Virginia Warming

This weekend in VA is gorgeous. I feel blessed to be enjoying such a beautiful, blustery early spring. I've been itching to get out so I decided to hike Old Rag again. A big BIG BIG thank you to Theresa for being my hiking buddy. She got a migraine on the second mile but we made it to the top of the mountain.
On the trail, I was a little disturbed to notice how many dead and dying trees there were. When I told Aaron about it, he told me it was winter, but I can tell the difference between a tree that's lost it's leaves and a dead tree, thank you very much. There were huge groves where every tree was dead. Their trunks were shattered, their bark scabbed off and all their limbs rotted to gnarled stumps. Mounds of broken wood littered the forest floor. What's really disturbing is I didn't notice any such problem when I was hiking in the same spot just a few months ago. It looked like a lot of the trees were being eaten by something. My guess is the drought left them vulnerable and something has gotten to them. If that's the case, I'm sad to think that this will become more and more common as global warming continues.
PS - I plan to do as much hiking as I can as the weather gets better. I'll be in need of a buddy since hiking alone isn't safe. If you're even remotely interested, let me know!