SKUNKS & SPIES (Vienna, VA)
Details
(7-mile, largely flat hike for adults at a MODERATE -- NOT SLOW -- PACE, including a sliver of it in yucky, mucky mud.)
Skulking around Vienna, VA in January of 2001, you might just bump into Russian spies trading cash for secrets from an FBI agent turned traitor, a CIA building hidden in plain sight, and one of the oddest plants on the planet: skunk cabbage. Even ensconced in snow, this red, yellow, and green native wildflower, which creates its own heat, starts blooming in January.
The spies are gone -- or are they? -- but the skunk cabbage remains -- near the former CIA building.
We'll explore both nature & spies on this roughly 7-mile suburban hike. The skunk cabbage foray will be brief near the start of the hike. It will involve a tiny bit of schlepping through some mucky mud. If it's blooming -- all blooms depend on the weather -- we might get close enough to see (or smell) how it got its "skunk" name.
After the skunk cabbage, the rest of the hike will be on sidewalks, asphalt trails, and dirt trails. First we'll hike past the former CIA building. In 2007 it became the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center. It drew some unwanted attention from neighbors in 2012 when there was "a constant, high-pitched buzzing sound coming" from the unmarked office building, the Washington Post reported.
Then we'll trek along tree-lined Foxstone Trail to Foxstone Park, the drop site where FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen was arrested for espionage on Feb. 18, 2001 for trading American secrets to Russia and the former Soviet Union for cold, hard cash. The FBI still calls him the most damaging spy in its history. Then we'll walk past Hanssen's former home (one of two places he lived in Vienna), which is a couple of blocks off the W&OD Trail. Hanssen's wife moved out years ago. And Robert Hanssen, aka Prisoner #48551-083, won't ever return to Vienna. He's serving life without parole at ADX Florence, a supermax prison in Colorado, which reportedly forces prisoners like Hanssen, the Boston Marathon bomber, and drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to live in solitary confinement 23 hours a day.
After Hanssen's house, we'll follow the W&OD Trail back to our start at the Vienna Community Center.
MEET: 10 a.m. outside the front of the Vienna Community Center, 120 Cherry St., SE, Vienna, VA. https://www.viennava.gov/index.aspx?nid=77
Copy these GPS coordinates into Google maps: 38.900863, -77.260244
CARPOOLS/METRO: Please message each other to arrange carpools. The Vienna Metro station is about two miles away. https://www.wmata.com/rider-guide/stations/vienna.cfm
WEATHER: Bad weather cancels. We'll hike in light rain. This space will be updated the day before the hike.
REGISTER ON MEETUP: https://www.meetup.com/sierrapotomac/events/267417808/
MISC: adults only, no pets
SIGN-IN SHEET: All participants of Sierra Club outings need to sign their full names to a liability waiver before starting the hike/event. If you use a different Meetup name, please also write that screen name by your full name on the waiver. Here is the new "Sierra Club Participation Agreement" so you can read it in advance: https://bit.ly/2Q8sAiZ
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
**Robert Hanssen:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/25/us/robert-hanssen-fast-facts/
https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/robert-hanssen
**Foxstone Trail:
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/resource-management/foxstone-trail-history.htm
**W&OD Trail:
https://www.novaparks.com/parks/washington-and-old-dominion-railroad-regional-park
**Skunk Cabbage:
http://inhs-uiuc.blogspot.com/2013/03/skunk-cabbage-symplocarpus-foetidus_21.html
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