Kathy and I were spending a few days in the Virginia mountains for our summer getaway. It's funny how those of us who live at the beach seem to love the mountains and vice versa. For efficiency's sake, perhaps we should arrange with the good people of Charlottesville to simply swap houses every August.
Anywho, we booked a room in the Mountain Inn at Wintergreen and headed west.
For our first full day there, we planned some motoring along Skyline Drive and a hike or two to a waterfall or two. With a thick stack of notes, maps and guides courtesy of the interweb, we decided on Doyles River Falls because there are actually two falls, an upper and a lower. We are nothing if not fans of "twofers".
We found the parking area, grabbed our gear, camera bag, water bottles, emergency rations (a.k.a. "wine") and headed for the trail, which was marked by a large rather ominous official National Park Service sign. It warned that the trail was very steep (on the way back, of course) and that a round trip hike to the first falls would take between 3 and 4 hours. You want to see BOTH falls? Plan on sweating and avoiding bugs and snakes for the next 7 hours.
We had other things we wanted to do that day (primarily involving hot showers, hot food and cold adult beverages) so we did what we do best.
We gave up.
We quickly consulted our official "Hikes to Waterfalls Guide" and decided that Dark Hollow Falls would make a great "Plan B" (not to mention a great name for a Busch Gardens Halloween attraction). Not only was the waterfall more scenic but the hike was shorter and it was just a federally-protected stone's throw from the Big Meadows Visitors Center, with it's snack bar and bathroom facilities that aren't trees.
However, we hadn't planned on driving this far and we were running low on gas. Fortunately Loft Mountain was on the way with a full-service rest stop, so we refueled there, then headed for Dark Hollow Falls.
After just a few minutes on the trail, two things occurred to me. 1), we were walking through some of the most beautiful verdant forest in all of Virginia, and B), we were descending at an alarming rate straight to the very bottom of the world. We thought it best to walk straight down to the falls without stopping, saving the uphill climb back for our "photo ops". That would give us plenty of chances to stop and rest and curse each other for thinking this was a good idea. As we approached the bottom of the cavern, I paused to scout the trail ahead as it doubled-back.
That's when I turned to find Kathy, face down on the rocks below me.
I'm sure the park rangers to this day wonder whatever became of the little girl they heard shrieking on the Dark Hollow Falls trail. I rushed to her only to find her laughing softly to herself for her momentary clumsiness. She had slipped on the rocks and stumbled. But after a few minutes of taking bodily inventory, we determined she had sustained only minor, mostly cosmetic damage. With the same courage and fortitude doubtlessly displayed by Sacajawea on the famed Lewis & Clark expedition, she decided to press on.
The falls are indeed spectacular and I'm sure would be even more so during the spring or after a heavy rain. We snapped a million pictures and watched a young foreign man scale the face of the 70 foot tall falls, certain he would plummet to his death at any moment. After several minutes, I suggested we leave before we became witnesses and would thus be needed to testify.
And then, we set off to climb back up to the top.
We took our time, stopping to take lots of pictures and made it back to the car with our lungs intact, then drove the short distance to Big Meadows, looking for sustenance and a place to pee.
We pulled into the Visitors Center parking lot, and headed for the bathrooms to freshen up. While waiting for Kathy I went inside to find the snack bar only to discover it was in a different building altogether. We spent a few minutes exploring the exhibits (and by "exhibits" I mean "air conditioning") and then went searching for grub.
The restaurant/gift shop was adjacent to the next parking lot. It was crowded but we found a table and were soon scouting the menu.
Mmmmmmm . . . National Park Service food.
Kathy ordered a grilled ham and cheese and so did I, minus the ham. The place was pretty busy so we weren't surprised that it took a while for our food to arrive. And I still wasn't surprised when they got my order wrong. But after an apology from our server and a few more minutes soaking up the knotty pine atmosphere, lunch was served.
Our tummies full and our muscles groaning, we climbed into the car, and leaded back the way we came, this time at a more leisurely pace. We pulled off onto overlooks, each with a view more breathtaking than the last, and filled our cameras' memory cards to capacity.
Just south of Lewis Mountain, we came across two cars stopped on the Drive, one in each direction. The car in front of us, impatient for whatever reason, somehow managed to slip between the others in the center of the road and continue on. We slowed to a crawl and strained to see what was going on. And that's when Kathy saw the reason for the roadblock.
It was a bear.
He was a little fellow, peacefully grazing on our side of the road, seemingly oblivious to the growing number of spectators who were gathering to watch.
And he was coming our way.
Kathy immediately powered down her window, grabbed our little "point 'n shoot" camera and started pointing and shooting. He meandered through the tall sage grass on the shoulder, nosing about for any scraps humans may have tossed there. He passed no more than two feet from our car. I glanced behind us to see that no one was close, so I slipped the car into reverse and slowly rolled backward, keeping pace with Boo-Boo (as Kathy had already named him, although I pointed out he was not wearing a bow tie). She got lots of pictures and a bit of video before he silently vanished into the nearby woods. By that time, dozens of cars had stopped as well, full of awestruck occupants, cameras capturing this unexpected encounter. No one left their cars, no horns, no shouting. Everyone respectful of the moment's magic.
After that, Kathy spent every waking hour in the car clutching her camera, ready for the next time a bear, deer, bobcat, moose, wolverine or badger might wander in our path. And while we did spot several deer and even a few wild turkeys (who CAN fly, so Mr. Carlson on "WKRP" was right, after all), we didn't see any of Boo-Boo's extended family.
We enjoyed reliving the day over dinner that evening at Wintergreen's Copper Mine Restaurant, pouring over the many photos we'd taken. And it occurred to me that had our day gone according to plan, it's most remarkable event never would have happened.
So many "ifs".
If we hadn't changed our hiking destination, if we hadn't driven deeper into the park and subsequently needed to stop for gas, if Kathy hadn't slipped, if that young daredevil hadn't enthralled us with his death-defying climb, if we hadn't gone to the wrong building at Big Meadows, if the snack bar hadn't gotten my lunch order wrong, we would never have found ourselves behind those stopped cars on Skyline Drive.
And we never would've met Boo-Boo.
All it takes is a little faith, a little luck.
And, in our case, one little bear.
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