A big dose of nature

Mr. Graham has told me a few times how he's really wanted to do the Three Ridges hike for years, and the time seemed right yesterday with the perfect weather we've had this week. We laughed on the car ride there about Mom and Mary Alice both trying to stuff each of our small hydration packs with food so we wouldn't starve to death doing a 7-hour-ish hike. We started the hike from Reed's Gap on the Blue Ridge Parkway just before 7:00 a.m. The temperature was a perfect 43 degrees, and never went above the high 50's throughout the day—amazing for mid-May. It's about 1.5 miles to where the circuit starts, then up and over the Three Ridges on the Appalachian Trail, then back on the Mau-Har Trail.

Here's the view of the Three Ridges from the first outcropping along the trail:

 

And here are the bottom two ridges, with the Priest just coming into view on the right:

 

This is the Priest straight across from Three Ridges:

The Priest is another wicked climb, with over 3,000 feet of elevation gain in a little over 4 miles. Eastern trail runners who want to train for the higher elevations out west combine Three Ridges and the Priest for a 23-mile run with ~7,300 feet of elevation gain, which is hard to find anywhere else east of the Mississippi.

 

 

Here is another view of the Priest from another outcropping on the other side of one of the Three Ridges:

 

After a long and punishing descent down a very rocky trail from the top of the Three Ridges, we finally found a flat spot to sit down for a few minutes and have some lunch and make sure we didn't give Mom and Mary Alice the satisfaction of dying out on the trail from a lack of food or water.

 

After lunch, we completed the circuit by hiking up the Mau-Har Trail past a spectacular series of waterfalls. Most of my waterfall pictures didn't come out very well because it was pretty dark under the dense forest canopy, but this one gives you the idea:

There were tons of wildflowers blooming everywhere along the trails, including trillium and wild azalea, though we were just a little too early for the mountain laurel. We did luck out and see one, and only one, pink lady's slipper:

 

Starting from the Blue Ridge Parkway, it ended up being a 13.37-mile hike, with over 4,000 feet of elevation gain, and took us just about 7 hours with stops. It's a pretty tough trail, with a lot of rocks and boulders that test the old joints, but it was well worth it. With the wildflowers, falls, and wide vistas, it was an amazing variety of scenery and, all in all, one of the most awesome hikes I've been on in this area.

 

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Mom has been wanting me to post this recipe for a while. It won't be peak apple season for months yet, but you can make this using Pink Lady apples that are generally always available in the grocery store. Alison Roman says in the recipe and video not to bother peeling the apples, and I didn't, but I kinda feel like the apples would be a little softer and more appealing in the final product if you peeled them first, since they don't get cooked at all before the cake goes in the oven. Either way, it's a simple and tasty cake.

 

Apple Upside-Down Cake

Adapted from Alison Roman from A Newsletter (Feb. 9, 2021, with video)

Time: 50 minutes

Roman describes this cake as a “sticky toffee pudding meets vanilla birthday cake meets apple pie meets a pancake with apples on top.” It didn’t really seem like much of any of that to me, but it is good. If you have half of a vanilla bean lying around, you can use that, as described in the original recipe, instead of the vanilla extract to add a more intense vanilla flavor to the cake.

113 grams (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
132 grams (⅔ cup) light brown sugar, divided
2 large apples such as Honeycrisp or Pink Lady, peeled if you like
180 grams (1½ cups) all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 large eggs (~57 grams each still in the shell)
180 grams (¾ cup) buttermilk (or kefir or other buttermilk substitute)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (see note)

    1. Place a rack in the center of the oven; heat to 350 degrees.
    2. Place the butter in a small, light-colored (stainless steel) skillet or saucepan. Place over medium to medium-high heat. Cook, swirling the pan and whisking frequently, until the butter has melted, then begun to foam and sizzle, and eventually turned a deep golden brown and smelling like toasted nuts, about 3 to 5 or more minutes depending on your heat setting (more safety in less heat). Watch carefully as butter burns easily. Transfer to a small heatproof bowl to cool.
    3. Spray a 9-inch cake pan with nonstick spray. Scatter half of the brown sugar (⅓ cup/66 grams) evenly across the bottom of the cake pan.
    4. Remove the top and bottom cores of the unpeeled apples with a paring knife, then cut the apples in half and remove the center cores (watch Jacques Pépin do it). Cut each half into 6 relatively thick slices, yielding 24 slices. Layer the slices onto the brown sugar in the bottom of the cake pan, as decoratively, or not, as you like.
    5. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, remaining ⅓ cup (66 grams) brown sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon.
    6. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs a bit to break them up, then whisk in the buttermilk and vanilla.
    7. Dump the dry ingredients into the large bowl. Stir until just combined. Whisk in the browned butter just until the batter is smooth and streak-free (don’t overmix).
    8. Using a silicone spatula, scrape the batter into the pan over the apples, spreading to the edges and smoothing the top. Bake until the cake is golden brown and delicious on top, pulls away from the edges of the pan, and springs back lightly when pressed in the center, about 25 to 30 minutes (at the low end for the dark-colored 9-inch cake pan I used).
    9. Wait a minute, then place a flat serving plate onto the cake pan and invert quickly, guarding your hands against the hot pan. Remove the pan carefully, then place the plate on a wire rack and cool until ready to serve. Serves 8.