Hawksbill Hiking

Our luck with the weather continued to hold in early October, so the day after I flew up to NJ, Mark and I were able to get up to Shenandoah for some hiking.

We started with a quick stop at an apple orchard along the way. They always have all sorts of tasty apples, so we try to pick some up whenever we're out that way.

We were in the mood for something that ended in pretty views, so we decided to hike to the top of Hawksbill, which is the highest point in Shenandoah National Park. The first mile or so feels like it goes straight up; this picture doesn't do justice to how steep it can be!

I just used the incline as an excuse to stop and take pictures along the way. I found a chipmunk...

...and some neat looking leaves.

After a little while, we popped out at the top of the trail.

After all the crummy weather we'd had over the past few months, it was so nice to get some pretty views!

The actual summit was just a short walk away, so we followed the trail...

...to some more pretty views.

You could see Old Rag in the distance; I'm hoping to hike that again sometime soon.

We spent a few minutes at the summit, enjoying the views.

The rippled hills on the left side are some of my favorites.   :)

After enjoying the views for a bit, we started hiking back down along a couple other trails. With all the rain we'd had, there were lots of neat mushrooms on the sides of the trail.

After a while, the trail meets up with the Appalachian Trail, and we followed that back toward the car. I always like the rocky sections that open up to pretty views.

We continued along for a bit, and I stopped to take some pictures once in a while. I thought these leaves looked neat.

This was just a few minutes before we got back to the car. The white slash on the tree is a trail marker for the Appalachian Trail.

We made our way back to the car, took a few minutes to have a snack, then started heading home. We had seen some clouds starting to move in while we were hiking, so I asked Mark to stop at a couple overlooks on our way out.

That's Old Rag again in the distance; the top of the mountain was already hidden by clouds.

Looking west; you could see some showers starting to move into the valley. It had been really nice to get back outside again for a hike, and we wound up having great timing with the weather!