Mt. Pleasant

     A good weekend indeed. Saturday morning, Peyton and I woke up and hit the road headed towards Mt. Pleasant. Mt. Pleasant is located about 2.5 hours south west of Richmond, toward Buena Vista. As we got closer to the mountains, we could see from a distance that there was significant snow accumulated where we would be hiking. The final three miles to the trail head was windy with close to a 1.5' accumulated. Luckily we were not the first to arrive that morning as a truck had paved the way for us up the mountain. The Subaru preformed well on the snowy roads. We ended up parking about half a mile from the trailhead and hikedthe rest of the way to the trailhead parking lot.

      When we arrived at the trailhead, there was another car parked and we could hear some guys in the distance. They ended up starting the section of the trail that we would return on, so we figured we would probably see them at the summit. We hiked the 3.3 miles to the peak and were met by a father and son making coffee on the windy peak. Ah, nothing like a lovin spoonful on the top of a snowy Virginia summit. I'll have to admit, I was a little jealous as I crunched down on my somewhat icy pb&j I had dropped in the snow.
The views were impressive and equally humbling. The flute playing did not work as well as it was extremely windy and the wind blew into the key holes, stifling any sound I was trying to create.

We decided to complete the loop instead of going back the way we came, which added another mile onto the hike. The snow was pretty deep in some spots making the hike more challenging, but definitely a lot of fun.
We stopped by Staton's creek, a micro creek flowing into the Pedlar River. This is a creek I paddled about a year ago with some friends from Charlottesville.

      As we snakedour way over the mountains via Rt. 56, we stopped at a small country store to grab a drink. Peyton ordered some mac and cheese. I'm not sure if we were both just so hungry from our hike, but it was by far the best mac and cheese I have ever had. Can't wait to go back there as it's about two miles from one of my favorite hikes- St. Mary's Wilderness. We continued past Spy Rock, Crabtree Falls, and The Priest on Rt. 56. Once we reached 151 we stopped at Blue Mountain Brewery to pick up some drinks for Joe's birthday party we would stop at on our way back to town. All in all, a good day hiking, driving some scenic byways, and of course, eating mac and cheese was the highlight.