Tibbet Knob

We tried to go to West Virginia and ended up at Tibbet Knob.  I suppose you could say that we did end up in West Virginia (just barely!), although perhaps not the New River Gorge as we were originally intending.  To backtrack for a moment, Casey and I are big on "experience" gifts. As a result, for Christmas he gave me a trip to the New River Gorge with an overnight in Staunton, VA on the way back home.  This was a great surprise and would have been an amazing plan except for the fact that the New River Gorge is over 5 hours away from home and Casey's family was hosting a giant family gathering the night before.  In order to get to the gorge and do a reasonably short hike before dark, we projected that we would need to leave in the early hours of the morning.  On a normal off-work day, this might be workable, but with the family around, we wanted to enjoy the night without worrying about a lack of beauty rest.  And so, we ended up keeping our trip closer to home and did this little hike on the way home from our overnight instead.

Tibbet knob is a neat hike with a great effort:reward ratio.  Steep at parts, it had me out of breath a time or two, but overall the 1.6 miles up the mountain weren't too strenuous.  Hiking Upward classifies the difficulty as a "2" (only second to the easiest hikes on the list), but I probably would have called it a "3" on the difficulty scale because Hiking Upward also calls Difficult Run up by DC a "2" and that hike is more of a walk in the woods with very few elevation changes.  This hike also had two areas that were similar to the Billy Goat Trail near DC with some small scrambles to get to the top.  To get to it, park at the Wolf Run Recreation Area and walk across the main street that the recreation area is off of (675).  The trail is right there (yellow blazed) and easy to follow the whole way up.

We were the only ones on the trail which was quite nice.

Wooded area on trail

Sun through the trees on a ridge

View from the ridge

Me at the ridge

At the summit

Me and Casey at summit

Campground at the summit

Tibbet Knob summit again

Sky Meadows Farms

This was a nice little hike that wasn't too far from home.  Casey and I had been to Sky Meadows before, but not to this area.  This time, we headed over to the farm area of Sky Meadows and hiked along the horse trails.  No horses were out on Friday, but we did see some very pretty views!  The hike is a meadow hike (so no mountain overlooks), but is quite gorgeous nonetheless.  There are a variety of trails to take and you can pick up a map when you park.  Our loop was probably just under 5 miles.

Creek crossing!

Views from the trail

Some views from the trail

Cow pasture beside the trail

Big Schloss Hike

This was such a cool hike near Woodstock,VA.  The hike itself wasn't too difficult, but the views were pretty exceptional!  The first part of the hike had me out of breath, but before too long, you end up on a ridge line and the hike turns into more of a very scenic stroll.  We saw several other groups while we were there, so it certainly wasn't an isolated feeling hike, but there weren't even close to the crowds that you would see at a hike like Old Rag.  We used these directions.  Basically, from the coordinates (38.92404, -78.68949), take the orange blazed trail from right near campsite #9.

Wilma poses at the ridge

Casey and Wilma at the ridgeline

A really neat bridge right near the biggest overlook

View from the final overlook

Casey and Wilma at Big Schloss (the final overlook)

Me sitting on a rock outcropping near the top