Secret Vistas –
By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. – It’s hot as hell could be inside the Beltway again, with a projected high on Sunday of 96 degrees and a low of only 75 tonight, a harbinger of the future for cities along the Eastern Seaboard. As I hit the button to publish this the city is awash in heat lightening, but so far, it’s not bringing any rain.

As reported recently by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce, not some pussy environmental agency like EPA, we are headed for a hotter world. And of course the current administration in Washington has no plan, and is not only doing nothing about it, it’s making matters worse seemingly on purpose.

“Much of the planet sweltered in unprecedented heat in July, as temperatures soared to new heights in the hottest month ever recorded,” is still the lede story on NOAA ‘s website, somehow escaping with language Trump’s rule to wipe all federal agency websites of information about “climate change” or “global warming.”

The record heat wave also shrank Arctic and Antarctic sea ice to historic lows, agency scientists say, which used to mean something.

Here’s a fact the alt-right will ignore. The average global surface temperature in July was 1.71 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average of 60.4 degrees, making it the hottest July in the 140-year record, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

That’s precariously close to the catastrophic number. A rise of 2 degrees will bring calamities we’ve barely even imagined yet.

Previously, the hottest month ever came in July 2016, just three years ago.

Nine of the 10 hottest months of July on record came since 2005. The past five years are the five hottest, ever.

July 2019 marked the 43rd consecutive July above the average global temperature, which has now happened for the 415th consecutive month.

Evan Alaska, thought of as a cold spot on the continent, recorded its hottest month in history in July, and suffered the wildfire scourge that is now common across California, Oregon, Washington State and Canada.

The West is on fire, and lacking for fresh water from rain and snow melt.

The South is steaming like an overheated swamp, with dogs dying from drinking the water in lakes and rivers polluted with toxic algae, clearly on the rise due to climate change from global warming because of the burning of fossil fuels for energy and dumping massive amounts of heat trapping carbon dioxide into the air for our pleasure. So much for pleasure.

Scouting the Great Climate Escape

We’ve been scouting the mountain and river campgrounds from here to New York, and we’ve reached a few conclusions. We won’t reveal all. Some must be saved for the book.

But here it is. This time of year, if you want to escape the heat, you have two main choices. Go north. Or go up.

As in elevation.

Preferably both.

Here’s the matrix.

For every 300 miles north you travel, and every 1,000 feet above sea level you climb, the average surface temperature drops about 3 degrees, both in daytime high — and the critical nighttime low.

It is my experience over the past five years of traveling through the mountains from Alabama and Georgia through Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York, that there is literally a new line emerging, not far from the original Mason-Dixon Line, that divided the North and South during the Civil War conflagration. You will recall that slavery was allowed to the south, but not the north.

You have to get north of the line and go up into the mountains to find a comfortable place to be outside in July and August. It will take more exploration west to chart the line in that direction to the Ozarks in Arkansas and points west.

Secret Vista

I hate to reveal a true sweet spot, a real Secret Vista, so please don’t share this with anyone else.

But I’ve actually, literally, found a bona fide “rain shadow” campground in Maryland, up beside this one peak in the Catoctin Mountains, not far from Catoctin Falls and the Presidential Retreat of Camp David. It’s not in the main campground area, but tucked away off of State Highway 15 in Thurmont, a sleepy little country town of farms away from the cities of Frederick to the south, and Gettysburg just north.

They love their $8.99 all you can eat buffet in Thurmont, and the girth of the people show it, many of them of German descent.

It’s less than 20 minutes from the Pennsylvania line, but only 30 minutes from the West Virginia line and 45 to Virginia.

The best part: It’s only four hours from New York, a half a days travel, on a route avoiding the traffic in Baltimore and Philadelphia taking you over the Hudson River on where you come out in the neighborhood of Washington Irving, America’s first acknowledged writer and professional pen: Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow.

Washington Irving’s Sunnyside estate by the Hudson River near Tarrytown, New York: Glynn Wilson

This should be a new national camping trail, but we’ll put it all together in the book. Working title: The Great Climate Escape: Travels with Jefferson.

Who knows what campground spirit will call him home, my loyal English Springer Spaniel, now 13-and-a-half years old, and I will have to sing him our song for the final time?

Oh Buddy, I’ll be missing you.
Oh Buddy, I’ll be missing you.
Oh Buddy, I’ll be missing you.

Your voice trails down low on the that last line. I’ll do it on Facebook live soon. So far I haven’t had the guts.

Speaking of tarrying, we are doing some of that in the city for a couple of days, for tasks I should not speak of, since once again, they involve repairs on the camper van. This time it’s the water pump for the onboard water tank to the kitchen and bathroom. I knew it was going out, and considered repairing it in Mobile, but we got the last dime’s worth of use of of this one. The new one should be in by Monday afternoon.

Then it’s back to the mountains to check out more campgrounds. I have to say I am impressed with Maryland once again, in more ways than one. It’s sort of a sleeper state, not that famous, flying below the radar. Maybe they like it that way.

The state has a well laid out and nicely run system of state parks that are very accessible in all parts of the state. I mean not far from civilization where even the hikes to water falls and lakes tend to be only about a half a mile, there and back. They have electric hookups in some sites and allow pets in some loops, and most are close enough to suburban areas for decent cell phone service and easy shopping.

Some beautiful corn in Amish country Pennsylvania: Glynn Wilson

This cannot be said so much for Pennsylvania, since their parks tend to be ever more remote in rich farm country. Amish corn fields as far as the eye can see in all directions, and much of it not grown for food. Some gets used as ethanol, or worse still, high fructose corn syrup.

This cannot be said for New York State, Connecticut or Massachusetts, where you can’t find a federal or state park with electric hookups and many don’t allow pets and even strictly enforce the no alcohol policy. I mean what’s up with that? Smart campers know how to sip moderately from a cup.

A sunset view from Croton Point Park on the Hudson in New York: Glynn Wilson

The best campground in New York, Croton Point Park on the Hudson, is a county campground. In these states you would need to rely on more expensive RV parking lot campgrounds, like the KOA chain.

So for my $32 a night, it’s the Manner Area of Cunningham Falls that suits me as a base and a starting point. You can knock a few degrees off the temp by getting away from the city and into the hills in the woods in the shade.

If you are lucky, you can experience the rain shadow effect, when a thunderstorm passes to the north or the south of your campsite by the mountain peak, bringing the clouds to hide the sun — and the cool breeze from the storm, yet no rain.

Now take a toke, sip an IPA, and join me in escaping climate change, sitting in a comfortable camp chair as the world hurtles to its fiery end.

The people won’t rise up to do their part.

I’ve been doing mine for nigh on 40 years.

Let me know when you get the courage up, and I’ll be there to cover it.

I’ll be out there somewhere in the hills and the woods, only an hour from DC and four from New York.

Got laptop and camera, and media van, will travel.

For work.

Or not.

– GW