Stiles Falls

I am on a mission to find hikes within a 30ish minute drive of Christiansburg, VA.  I have found that I really enjoy bringing animal shelter dogs on my hiking endeavors, but unfortunately the animal shelter hours necessitate that I find some shorter, closer-to-home hikes.  This time, Stiles Falls came to the rescue!  I cannot believe that I had never heard of this hike until now.  Apparently, I was one of the only ones because this hike was quite well traveled.  The hike leads to a pretty waterfall via a ~4 mile round trip moderate (edging on easy) hike.

Because I had the pup with me, I was a bit distracted with my photos and you'll notice that most are of her rather than the scenery, but hopefully you can look past the pup and get an idea about the hike!  The waterfall is at a pretty rocky area without a ton of room to spread out, and since it was a busy day and Azilia doesn't love other dogs, we didn't spend too much time at the waterfall itself.

In case you're looking for a hiking buddy, check out Miss Azilia.

Azilia was a rockstar on the hike. She was pretty determined to climb out of the hatchback area into my lap on the drive over, but once we got to hiking, she was a superstar. She loved the creek and even took herself for a dive at one point. Over obstacles, she took a "balls to the wall" approach and almost took us for a nosedive a time or two, but otherwise, she was a pleasure on leash.


She passed by numerous hikers happily and was even a joy to walk past the other dogs that we passed (we gave all a wide berth, but she was beautifully non-reactive and redirected her attention well for treats). She just exudes happy energy!

I don't think we fully tired her out, but she did nap most of the way home, so we'll call it a win.