Shenandoah Breezes

Fieldcraft is not some new game... but, rather it is a combination of both real knowledge and real skill... not the pretend variety picked up in a magazine. ...and it is much more than simply carrying a big knife and wearing an oversized watch. Working for 25 years as a guide, as well as a wilderness and mountain first responder, and more than 40 years as on outdoor skills instructor, I've seen a tremendous number of folks head off into the mountains as if they were heading off into their local city park.. assured that if something doesn't go as planned, they simply just need to call for assistance and help will arrive... (after all, that's what "help" does isn't it? ...sit around and wait to be needed...hardly.) I even had one person tell me, after having been confused about his location for about 8 hours, that he had just assumed survival and getting "found" was just like folks thought learning to swim was like.. you fall in water and you m

L-R  flowers - Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) Dwarf Ginseng (Panax trifolius) There is no piece of music, ever, more reflective, more perfect to the emotions of spring in the mountains, than Aaron Copeland's "Appalachian Spring". While the music is inspired by the springtime awakening and rituals in Pennsylvania's Amish heartland, anyone who goes out, into the mountains, to "feel the season" cannot help but be moved by the music. Smelling the smells; seeing the rebirth of the woods and fields.. allowing themselves to be immersed in the miracle of it all...  ...the simple musical themes that bring grace and wonder, over and over and over, until, just like the mountains, there is nothing but life in all its vibrant shades and colors, everywhere. The magnificent simplicity of life. Yes, Appalachian Spring is a thing of wonder and beauty. Fly Poison (Amianthium muscitoxicum) Day to day, week by week, the hills come alive mo

I always wanted to be an archaeologist. Not for a living, but definitely for the joy of discovery, and putting the pieces of the puzzle together to make a complete story. As a boy, the thrill I got finding arrowheads and stone tools in our family garden kept me weeding and tilling for hours!  At my grandparents house, in the Shenandoah Valley there was history EVERYWHERE!  - the collection of Minnie balls; - the unexploded Parrott shell my grandfather found in a fencepost hole;     (yes, we played with it... ignorance is bliss!) - my great grandfathers hand tools; - the horse drawn sled in the barn; - my great grandfathers Colt revolver- rusted beyond use - left from the Civil War; and, - above all, the stories, the letters, the memories, the legends (to us) So, it surprised me when after 30 years of looking at a hole in the ground, I finally figured out the story behind it. About a quarter of a mile from here, across a ridge and down beside a stream is a hole in the g

This was supposed to be a story about historical sleuthing.. but that will have to wait. Because this can't! Right now, this very moment in Spring... at this latitude... is the very best time to score a fantastic meal from right outside your back door! (just make sure where you are foraging has not been treated with either pesticides or herbicides, or other contaminants)  Foraging has become a "newly-cool" term for a food gathering lifestyle that used to be commonplace. Somehow, it became relegated to those who could not.. or chose not... to buy all of their food from a store (or grow their own) - which, happened to correspond with the rise of the American ideal of perfectly manicured lawns: all the same shade of green, no "weeds", lots of fertilizer (which equates to lots of mowing), no insects....  The use of herbicides, pesticides and fertilizing chemicals ensures that nothing can live on a lawn, but grass. But, that's another topic...for another

Anyplace you go in the mid Atlantic region of the United States, you just can't get away from history. While you may not be fully aware that it surrounds you, just think of all the place-names: Rappahannock, Shenandoah, Potomac, Susquehanna, Catoctin, Massanutten, Allegheny, Cacapon, Roanoke... Native American in origin, yet they are fixtures in today's life. US Routes 11, 340 and 220 all follow Native American trails down the valleys, through the mountains of PA, MD, WV and VA and more.. trails that were subsequently used by European settlers as they expanded north, south and west of the main immigration ports in the East. Sadly, much, if not most, of the physical evidence of indigenous culture has been erased or destroyed. So, too, for much of the physical evidence of early European settlers...  Place names like "Frog Eye", "Rough and Ready", "Freetown", "Big Lick", "Tight Squeeze", "Good Luck", and "Hell-T

One of the special things about Shenandoah National Park is that a lot of the park is designated as 'wilderness". What many folks don't understand is that is a designation, by Congress, not a true description. In fact, since Europeans arrived in North America, Shenandoah has been utilized, extensively, for its natural resources. The park has been timbered, for charcoal mostly, several times over. Its mountaintops and hollows are dappled with the remnants of ancient orchards, homesteads, farms, churches, schools, roads, mines, quarries... you name it.  The Wilderness Act of 1964 was designed to protect  certain lands in order to " secure for present and future generations the benefits of wilderness" (Wilderness, upper-case W, being defined as " an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain") Lying within an easy drive of many of the large metropolitan centers of the East,