Virginia - Note the yellow stick pins, which indicate places that we visited. We spent the first 5 days in Shenandoah National Park, hiking and site seeing. Then we moved on to Lexington, Charlottesville, Williamsburg, Virginia Beach, and finally, Hot Springs in the Allegheny Mountains.

Our first 2 nights were at the Piney Hill B&B in Luray. It is located a few km southwest of Luray in a beautiful pastoral setting.

 

We arrived at Piney Hill in the mid-afternoon and had time to drive into the park (about 10 km) and do our first hike up to Mary's Rock (a return trip of about 1 hour). After our descent, we had time for a few photo opportunities along Skyline Drive.

 

The next morning, we did hiked the Overall Run Trail. On this hike of about 10 km, you start at the top descend to some waterfalls and then return back up the same path.

These are the waterfalls at the bottom, not a lot of volume, but the greatest height in the park.

 

On the way back up, we met this meter long rattlesnake on the side of the trail. Even though it was small, we were told that it had enough venom to kill us, especially since we were close to 5 km from the top, where we could get help. I bothered it a bit with my hiking pole and it rattled its tail enough to give anyone a good scare.

Luray Caverns, while not quite the largest cave in the U.S., is probably the most spectacular due to its variety of colours and formations.

 

 

The next day, we drove about 20 km to the east side of the park to hike up Old Rag Mountain. The round trip loop is about 15 km long. Here I am trudging up with my hiking poles.

 

The hike up was somewhat strenuous, especially due to the heat, which was about 30C.

Contrary to popular opinion, the mountain was not named Old Rag because of how you felt after climbing it. The top of the mountain is covered with bare rock, which from a distance, makes the mountain look raggedy. We had to scramble over, under and around much of this rock on all fours, so that just getting over the last few hundred feet took close to 2 hours.

 

The next day, we did the Stoney Man Hike - a much shorter hike of only about 45 minutes.

Big Meadows is the main reception centre in the park. While driving in to the parking lot, Judy spotted a number of deer grazing beside the road.

Rose River Loop was our 2nd hike of day 4 and took a few hours, but was not a strenuous one.

 

 

Near the end of the Rose River Loop, we came to Dark Hollow Falls, which did not have the height of Overall Run, but certainly had a lot more volume.

 

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