Maryland Heights and C&O Canal

Casey and I have been meaning to go backpacking for quite some time now, but schedules and weather keep getting in our way.  So, when we found a unplanned stretch of time from Thursday to Friday (with both of us off on Friday), I insisted that we try to make something happen.  Unfortunately, with the two of us now almost real adults, we realized that we wouldn't be able to depart until after work.  This might have been fine, except that after an extensive google search, I reached the conclusion that there is no good backpacking any closer than a 1.5 hour drive from College Park.

This would mean that in the best case scenario, we would have been able to arrive at the trailhead in the late afternoon to early evening.  For as much hiking as I have done, I have done very little true backpacking and was concerned about beginning a hike so close to dusk when we were both so new to securing food from bears, using our (new and improved and hopefully less prone to spontaneously burst into flames) camp stove, and just generally doing the overnight thing.  As such, we began to think about alternative options and wound up with the idea of taking ourselves on a bike camping trip along the C&O canal with a day hike to Maryland Heights the following day.  It turned out to be a perfect idea.

I had recently secured a free bike trailer off of Craigslist with the hope of being able to cart around my aging dog when she can no longer walk around Burke lake on her own four paws, but the trailer seemed like the perfect way to get our tent and supplies from point A to point B via bike.  It worked out just wonderfully.

bikes at the campground

We arrived to our starting point, the Antietam campground, around 7:00 p.m., ready to bike just about seven miles to the Huckleberry Hill campground.  The C&O canal is essentially flat and is well groomed so it was smooth and quick sailing.  There are campgrounds at frequent intervals along the trail, which makes this a perfect trail to do a long-distance bike ride along (I want to go back for a longer trip now!).  We arrived with nearly an hour of daylight to spare and met our friendly neighbors.  All of the others at the campground were on the trail for the long-haul - we were the only overnighters - and they were good company.

What a view to wake up to

 The next day we had been thinking about taking the bikes to the Maryland Heights trail head, but we were concerned about theft, so we opted to bike back to the car and then drive into the town of Harpers Ferry to start our hike there.  I don't have too much to report from the hike - it's a pretty steady uphill for most of the way with a roughly .5 mile downhill section right before the overlook.  The overlook is well worth the little hike.  You are able to see the confluence of the rivers, the town below, and know that you may be sitting in Maryland, but you are overlooking Virginia and West Virginia.  Such a neat place!

Casey at the overlook

Me at the overlook

One more of the beautiful view

Billy Goat Trail Section A (Great Falls, MD)

pond along the trail

 It's about time that I'm getting around to adding the Billy Goat Trail!  I've done this trail a good four or five times and in my opinion it is the best hike inside of the Beltway.  It's popular, no doubt, but if you can put aside the crowds and just look at the scenery, you'll be wondering how it is that you are only a quick drive from DC.  Yesterday I went with Casey, Stephanie, and Josh after Casey and I had a bike camping trip stormed out on Friday afternoon.  It was busy as expected and we saw quite a few kayakers on the river and in the canal along with swarms of hikers.  It is understandable that this hike is popular, I suppose, because along with the great views and rock scrambling, it is short.  The hike itself totals only 1.7 miles (keeping in mind that it's a U-shaped hike, so you must either retrace your steps or follow the canal path back to the beginning of the hike).  Even still, at about 3.7 miles total if you take the trail to the canal path as a loop, it's a moderate hike at most.  But boy is it beautiful.

Stephanie and Josh

There's rocks like this for most of the way

Casey by the water

A neat little bridge over a rushing creek

Casey and Stephanie aren't thrilled at the photo opportunity

Whiteoak Canyon - Upper Falls

I also don't have much time to write about this one, but it was an enjoyable hike to finish my spring break, even if the weather wasn't the greatest!  The hike is mostly downhill to the falls.  We went to the upper falls (2.3 miles one way from the Skyline Drive parking lot) and then wandered a ways past it before turning around.  As the reviews for this hike will tell you, the hike is fairly easy from the parking lot to the upper falls.  After that, the trail descends more steeply and you should keep in mind that you'll have to hike back up however far you hike down.

An overlook on Skyline Drive

Skyline Drive Overlook in Color

Creek alongside the trail

Upper Falls View Point

Casey at the falls overlook in the haze

Hay Rocks/Carvin Cove

I don't have time to write much about this one, but it was a nice hike right near Roanoke.  The views were great along the way.  The views at Hay Rock were actually less impressive than the other overlooks along the ridge, but a good chunk of the hike was right along the ridge!  This was a great way to start spring break.

View from one of the overlooks

The ridge trail

Me trying (and failing) to get to the top of Hay Rock.  It's more of a scramble than it looks!

Stony Man Trail

 Four years later and Casey is still my favorite hiking buddy and best friend.  He surprised me with a trip to Middleburg and a detour to this gorgeous Shenandoah hike to celebrate four years together a few weeks ago.  It was a stunning day, and a gorgeous drive, weaving in and out of the fog.  On our hike, the fog wafted around and through the mountains and made for some stunning scenery.  Since I've been posting all of my recent updates today, I'm a bit tired of typing, so I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Foggy Road

Feeling on top of the world

Casey and I at one of the overlooks

Crazy ice man

Cross County Trail

Here's another one that I'm significantly behind on updating.  To add to it, this one has been 2.5 years in coming.  I started the Cross County Trail with Casey and his little brother in the summer of 2013.  The trail winds from Lorton, VA all the way to Great Falls Park via a conglomeration of different trails, paths, and sidewalks.  It's about 40 miles in length and we decided to do it in a day.  This might have been a feasible plan, had the trail system been easy to follow, had we all been in good biking shape, and had I not known that two days later, I would be in Arizona attempting to hike into and back out of the Grand Canyon.  As it was, we finished about 30 miles of the trail before I pooped out and decided to call it quits.

Finishing the trail proved to be a challenge.  This was in part due to the trail itself, but even more because it wound up being just short of impossible to find a sunny day when Maxwell's high school schedule, Casey's customer service, "work a good chunk of the weekends" schedule, and my "oh my god, grad school  is consuming my life" schedule aligned.  By happenstance, it took a full year and a half until we managed to get ourselves back to Raccoon Ridge Court, where we had originally called it quits.  We had made the last three criteria align, but alas, a sunny day was too much to ask for, so we set out in the sleet.  Unfortunately, a year and a half was enough time for all three of us to forget which direction we had come from and which direction we needed to go.  And so, for three solid hours, we biked back and forth and back and forth until we had biked what felt like ten miles and gone nowhere, with no more of a clue.  This was our own stupidity, I can promise you that, but even still, after three hours of biking nowhere, we were cold, grumpy, and soaked to the skin.  We told ourselves we'd try for a different day.

That day came a few weeks ago.  It was still a bit brisk and quite muddy, but for the winter the weather was mild and most importantly, our schedules aligned.  One year was not enough time to make us forget the disaster of the last attempt, and so we did our research and determined our trajectory before embarking on the third attempt.  We returned to Raccoon Ridge Court (I don't think I'll ever forget the name of that street) and headed in the direction that we now knew to be correct.  Two hours and ten miles later (albeit with a few turn arounds), we arrived to our car in Great Falls, muddy, but so glad to finally cross this one off the list.

 If you decide to bike this trail, it would pay to bring the map that you can find here, but also to download a better map to a cell phone or GPS.  The map that I linked is primarily what we used, but it is not detailed enough to give good directions when you reach an intersection with no trail marker (a common occurrence).  In parts, this trail is extremely well marked, if not a bit overmarked.  At other parts, the markers are scarce and not present at all trail junctions.

Old Rag

I am almost a month behind on posting this one, but for the purposes of catch up, here I go.  Just photos for today.