Climbing Old Rag

The town where I grew up is some fifty miles North-East of the Shenandoah river valley, Northern Virginia's resident portion of the Appalachian trail. My friends and I have spent many a summer day climbing in that range, finding swimming holes, dodging snakes and watching sunsets from 3,500 feet. I've caught a couple sunrise hikes too, which take your breath away. To see the fog of an early morning moving over a sleeping town far, far below you, and know the only people awake are the ones who came with you and anybody else with the right blend of stoic and crazy in them. Our Shenandoah mountains may be small in the grand scheme of things, but they've always been something to me.

However, this story isn't about the Shenandoah mountains. Earlier this year, after the latest in a long run of failed romances, I decided to give online dating a try. I figured I'd tried everything else, and who knows, maybe it'd be fun. The short version is that I got really involved. I didn't go on a lot of dates, or actually match with a lot of people either, but I did get really into designing and redesigning my profile. I rewrote my bio every couple days, I chose different prompts and questions to answer, and I obsessed over which photos to choose. I was finally forced to deal with the fact I didn't have very many good photos of myself, and so it found me going the extra mile to try and thoroughly fill out my photo albums. Most of my profile photos across the various apps I've used come from an impromptu photo shoot I did with a selfie stick and a camera timer in a church parking lot off Route 29, cause golden hour hit just right as I was passing it and I happened to be wearing a pretty fly out fit. It took about thirty minutes, but the pictures turned out well.

But that's also not what this story is about. Some three weeks into joining Bumble and Tinder I had yet to land a single date. Honest, I didn't know what was wrong. I'd matched with maybe two people total, and I'm pretty sure one of them was a bot. I kept revising my profile, thinking of cleverer things to write in my bio, until finally I faced the obvious conclusion: I needed a shirtless pic. Now, I didn't have any female advice to find out if that was a good idea or not, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to show girls what was under the hood. I didn't want to just do a bathroom mirror selfie; no, it had to be an action shot. It needed to be something casual, something candid, so that it looked like I was just up to something and happened to not be wearing a shirt. Like a beach trip, or a hike. Which brings us to what our story is actually about: Old Rag.

Old Rag is a 10.2 mile, six hour hike, the grand poohbah of the Shenandoah mountain range. If you can hike Old Rag, you can hike any of 'em. And it so happens, it was one hike I had yet to try. So, one sunny Sunday afternoon in the middle of August I started up the trail. It was later than I would've liked it to be, and my backpack was heavier than I expected (I brought along what I thought would be enough water). Hiker after hiker passed me coming back down the trail, and one of them was actually a friend of mine. Their hiking day was finished; mine was just getting started. Now, you must remember the point of this expedition was to get a good picture, so gym shorts were out of the question. I had a great pair of jean shorts which may have looked good, but pride always comes before the fall. In 80 degree weather with 75% humidity it wasn't the photo op that made me take my shirt off. Thirty minutes up the trail everything I was wearing was soaked in sweat. I drank all my water, and I wasn't even halfway there.

I don't think I've ever been so humbled. I shrugged my shoulders, knowing I had some three hours left before I gained the summit, and accepting that today was not my day. The hike back down was considerably easier, all forty-five minutes of it. I kept my shirt off with ac blasting the whole hour and a half back to my house. Another day, a cooler day, I'll return and take that hike. I ended up taking the shirtless picture on the walking trails behind my house, and no one's noticed so far.