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Saturday, June 10, 2006- Left Manassas at about 7:30. Drove VA28 to US29 to US250 to I64 to the Blue Ridge Parkway. The goal was to hike a 2 mile section of the Bald Mountain Trail in the Saint Mary's Wilderness that I missed when I hiked this area with Jerry Robey and Frank Maida. The trip log of this hike will explain why we didn't hike this section.

Anyway, I forgot to look at my maps and drove about 10 miles further south on the BRP than I had to. I was mad at first. However, I thought that I would drive west on VA56 and check out what I thought was a motorcycles only campground as well as the Tye River Campground right next door, where we stayed in 2001. Unfortionately, the Motorcycles Only Campground is now a Lodge/B&B. And the Tye River Campground is now closed and up for sale:( I'm bummed as this was a nice campground. Anyway, I got back on the BRP and drove north to milepost 23. I parked my car in a parking area for the Mine Bank Trail which I would be returning on at the end. The gameplan was for a 4 mile loop, 1 mile along the BRP, a half mile along FDR162, 2.3 miles along the Bald Mountain Trail and about a quarter mile along the Mine Bank Trail and back to my vehicle.

I started out along the BRP at around 10:30AM. It was all down hill. I passed an overlook and witnessed a couple having a domestic dispute. Not nice. I turned left at the Bald Mountain Overlook and procded up FDR162. It was a slight up, however, it was a well graded forest service road. After about a half mile on this road, I again almost missed the turnooff to the left for the Bald Mountain Trail. The rock cairn that I placed there about 4 years ago was gone, as was the sign for the trail. There was a recently installed sign post at the trail intersection that used to have a sign. At least, the Forest Service had the smarts to put a trail sign for the Bald Mountain Trail about 20 feet back from the road. So I knew I was going the right direction this time.

The trail was like a giant V. It went downhill for about a mile and then uphill for about 1.3 miles. The initial downhill portion was not at all utilized. It was very overgrown and tough to follow. There were also numerous blowdowns. At one point, I thought that I would have to turn around because I could not initially find the trail after navigating a series of blowdowns. I got to a stream, which I would be following for about a half mile or so. There were some possible campsites there. However, the best campsite was right at the bottom of the V.

It was here that the trail started to ascend. It would continue doing so until I reached the intersection with the Mind Bank Trail. The trail was an old road for awhile and appeared to be alot more used on this end than the other. My theory is that alot of people park at the Mind Bank Trailhead parking and then hike to the Bald Mountain Trail to camp along it.

So I ascended the trail until I got to the Mind Bank Trail intersection, turned left and was shortly back to my car. It took me about 1.75 hours to do this 4 mile loop. I then leisurely drove north on the BRP, then Skyline Drive to US33 to US29 to VA28 to home.

I wished that we would have taken this trail in 2001. It would have been a very nice place to camp out. At least now I can say that I have hiked the Saint Marys Wilderness loop and I may come back to the Bald Mountain Trail some day just to camp out.

Mike C