skills). But when we left the trail for Strickler’s, I think he realized that his day was not improving. After getting separated from his pack and currently missing the celebration that was taking place on Crisman Hollow over the bagging of a juvenile black bear (who wasn’t big enough to make a decent size toilet seat cover out of let alone a rug) he now found himself with two folks not going his way. Now as far as I was concerned it was obvious why his pack ditched him; he was an incessant whiner and he smelled really bad. Marty, being of a more compassionate nature, tends to overlook these things and she talked to him nice and nicked named Buster or Butch or something. But he stunk. So we ditched him too. But he eventually caught up with us and last we saw, he was heading down Waterfall and Big Run to the call of his owner whoopin’ and hollerin’ and firing shots in the air. So he found his way out. We, on the other hand, we were lost big time. Just kidding. But there is a bit of a tricky part to getting down. And we’re going to share that with you just as soon as we figure out how the hell we did it.
Tom Corris