Tag: hiking

Autumn Days

Yesterday was almost springlike in temperature, though windy which chilled the day some. By Sunday night and into Monday morning, it is going to feel like January with forcast snow showers possible, not accumulation.

Most of the leaves have fallen except for a few vivid reds and yellows. And the stubborn brown leaves of the oaks.

Yesterday’s walk took us to a nearby town to walk along a creek bed then along the river it feeds for a couple of miles. The path is paved and smooth with a couple of steep long rises that take it from the path on the park side up to a tunnel that passes under the four lane main street of the town and down to the continued path along the river bank. The park walk is about two miles round trip, the one along the river is about 2.5 miles one way from one end of the trail to the other. We alternate the park way with the river bank walk when we go over and don’t walk the full 5 mile up and back of the river bank one.

The park is more rustic and a pleasure to walk.

Most days, we stay closer to home walking sections of a rails to trails paved path. The original terminus begins at the town library and traverses about 2 1/2 miles to where it connects up on the other side of the main highway to continue in two directions for several miles each. If you choose to go right, it eventually ends up at Brown’s Farm, several miles away,now a park for the county. If you choose to go left, it continues for another 5 miles to the recreation center of the next town. We often park along that section near the old Coal Miner’s Park, but that section is currently closed until March for repair of 3 bridges.

Our daily walk is generally 2 1/2 to 3 miles, though hubby will sometimes do 4 when I go to my spinning group once a week. We are striving to keep mobile and flexible as we are both advanced senior citizens.

November 6, 2025
Memories

Today’s news had throwback photos of October 10, 1979.

On that day, a surpise early snowstorm dumped up to 10 inches of snow on parts of the Shenandoah Valley. When I saw the article, I asked my hubby if it had any significance to him but he said it didn’t until I reminded him of where we were and what we were doing.

We had taken a weekend backpacking trip along the Skyline Drive. On Friday night, we tent camped at the Big Meadows Campground rather than walking in a trail we were unfamiliar with in the dark. I was an avid backpacker at that time, trail Supervisor for the Appalachian Trail Club in Tidewater area of Virginia. They came out monthly to clear a section of the AT from Maupin’s Field to Three Ridges, but this weekend it was just the two of us. Being Autumn, we figured it would be a nice, mild weekend to go see the fall leaf colors, so we borrowed a fairly thin sleeping bag for hubby. That Friday night ended up being very cold and I exchanged sleeping bags with him so he could have the down bag as I had a down jacket I could wear in the thinner bag. Saturday was gorgeous. It probably got up in the mid 70’s and we had a great hike down the trail and a signifant elevation loss to a hollow where we planned to spend the night. Camp was set up, dinner prepared and enjoyed, and a lovely evening as it got dark, looking at the stars. The night stayed relatively warm, a surpise after the prior night.

On Sunday we woke and were about to prepare breakfast when I looked in the distance to see a very ominous black cloud. The decision was made to pack up, grab something we could eat on the move and start the hike back up the hill to where our car was parked. We hadn’t even begun to walk out until it started to rain, then hail. The temperature began to plummet and the hail turned to sleet, then snow. By this point, we were hustling to get up the slope and back to the car, a few miles away. Packs tossed in the hatchback and we set out to get off the Skyline Drive when we saw a young man, improperly clad, hiking up the road. We stopped and asked his if he needed help and he asked if we could drop him off at the site where his group would be or would gather. We did, and slowly through accumulating ice and snow made our way to Afton Pass where we got off the Drive and stopped to finally get food at Howard Johnsons. While we ate, we heard a report that the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway were being shut down. We hoped the young man found his group and a safe place to stay. The Drive and Parkway were shut down for 3 days due to the storm.

That was a trip we remember in detail 46 years later. I don’t remember ever seeing snow in Virginia in October, prior to or since.

October 11, 2025
Whew, I’m back then gone again-8/26/2019
These few weeks are on the road. Away last Thursday to help out family with packing and as transportation as they prepare to move. Time was spent enjoying their company and some time alone at their house with empty boxes to fill with books, music, and linens. Thursday was hot when I arrived and after picking up grandson, we waded in the cool creek before preparing dinner.

The tiny fish darting around our feet and a few crawdads skittering away if you disturbed their rock.

Friday was rainy but much cooler and the time that everyone was away from the house was used to pack boxes, clean up the garbage that the bear got into and taking photos of the jewelweed with rain drops on the leaves.

Saturday after grandson’s volunteer time at the library, he and I drove to a local State park and walked a trail that his Mom’s Master Naturalist group had done and looked at some of her art used on the signage. It was a beautiful mild day for a nice gentle walk in the woods.

Sunday after a late breakfast out with everyone, he and I used my Lifetime Senior Pass for the National Park system to drive up on the Skyline Drive and hike a couple miles up a mountain trail, mountain goat on a couple of the rock piles, and back down the trail. I guess there were too many people out to see any wildlife other than a few butterflies.
On the way back off the Parkway, we ended up behind this lanky young man skate boarding down the Skyline Drive wearing earbuds, so he probably couldn’t hear the traffic behind him. Eventually the car in front of us, us, and the line behind us were able to go around him. It was a very long down slope, quite steep at some points causing him to do tight S turns to slow himself. I hope he made it safely without causing anyone else injury because of his stunt.

Other down time was spent spinning on one little Turk and plying on the other slightly larger Turk and knitting on a small shawl. I was so enamored with the last issue of Ply magazine that I read it through cover to cover and took it with me to reread. I had two books with me and finished one, but found the second one of zero interest to me.

I’m home for a few days to get laundry done, the house vacuumed of dog hair, the chicken coop cleaned out, then off again later in the week for a long weekend with friends as a vendor and participant at a fiber retreat. When I return from that, again a few days at home to clean up and unpack to repack and return to help the moving family out for a few more days.

The garden has given up on tomatoes and cucumbers. The sunflowers are drooping and need the heads cut. The tomatillos are not really producing anymore, but I am hopeful that there may be a few more to harvest. The peppers are heavy with fruit and there are a few pumpkins, but the chickens got in my garden every day I was gone and destroyed the fall plantings and the cover crop beds. I guess those beds will just be covered with hay for the winter instead.
August 26, 2019
Sunday Thankfulness and Fun

After two days of hard work with eldest son, as a family we decided that today was going to be a fun day before they caught a 3 p.m. bus back to Vienna, VA, leaving their son, our eldest grandson, now 9 years old to spend most of the summer with us. Summer care for him was both expensive and hard to come by but also difficult to fit with their schedule as our daughter in law leaves for her Art Camp teaching gig at 6:50 a.m. and returns to the house at about 5 p.m., our son leaves on his bicycle to ride to campus at 7 a.m. so that he can make the 45 minute bike commute and get a shower at the Aquatic Center to be at his desk by 8:30 and he doesn’t get off until 5 p.m. and has to make the 45 minute bike commute home. We adore having grand-kids with us and love that we are trusted to keep him until mid August when the Art Camps are over and he and his mom will travel to Virginia Beach to spend a week or so with the other grandparents prior to school resuming for everyone.

For our fun day, we decided to hike to the Cascade Falls, a 2 mile uphill hike to a beautiful view followed by the return 2 mile hike back down to the car. The hike included a swim in the icy water by son and grandson and an extensive trash pick up by all of us that we carried back down in my bag. There were about 45 incoming freshmen from a local university that had hiked up and they seemed to be mostly responsibly for the trash. I gently confronted the group about what we had collected and was met with denial that it wasn’t them, but when they got up and left, they failed to pick up several GatorAde bottles, a gallon water bottle and 25 zip lock bags along with granola bar wrappers, candy wrappers and other debris. We collected all of that also and hauled it back down the trail to the trash cans at the parking lot, collecting additional wrappers on the way down. It baffles me that they could be so inconsiderate and wonder where they thought their plastic, cellophane, and mylar was going to go.

Rhododendron season, these are traditional pink, but most of the ones we saw today were white.

The pile of debris we hauled down from that beautiful falls and stream.

While hiking down, I got a call from our neighbor asking if we saw his big brown dog, the chicken killer down here again. Fortunately, I was a bad chicken keeper today and had left them cooped up when we left for our hike. He apparently walked down looking for the dog and couldn’t find him. Later he texted that the dog was in the house and we let the chickens out.

This afternoon, we put our son and his wife on a bus home and we brought our grandson home with us. He helped me extend the 4 foot fence up to 6 feet by putting a lighter weight garden fence secured with fiberglass poles to the top. This will prevent the youngs from flying out and hopefully will discourage Brown Dog from getting in.

July 6, 2014