Saturday, July 6, 2013

Rich Mountain Trail - Indian Grave - Rich Mountain Road

Date: 7/6/13
Distance: ~8.3 mi

Today there was lots of rain in the area, but mostly to the west, so I looked for a hike that wasn't too long. Since I've never done the Rich Mountain Trail, I went that way.  I was thinking that if the weather moved in, I could turn around and get back to the care quickly.

The hike up Rich Mountain Train had a rather large elevation rise of about 1700 ft over the 2.3 miles to the top.  The trail was well maintained.  There weren't many nice views, but it was a nice walk in the woods.  Once I got to the top, the weather didn't look to bad, so I decided to cover the 0.8 miles down to the part of the Indian Grave trail that I hadn't hiked before.  It was downhill and easy hiking.

I continued on to cover the 1.1 miles on Indian Grave to the Rich mountain road. I did pass some sort of trap along the way.  I didn't see any bait and it didn't look to be armed.  A little farther down the trail, I scared a black bear on the trail.  We both jumped and ran.  I guess I was supposed to hold my ground.  He made some sort of squeal as he took off which surprised me a little.

Once I reached the road, I hiked back to the car on the road.  It was much further than I expected.  In some ways I wished I had turned and followed the trail back.  It seemed longer than the trail, but probably had less elevation gain than the trail.  The road was gravel and a decent number of cars went by.  I probably could have hitched a ride.  There were a few nice views along the road.



 It started raining during the last mile, but not too hard.  All in all a nice hike, but I probably wouldn't hike the road next time.

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