Adventure Awaits: Dragon's Tooth

Warning: This post is a doozy.

Summer classes are finally over!! Now I can really enjoy my summer in Blacksburg. Ok about last Saturday, here it goes:
We began our journey around 2pm with a pit stop at Kroger to get the goods; aka hot dogs, smores, etc. When we arrived in the parking lot around 3pm, a slew of cars were already there so we unloaded the car and started trekking up the trail. I have never gone backpacking before so I was not equipped with the proper gear. Let’s just say stuffing a sleeping bag into a school backpack along with some food and clothes is one way to look ridiculous. As we were hiking, the trail progressively got more rugged and more challenging. At points I felt like we had signed up for a rock climbing class. There was even one point where some metal bars had been welded into the rock to help us climb.

When we reached the top, we unloaded and proceeded to climb the “Dragon’s Tooth.” This point is above all the rest of the mountain, and if you go all the way to the top you can see just about everything. For those of you who don’t know, I’m deathly afraid of heights. This is the only thing that will stop me in my tracks. I started climbing the rock and got to the normal location to which just about everyone climbs. However, I wanted to go higher to see above all the trees. Jim took off like a monkey and scared the crap out of me and Alex, as he climbed uber fast and stood on the very tip top of the Tooth. I continued climbing and decided to take Jim’s pace at a more human speed. However, that human speed turned into a tortoise pace real quick. As I was climbing, I realized “Holy crap, I’m shaking.” and then I did what no person afraid of heights should ever do. I looked down. I froze and clung to the rock like I was giving it the best hug it’s ever had. I wouldn’t move; I couldn’t move. Eventually, about 10 min later, I became a little more accustomed to the situation and crawled a bit further to reach a nook in the rock. Once I reached it, I sat there for what seemed like a century. I looked out and saw miles upon miles of mountains. I was so happy that I forced myself to reach that point. Granted, I could have gone higher, but I’m pretty sure I would have hyperventilated. This was one of the most gorgeous views I have ever seen. The view stretched for miles, and you could see Salem in a valley in the distance. Simply incredible.

Once our stomachs started talking, we headed back to our campsite and gathered wood for the fire. Jim and Alex did a wonderful job of recovering dead branches from trees by using a string and shear “man-power.” I, on the other hand, roamed the woods and collected dead branches that had already fallen to the ground. I have a video of one of their branch retrievals. I guess I’ll post it below this novel I’m writing. Anyway, after we gathered enough wood, we relaxed and enjoyed the mountainous atmosphere. During the duration of time we were there, many people came and went: a family, a guy with dreads, a guy with a keyboard in his backpack and his buddy (these two ended up camping a little ways down the trail from us but kept to themselves at night time). We ended up having casual conversations with just about all these people. Everyone hiking was so nice and friendly! Around 5pm we had a couple join us in our camping venture. They pitched their tent about 20 feet from us, and we ended up being basically best friends with them. We asked them if they wanted to join our fire and offered them some hot dogs. Their names were Caroline and Brendan and they were around our age too; 23 and 25, if I remember correctly. They were both from Atlanta, Georgia, but Caroline is staying in Blacksburg this summer. Caroline was soo funny and had many great stories to tell! She told us about how she went to Alaska and all the adventures she had there. I was so jealous of her. It sounded incredible. I definitely want to go to Alaska now. While we were talking to them, I mentioned that I was in the marching band at Tech. Caroline said she knew a piccolo in the band and that they were just hanging out the night before with a bunch of tuba players. (For any MVs reading, she mentioned Goose and Trunks haha.) So after getting over the fact that 6 degrees of separation gets freakier as you get older, we climbed the Tooth and all watched the sunset together. The sunset wasn’t as great as I had hoped. There were a lot of clouds in the way so it was kind of a disappointment. However, the sunrise TOTALLY made up for it. (I’ll get to that later.)

After it got dark, we all made smores and contemplated playing Chubby Bunny which Jim and Alex had never heard of! Shame on them. After swapping stories and enjoying each other’s company, we again decided to climb the Dragon’s Tooth to view the stars. It was magnificent. There were millions of stars! The universe never ended. You could also see all the satellites that were circling the Earth, and boy were they bookin’! We even saw 2 shooting stars that night! It was amazing. The only thing that was missing was…the moon. It was nowhere to be found. We found this to be quite strange, but I guess it was just taking the night off. Instead of the moon we got a bunch of angry mooing cows in the distance. We decided that they were either being murdered, having sex, or just wanted to let out some emotion. They were crazy loud! Once we had our fill of stars and cows we crashed in our tents. Before this, however, we decided that we would wake up to watch the sunrise and then go to Homeplace in the morning for lunch. Jim, Alex, and I tried to describe the deliciousness that is Homeplace, but as every Tech student knows, you don’t know and don’t understand how good the food is until you actually taste it.

We went to sleep and man was it freezing cold at night! I can’t speak for everyone else, but I slept horribly. Plus, I had a nightmare that a bunch of killers came to the mountain with knives and axes. Most of the night I was either poking Alex because he was snoring or I was shivering from the lack of heat my sleeping bag failed to provide. Once I started seeing the sky light up very slightly, which was around 5:30am, I jumped up and climbed the Tooth. I took sooo many pictures and they all looked the same. At least in the beginning they did. As the sun rose you could see the fog collecting in the valleys. It was BEYOND gorgeous. It was more epic than when Simba threw Scar off the mountain in Lion King or when Darth Vader said, “Luke, I am your father.” or when…you get the point. It was crazy to believe that so many people below were still sleeping and missing this greatness. The sun slowly peaked up above the furthest mountain top and as it was doing so, birds chirped at its arrival. It was like the world was just being born. But guess who had to ruin it? That’s right, the obnoxious mooing cows. Even though the cows slightly damaged the moment, it was still incredible. I never wanted it to end. But we all know all great things must come to an end. We just need to enjoy them while we can. After the sun had reached a somewhat normal position in the sky, we all climbed back down and started a morning fire with the wood that remained. After awhile I climbed back up the Tooth to see the view again. I felt like some kind of drug addict except my drug was the mountain outlook. Soon after I got there Jim came up as well and then two guys with extremely colorful tie-dye track pants joined us. They were very outgoing, just like all the other hikers, and I told them I really liked their pants. They told us they were hiking the entire Appalachian Trail (starting in Georgia and heading to Maine). They said they hike about 10 hours a day and it would take them three months to complete the whole trip. They didn’t stay long, but before they left I asked if I could take their picture because I really liked their pants. They posed as you can see in the picture below and said that it would cost me $5 but they were willing to accept Snickers bars instead. Of course they were kidding; they had such great personalities. I wish all people could be as care-free as these guys were. Shortly after they left we agreed to start packing up.

Once we all reached our cars we decided to visit a house we saw from the top of the mountain and see if we could view the Tooth from there. We arrived, and we definitely could. We even saw some people walking on top of it. It was kind of creepy how good of a view this house had. They probably spy on people all the time when they are bored. We arrived at Homeplace around 10:45 and there were already a butt load of people waiting. Once we were seated, we enjoyed a lovely and filling lunch with our new Georgia friends. After the sinful cherry cobbler had been served, we made our way back to the parking lot and said our goodbyes. It was so cool how close we had become to Caroline and Brendan in just a matter of 18 hours. We all managed to crawl back into our cars with our pants a little tighter and prepared at any moment for the food comas to hit. And then we left. Once I got back to the apartment I collapsed on the couch and took a 5 hour nap. Something I haven’t done since I was about 12. Best. trip. ever.