Hey…today is my 40th birthday and I celebrated this special event by climbing Dragon’s Tooth this past Sunday. We car camped at the Audie Murphy Monument parking area Saturday night, cleaning up a bunch of glass and gathering enough downed wood for a weeks worth of campfires. My daughter, who is not yet 10, saw her first copperhead, a baby resting on a rather large piece of firewood she was about to pick up. Luckily her guardian angel was watching. The snake had just eaten and was very lazy. We watched the sunset from the cliffs near the monument and the kids stumbled upon a geo-caching box. Goo thing I have them signed up for a geo-caching 4-H class later this summer.
The next day, we drove around to the Dragon’s Tooth lot off of VA rt311 and began our ascent. I haven’t hiked this trail in 3 years, not since I herniated 3 disks in my lumbar and discovered I have 6 lumbar vertebrea. Needless to say, I’m out of shape and the climb up took nearly 3 hours, with many rest stops and water breaks. We met a Roanoke Trail Club monitor and the kids received a “leave no trace” card. They also found another geo-caching box on the crest of the mountain. Lucky Devils!
I can’t think of a better way to celebrate an important birthday and recovered health than climbing a mountain. We hope to do another “big” hike later this year, hopefully somewhere in NC.
Ms. Kitty
I’ll process the few photos I took later today.
Kitty