Whole Bunch of Hiking

Now that Mark and I have the same days off, we've been trying to make time to go hiking more often!

A few weeks ago we hiked to the summit of Hawksbill Mountain. At 4050', it's the highest point in Shenandoah National Park. It was pretty cloudy, but I was hoping that we'd be able to get above all the fog as we got closer to the top.

It didn't quite work out that way. Oops. :)

You could just make out one of the smaller hills through the fog as it blew past.

Even the rocky part that opens out toward the valley was socked in.

The highlight of the hike turned out to be a few small birds that were eating bugs on the side of the trail. The drive back down Skyline Drive was nuts...visibility was so bad in several parts that you could barely see 50 feet ahead of the car!

We had a free afternoon again the following week, so we decided to go for another hike. This time we headed to the Rose River Loop. It's about 4 miles long, drops down to a waterfall, then follows the stream back up to a fire road.

The weather was much better this time! Mark wanted to climb on that log draped across the waterfall, but I convinced him not to.

Visibility was so good that you could see EVERYTHING. That's Old Rag in the distance...I'm looking forward to hiking it again soon!