I live in Fauquier County now but some of my fondest memories were fishing Stoney, Little Stoney and Passage Creek. We used to stay in a cabin near Basye and as kids would watch all the adult men drink whiskey, play cards and swear while my buddy and me hid in the loft sneaking cigarettes during the opening weekend of trout season. Loved deer and turkey hunting along North Mountain and camping at Wolf Gap and along the road over the mountain to WV. Damn that's going back to the mid 70's !
The place in the picture is part of Little Crease Moutain in Fort Valley. The owner who is my cousin's father-in-law had a cabin here and another further into the "fort". He has since sold both. I remember walking through the mountain some mornings and it being so cold I would do jumping jacks to keep my feet and hands from going numb. The older guys would get back to the cabin and have all sorts of fanciful tails of what they saw or what had happened years before. At the time I hung on every word they said. When we stayed overnight they would snore so loud, I would swear the cabin was going to shake apart. Wood stove, kerosene lamps, no electricity, or running water. It was quite an adventure for a kid raised in the suburbs. I do miss it.
