all I can bear

This past weekend was definitely of note. Friday night, hmmmm....I don't recall what I did. Well, Saturday morning Marshall and I hit the road, headed to Rappahannock. We had an idea to hike through the Hazel River Valley in search of Cave Falls. After securing the nessacry provisions we set off on the hike. We started off the back end of route 608. We hiked about a half mile into the woods, while heading up a steep ridge. Marshall was traversing the mountain about a hundred feet right, lateral of my position. I was walking next to three large boulders that had fallen together eons ago. My attention was set on Marshall as I was discussing some mute point or another. Then out of the boulders leaped a huge bear, brushing against me knocking me down. Thankfully it rushed passed me only to stop about 40 feet away. I heard shrieking coming from the boulders and I quickly turned my head to see two bear cubs, not even old enough to walk. They were crying feverishly; in the absence of their mother, from within their den. I panicked knowing that I was directly between a 400+ pound behemoth and her two baby cubs. I was lucky that I had not already been mauled to death. I moved as fast as I could around the boulders and up the hill towards Marshall. Luckily the Bear did not give chase and we continued to hike, bush-whacking through over 6 miles of god-forsaken terrain that afternoon. The falls were cool, but the cave was laughable. The highlight, besides nearly being mauled to death, was the view of the SNP from atop White Rocks Ridge, a truley remarkable vista. After the hike we headed to Millwood to seek refreshment. From there we took Katie and met Marshall's Sister and Mark in Front Royal to bowl. Three games later we headed back home, dropped Marshall off and went back to Millwood. The next morning Marshall and I met at Rae's Place and headed over the mountains to meet Chad, Ry, and Evan in New Market. We all got some breakfast and headed down 81 to a town named Rockbridge Baths (near Lexington). Our mission was to find a warm spring we had coordinates for. It was supposedly on the side of a huge mountain called "Big Butt" , weird name to say the least. After debating over where to attack the mountain, due to copious private property signs, we finally parked at a kayak input beside the beautiful Maury River. From the side of the river we began to ascend the ridge, one mountain back from Big Butt. The ridge was extremely steep, rising above the river valley like a knife blade. After climbing over 1200 feet all most straight up from the Maury River, at Goshen Pass. We rested near the top of the ridge. Tibetan Prayer flags whipped in the breeze as we looked over the valley looming practically straight below us from the edge of the mountain's rocky spine. From there, following the GPS unit, we slowly and carefully made our way around the side of this very steep mountain. After a few hours and over 3 miles of bushwhacking we found the location where the spring was supposed to be. There was definitely many cold springs there and a nice babbling brook, but we could not locate a warm spring. So we decided to sit down, relax, and eat some food. All of us sampled the US Governments idea of a bean burrito, which is not the best idea the Government ever had. We only had an hour and a half of sunlight left and decided to give up the search and head home, cutting through private property to save time. About a 1/4 mile through the woods from we we had eaten we came across a little spring coming up from the forest floor. Green leaves and summer pond plants grew in it's waters, an odd sight in the dead of winter. Sure enough we had accidentally stumbled across the warm spring. Long story short, we headed back and got some food at BK's. Then Marshall and I headed back to P'ville. We got some groceries for the week. And as the weekend drew to a close it began to snow and I decided to hit the bed, tired to the point of wanting to sleep.