Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Crabtree Falls, VA

Crabtree Falls is a beautiful set of waterfalls in Virginia. Billed as the tallest waterfalls east of the Mississippi, Crabtree Falls is a must see for anyone who lives in the mid-Atlantic region.

The falls are believed to be named after William Crabtree, who settled in the area in 1777. The Tye River, at the bottom of the falls, is named for Allen Tye, who did extensive exploration in the local Blue Ridge Mountains.

This was our afternoon hike after climbing up Humpback Rocks in the morning. The results were just as spectacular. The trail was extremely well taken care of, except for two areas were trees had fallen over the trail, one that you had to duck under, the other that you had to crawl over. Every 1/10th of a mile was a mile post so you always knew where you were in relation to the top, which was 1.3 mile from the parking lot. The trail has wooden gaurdrails at critical points and railed overlooks at most scenic overlooks. Steeper areas have steps either notched out, built up, or laid out in stone. There's a $3. entrance fee, so please do the honorable thing and pay - we all benefit from this.

I learned my lesson from this morning's hike. This time we took a bottle of water and a pocket full of almonds.

After this second hike of the day we stopped by a small shop and had our official [late afternoon] lunch at 3:30 pm.

For more detailed information see: Crabtree Falls

Monday, September 20, 2010

Humpback Rocks, VA

Yesterday we hiked Backbone Mtn, MD. Today Humpback Rock, VA which is about 3 mile south of the northern border of the Blue Ridge Parkway near Waynesboro, VA.



It was an absolutely beautiful and clear day. Thinking it was going to be easy I decided to leave the water bottles in the car. That was a mistake.

The hike to the top took an hour, and after 15 minutes of hanging out on top and enjoying the view, another hour to come down. Time: 2 hour 15 minutes, Elevation change: 800 feet. We made a good choice by following the blue blaze trail and not taking the "short cut". Near the summit there was a sign that pointed south to the picnic area and a man made sign that said "Rocks" with an arrow pointing north. All in all it was a nice hike with beautiful scenery of the "BLUE" Ridge Mountains.

We should have brought some hiking poles.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Backbone Mountain, Maryland

Darlene and I decided to take a different type of vacation this time. We decided to hike the highest point in Maryland, which is Backbone Mountain, also known as Hoye-Crest. We've frequently been to Harpers Ferry, South Mtn., and all points along the MD section of the Appalachian Trail, but those typically range about 1600 feet. Backbone Mtn. is twice that at 3,360 feet.

We climbed Backbone Mountain on Thursday, September 16, 2010. In spite of the rain, we had a great time
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Getting to Backbone Mountain was not all that difficult. It's about 10 miles south of Oakland, Md on US 219 and about 1/2 mile from the smallest church in the continental USA (seats 12 total). When we arrived the door had an "open" sign on it so we took the opportunity and went in. There were a total of 6 pews, each pew was two seats wide.


Maryland's highpeak is actually owned by a private company but access is allowed from the West Virginia side. There's a small area to park along side the road and the trailhead begins as a fire road. The hike begins at about 2760 feet and it's about a one mile hike to the top and took us about 30 minutes one way, although my pace was faster than Darlene would have preferred.

1/2 way up, Darlene's heart was pounding at 140 bpm; I was at 150 bpm. Our bpm's would have been higher had it not been for the cool steady rain. We passed another hiker, who was coming down from the summit. He said it was a good hike but visibility at the top was limited because of the weather.

We were directed by a trail marker to turn left. All in all it was a gentle hike along a well marked trail. Once at the summit we were able to register our ascent on the high peaker's list inside of the mailbox. It turned out that the hiker we just met 20 minutes earlier registered as being from Fairbanks, Alaska !

We took a couple of images to record our hike. This was the first of many highpeaks we plan on identifying and hiking in the near future.