Chapter Nine: Virginia’s Triple Crown

Day 55 August 8, 2020 Saturday

Lost Spectacles Gap, VA to Tinker Cliffs, VA

I woke up at 5:30 AM to the calls of a couple of bobwhites. I made cold coffee and ate a Clif bar and was on trail by 6:50 AM. I had terrific views from the many overlooks all the way down to a creek. The morning was foggy and cool, but I could see out over the clouds, which were blanketing the valleys. Although very rocky and difficult to navigate in places, the trails were mostly smooth and well graded all morning. I stopped at the creek near a road at the bottom and started up the mountain toward McAfee Knob—a 9-mile hike. When I got to the parking lot for McAfee Knob, it was totally full. Incoming cars were literally waiting for day-hikers to return to their cars in order to free up spaces. On my way up the four miles from the parking lot to the overlook, I encountered more people in two hours than I had seen in the past month. Everyone seemed very friendly, and I had nice chats with many of the day-hikers.

I reached McAfee Knob about 12:30, where once again, all around me on this ridge top appeared to be the familiar Silurian Clinch, or Tuscarora orthoquartzite. However, recent field mapping suggests that the Tuscarora is not mappable here and rather, these rock units are mapped together as Devonian-Silurian sandstones. Beds here are locally dipping back to the south, as part of a thrust sheet from Alleghanian time generally being shoved from the southeast to the northwest. Looking into the Catawba Valley, I was peering into older, Ordovician-age shale, siltstone, and limestone beneath a thin veneer of forest and agriculture. That same thrust, known as the Pulaski thrust fault, brings basal Cambrian Elbrook Dolomite in contact with much younger Mississippian-age sandstone and shale formations 2 1/2 miles northwest of McAfee, near the base of North Mountain. I walked out to the cliffs to gaze at the incredible view, and then found a nice spot near the overlook to finally sit down and enjoy my lunch. While eating, I once again ran into the family that I met at my campsite last night at Lost Spectacles Gap. Last evening, they had been very excited to hear about my thru-hike, and today they brought with them that same enthusiasm. We were glad to see each other again and talked for a few minutes. They were very thoughtful and compassionate and wanted to do something for me, so they offered me several energy bars and an ice-cold Gatorade. Wow, more trail magic! I really appreciated that more than they knew. I thanked them profusely and after a short chat we said goodbye. Later, a very kind lady agreed to take my picture standing on the legendary overhang rock. When she came over to return my iPhone, I thanked her and asked where she was from. She replied “Crafton, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.” What a small world! We talked for a while about Pittsburgh, and how much we both enjoyed living there.

After MacAfee, I hiked one mile to a spring for some water. While there, I met a friendly couple having their lunch. They met at a local bible college and were just hiking together for the weekend. After a brief chat, I walked back to the shelter, had more lunch, and took a very short catnap with my shoes and socks off. I popped an ibuprofen and gobbled down another Clif bar feeling totally recharged for my hike to Tinker Cliffs. Within the first mile, I caught up to three young people who I had met while having lunch earlier. I didn’t get their names, but there was one very tall young man and two talkative friendly young ladies—all college age—and we hiked together for about an hour until they decided to stop for a break. From this point, the last mile or so up to Tinker Cliffs was brutal. The trail leading to the cliffs and the cliffs themselves consist of Silurian Tuscarora once again. This formation is mainly a conglomeratic orthoquartzite, meaning simply, a silica cemented sandstone with grain size in excess of two mm. Very tough rock indeed…