Leafers and Hiking

Fall is in full swing here in Virginia and the leaves are beautiful. I love fall and the colors the leaves make and I want to hike as much as possible - plus I love hiking and it does seem like we've had a lot of rain. Aaron has a sleeping-in problem when there is no desperarate need to get up so sometimes we do not plan ahead- that and we are trying to hike all the trails in Shenandoah and we are running out of ones in our favorite length range - 5-9 miles. There are lots more for us that are shorter and lots more that are longer and WAY longer. I guess we could do some of them as out and backs, but we prefer loops.

Last weekend we actually got an early start despite spending twenty minutes at home with the books and maps trying to pick a hike, and stopping to take some green sign photos. The entrance to Shenandoah was packed with cars, but we got waved to the shortest line and then breezed through with our National Parks pass. Turns out our hike left from an extremely popular overlook. Bad because it was jammed with cars, but really not that bad because mostly these were 'Muricans who wanted to stop, take a photo, and then get back in their cars and leave. After finally getting a parking spot, we grabbed our bags, and headed for the trail. From a hundred people to none. Solitude, sunlight, and colorful leaves. :)

in a canopy of yellow

I can't even tell you the name of it - I'll have to ask Aaron. It was a pretty hike and more interesting because of the leaf change. We only passed four people maybe. We met up with an older lady who it turns out had taken a wrong turn (which is surprisingly easy to do at the post where she made her mistake) so she ended up joining us because she had to backtrack.

My Trail Grandmother in Action

She is an expert stream crosser and I am not. She coached me over a difficult stream crossing and was in general a nice lady to talk to. Plus I hope when I am her age that I am still hitting the trails and able to keep up with someone who hikes like I do now. We only lost her on the uphills, but that's typical. Aaron and I hike the same speed up and downhill - we just have a steady pace. And we don't stop much so most of the time if we are hiking a popular trail, people pass us going down and we pass them going up and then usually stay ahead of them because we just don't stop that often.

Please excuse how awful I look and enjoy the view - it's not always this clear.

We're supposed to hike today - something short because we both have a lot of school work to do - so I guess I should go get Aaron up and start looking at the map. Happy Autumn :)