Sugarloaf Mountain

[dawn_felagund]

Today, Bobby and I went hiking out in Frederick County at Sugarloaf Mountain. Sugarloaf Mountain is a monadnock, or stand-alone mountain; all of the other mountains around it have since eroded away. (The Appalachians were once the highest above-water mountain range in the world. They're significantly humbler now, but they've earned the right. :)

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[dawn_felagund]

I thought you'd like the mushroom. When we were photographing the mushroom, I said, "Niki would be proud of us!" :D

It's pretty amazing to consider the Appalachians as the sorts of tall, jagged mountains like the Himalayas. When we get annoyed, digging in the garden, which grows rocks, since we live in the foothills of the Appalachians, we sigh and say, "Well, millions of years ago, our house would have been on top of a huge mountain--what else should we expect?!" At least we don't dig down and hit solid rock!

The geology of Sugarloaf is particularly fascinating. Apparently it was once at the edge of a Cambrian sea that deposited piles of sand that, under intense heat and pressure, became the quartzite that makes up the mountain today. And that protects it from erosion where its neighbors have all disintegrated into the rocky hills like where we live. Walking there and thinking on that, I felt how profoundly deep time is and how impermanent, by contrast, our time is. And how insignificant human problems! :) In all, it was a very cool place.