Throughout the winter…along with my other posts, I will do a few back posts on hiking trips I took this past summer/fall 2011. Recently a friend and I went hiking at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maryland. This was interesting to say the least. Lets first start by stating, this is a private mountain so you’re really on your own if you need help… Lets see how brief I can keep this.. I had printed the trail map for this mountain previous to getting there so as soon as we arrived we hopped out the car and were ready to go. The weather was about 40 degrees and the sun was beaming so the experience was quite lovely. Several times throughout the hike we were confused on what direction to go… the tree markers, signs, and map just didn’t seem to add up. Despite this we continued and about 3 hours in we reached a very nice overlook…

After chillin at the overlook… things go downhill.. literally and figuratively.. At this point my friend is beginning to get a little worn out, we were about 5mi in, and we had about 1.5 hours until sunset. I didn’t worry over this however, I mean 1. going down is always easier then coming up 2. the car couldnt be that far (parking was weird, you actually drove halfway up.) As we continue to walk im going at a relatively fast pace but my friends body just wasnt having it so this really slowed down our progress.

We both begin to notice that we’ve been walking for a while, but bc I wasnt familiar with this mountain, and we followed to map as best as possible, we concluded we were going the right way. Well an hour and 3 miles later we found ourselves somehow at the bottom of the mountain *gasps*. This would have been fine if the car wasnt halfway up the mountain in some obscure location. Now tired, concerned, and cold because the sun had quickly went down, we found ourselves in a sticky situation. D decided to ask a passing car for a ride up the backside of the mountain and he essentially said no and goodluck as he drove off. Most nature people I encounter are friendly, so that really pissed me off. I mean, two young females, hiking at sunset, have you or your wife no heart??

At this point we made a decision to just wing it the few miles up the mountain, despite the sun fading to absolute darkness and just follow the road. I decided I would leave my friend and go ahead of her bc going her pace would never get us to the car Lol. At this point its about 20 degrees colder and the windy one car road is showing no signs of ending… It didn’t help that every sound in the mountain sounded like surround sound in my ears. I was mentally exhausted and alone, could things get any worse?? Yes, I thought they could. D had told me, if I see a doe running, a buck was near and I needed to be concerned. Ive never actually researched this so I was slightly concerned.

Welp, I thought I had reached my worse nightmare. Up ahead of me, I couldnt make out if I was looking at a deer, dog, or nothing and my eyes were deceiving me (I wear glasses, near-sighted). I had a critical decision to make, go forward and see, possibly have a one on one ninja battle with a buck, or turn around back down the mountain and try to find D. I know this doesnt make sense but D and I linked via twitter so I actually didnt have her number to call her.. go figure. I decided I came to far to turn around and i’ll just have to test my fate. I also knew D wouldnt make it up the mountain before it was pitch black so I had to get to my car so I could go find her… *deep sigh* It turned out to be a mirage of leaves. It wasnt shortly after that, I reached my car. THANK GOD.

I managed to operate my nearly frozen fingers and speed down the mountain to get my friend. At this point it was dark. Needless to say, I will not be returning to this mountain anytime soon, effective maps and markers are too important to be taken lightly. I learned so many lessons this trip, which I will post on later.. Just happy I didnt meet my friend Mr.Buck that night!! 🙂