This weekend was "Wildflower Weekend" in Shenandoah National Park.  A week ago, I wondered how many wildflowers would be up.  Yesterday morning, I took a drive down Skyline Drive to the South River Overlook.  Along the way, I saw fields of trillium in bloom, hundreds of them, each only a foot or so from its nearest neighbor.  Usually, you see only a few trillium together.

 

At the South River Overlook, I planned to walk down the fire road to the Appalacian Trail, take the AT south to the South River Falls Trail, then up to the picnic ground and back to the overlook.  I wanted to see some yellow lady's slipper blossoms reported along that route.  Wow! there was a clump of them just up hill from the fire road with a trillium just in front of them.  It was a magical display that immeadiatley begged the question, "Do you have your camera with you?"

 

So this evening, after work, I drove down there again in fog and threating rain to take my camera where it should have been yesterday.  I'll try to post the best photo in a couple of days.

 

By the way, in the short half mile of Appalacian Trail I walked yesterday, I met four through hikers on their way to Maine.

 

Last Sunday, I participated in my first carryout.  Mid-afternoon or so, someone was reported to have an injured knee on top of Old Rag Mountain.  They would be unable to hike back down on their own.  The weather was expected to turn very wet that night.  Slippery trails meant that the incident commander wanted extra people on the team to bring the injured party down from the summit to where they could be transported by car to medical attention.  I was asked to be one of those extra folks at around 4pm.  Most of the team had already assembled at the Old Rag Shelter, well up at the end of a jeep trail.  My initial assigned task was to wait for the last groups of team members to arrive and shuttle them up from the paved road to the shelter in two trips in a 4WD vehicle.

 

By the time I got the last team members up to the shelter, it was 7:30pm.  The main body of team members had already started up the foot trail to the summit some time prior to that.  The four of us started up the trail and met the litter being brought down at about the half way point.  We joined the rest of the team, taking turns moving the litter down the mountain.  This is an operation of precision on rocky terrain that is challenging just to walk over. 

 

I took the training to be a litter team member last year, where we practiced on a simple trail for a short disitance.  Watching the professionals do this task on a difficult trail in the rain in darkening daylight and into night with headlamps was amazing.  To be a participant was an honor.  I felt like the weakest member of the team, yet felt like I contributed to the successful removal of a park visitor from a hazardous situation.   

 

P.S.  Many of the team members had already been on multiple search and rescue missions and fire fighting duty for much of the last month and a half.  I have a long way to go to consider myself to be up to their standards of excellence.