The first part of this hike is what everyone thinks a walk in the eastern woods should look like. After a brief climb on some stone stairs, you gradually arrive at a long section of mostly-level dirt trail. As shown left.
The trail head is on a rarely-used gravel road. On the trail, the only man-made noises were from the occasional jet flying overhead, and one far-off dog.
By contrast, the woods were full of birds. This ends up as a hike, on a good trail, out of earshot of roads, listening to songbirds and woodpeckers.
The side-trail to the waterfall on Hollow Brook is a hoot. But perhaps not appropriate for small children. It ends at the waterfall pictured above.
The trail gets rockier and steeper as you travel further north. Pick your turnaround point as you see fit.
The hike
Click this link on hiking upward.com for their profile of the Hollow Brook hike.
I extended the hike a couple of miles (round trip) by walking another mile or so to the Sam Moore AT shelter. (That’s located further north on the AT, just off the edge of the topo map given by hiking upward.com.)
Early on, (or, if you wish, near the end of this out-and-back hike), you have the option of a short (and sometimes steep) side trail to a little waterfall on Hollow Brook.
The trail to the waterfall is a hoot. The trail gets steeper, and rougher, the further up the creek you go. Then it does that Roadrunner/Coyote thing: It simply dead-ends into a rock face. You have to go ahead and clamber up to an apparent dead-end, to see that final bit of trail to the falls themselves runs off to the right, after you’ve clambered up a few feet of bare rock.
I would not bring small children on this portion of the hike. I was having second thoughts about being there myself, toward the end. But it’s not really dangerous, and I’m glad I scrambled up the little rock ledge and made it to the waterfall.
It was fun. I ate a lunch there, on the way back.
In hindsight, it makes more sense to do this part of the hike first, before you get tired.
The further north you go on this hike, the rockier and more difficult the trail gets. The suggested hike from Hiking Upwards stops at the top of the next promontory, Buzzards Hill. I continued on another mile or so to the Sam Moore shelter (see just-prior hike).
I was not the oldest person on the trail today
I’m 66. I’ve gotten used to everyone on the trail being younger than I am. But it does make me think that maybe this isn’t such a great idea, at my age.
But this time, one of the backpackers I crossed paths with was a 74-year-old guy, currently walking the Appalachian Trail from Harper’s Ferry to the Bear’s Den. With full pack.
He was taking the trail at his own pace. But that doesn’t make the pack any lighter.
Long-distance backpacking at age 74. That’s something to aspire to. It’s a sport with no prizes for speed. The only goal is to get there. When you get there.
I gave him the last apple I’d brought. He seemed glad to have it.
(In case you’ve never backpacked: The name of the game is minimizing the weight of what you carry. You carry only dried food, because water is heavy, and water is readily available from the many springs that dot your route. Carry a fresh apple (84% water) makes about as much sense as carrying a rock. But after a while, an all-dried-food diet wears thin. Any fresh food is welcome, at that point.)
The hiker
It took me just under five hours of hiking to get from the trail head, north to the Sam Moore shelter, and back. Total distance was a bit over six miles, so I was setting no land speed records.
I got the food and water right this time. It was three-PB&J-sandwich, quart-and-a-half-of-water hike.
I continue to be amazed at how little joint pain I get now that I’m wearing well-designed hiking boots.
Edit several days later: But how I changed my tune on this, starting the next day. My joints are taking radically longer to recover after this third day-hike. Yet, it was no tougher than the others. Arguably, maybe I’ve been running down the health of my joints all along, and only passed some ache-inducing threshold, with the additional wear-and-tear of this last hike.
In effect, I may have been wearing these joints faster than they could rebuild themselves, all along, and it’s only when the cumulative excess of wear over replacement got large enough, that I noticed it.
Not the fault of the boots, in the least. I judge these boots to be functioning about as well as hiking boots could possibly function.
Original post continues.
I’ve decided that trekking poles are a must, now. I carry them in my hand for much of the hike, but, increasingly, I have to good sense to use them before the going gets tough. Any time there’s a big step down, I plant both poles and lower myself down, rather than stress my knees. And when there’s a big step up — where I’d normally just lunge to get up that step — I plant both poles behind, and push. This helps with what I perceive as the highest risk I face in doing this, which would be falling backward down a steeply-sloped rocky trail.
The jury remains out on exactly how safe or unsafe this outdoor activity is. But it’s clear that I now need trekking poles on the steep, rocky uphill stretches.
Conclusions
Weirdly enough, the only remaining big downside to this is the huge calorie burn. Roughly speaking, these five-hour mountain hikes burn about as many calories as running a marathon.
Normally, that would be a good thing, but now, I don’t want to lose any more weight. And even with eating as much as I can manage, before and during the hike, I end up with big calorie deficit. For this one, five hours of hiking, less three big PB&J sandwiches, left me about 1000 calories burned, but not replaced.
I’m finding it hard to eat enough calories to make up that deficit. That’s both because I’m eating mostly “healthy” food, and because somewhere in the course of my weight loss, I lost the ability to pig out. I can’t (e.g.) stuff down a gigantic deli sub sandwich any more. (It makes me a little ill to think that I used to do that routinely.)
Anyway, I need to eat more.
Not a phrase I ever thought I would ever say.
But in this case, both the math and my stomach agree.
