With the promise of a brewery at the end of our hike today, we were up and hiking early… a bit after 6am. We started with a long descent down The Priest to the Tye river. I was certainly glad we were going down that trail, because that would be a rough climb. We passed a nice creek on the way down, which our guidebook told us was cripple creek (and yes, the song was sung and stuck in my head).
After descending all the way down to Tye river, we immediately began a big climb up Three Ridges mountain. It was a hot, sticky climb, but we took a nice steady pace, and got up in pretty good time. The rest of the hike was pretty easy to Reids Gap, finishing with a gradual climb up to the gap, completing our 15.5 miles for the day.
We got a pretty quick hitch down to Devil’s Backbone Brewery, from an older gentleman who had been running along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and was just leaving the trail head as we arrived which as it turns out is the best way to get rides… just find someone who just finished a day hike and ask for a ride. It almost always works.
The rest of the day was spent at Devil’s Backbone brewery Basecamp, and it was awesome. When you get there, it’s like a big compound dedicated to beer. There’s the main building where the brewery, tap room, and restaurant are all located, then there’s a big outdoor area with another bar, a hut to get food, an amphitheater, a fire pit, and lots of chairs all over the place to sit, relax, and enjoy your beer. There’s also another building that looks like it’s for special events. We arrived a bit after 1:30, and our first order of business was to get some lunch. We began with a big salad, and of course some beers. Bear Bell got a tasty Raspberry Sour beer, and I got a flight of their year round beers, followed by a second flight of some of their more interesting offerings like the 16 point imperial IPA. We both ordered burgers for lunch. Mine had pulled pork and bacon on it. Everything was great.
After lunch, we headed out to the field next to the brewery, into a little stand of trees where we set up our tent. That’s one of the great parts about this place… they allow hikers to camp on premises, and even have port-o-lets set up near the tenting area. There were probably about a dozen hikers total that ended up spending the night there.
From there, we just relaxed for the rest of the evening, drinking some excellent beers, and eating some more food while chatting with fellow hikers. As the night wound down, we all sat around the fire pit and watched people toast marshmallows before returning to our tents after last call. Days like today are what Peaks to Pints is all about.
Mom and I had different Cripple Creek songs in mind, was it Neil Young or Credence?
Seems like you had a great time ???????? to you both!