[GaliWalker]

Southwestern Virginia (Oct 10-13, 2018) Mist, heavy rain and gale force winds courtesy of Hurricane Michael, and finally some sun...I experienced all of these on an action packed hiking trip to southwestern Virginia. Day I: McAfee Knob and Crabtree Falls McAfee Knob McAfee Knob, lying just to the southwest of Shenandoah National Park, in Jefferson National Forest, is reputed to host the most photographed view on the Appalachian Trail, so obviously I picked it as one of my destinations. It's also supposed to be super popular, so I wanted to hit it on a weekday. Out of the three such days available to me, Day-II was forecast to be wall-wall rain – Hurricane Michael was supposed to do a flyby – and I had another destination in mind for Day-III, so I decided to schedule McAfee Knob as my first destination. I left Pittsburgh at 2:00am, and was at the McAfee Knob parking lot a little under 6hrs later. A light rain was falling and mist hung amongst the mountains, so I dialed down my expectation of getting any views. I headed up the easily graded, but steadily uphill Appalachian Trail for 4.4mi. It was a lonely hike up in the light rain. I was happy to find the rocky viewpoint of McAfee Knob empty. Unfortunately, there was nothing but white nothingness to see, due to all the mist, which was quite disappointing. Forced to look closer in, I was struck by the cool patterns and potholes that had been sculpted into my rocky perch, presumably by the very weather that I was experiencing. I tried to capture these in my photographs, which was quite tough because of the rain. I used an umbrella to keep most of it off and was even able to take a few selfies by deploying the tripod under the umbrella.

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I was just about done when the first other hikers began to appear. Thereafter they came in waves, so I was glad that at least my timing there was perfect. Stats: 8.8mi, 1750ft elevation gain, 4hrs Crabtree Falls I had originally planned to climb up nearby Dragon's Tooth, but with the heavy rain that was falling by the time I returned to my car, I decided to head for a stream/waterfall hike instead. Crabtree Falls, located a couple of hours' drive northwards in George Washington National Forest, fit the bill. There are tall claims made about Crabtree Falls being the tallest waterfall in the northeast, but that is untrue, since the 'waterfall' is more of a series of waterfalls. The Lower Falls was comprised of 3-4 drops, while the Middle and Upper Falls were both double drops. A steep trail led up beside the waterfalls. There were numerous signs warning people not to venture off-trail (onto the waterfall slabs) and that 30 people had lost their lives doing so. The waterfalls were spectacular, although the steady rain that was falling, sometimes sideways, really limited my photography.

4- Lower Falls: Bottom tier

5- Lower Falls: Upper tier

6- Lower Falls: Looking down the upper tier

7- Middle Falls

8- Upper Falls

Stats: 4mi, 1530ft elevation gain, 2.75hrs Day II: Little Stony Creek I had a late start from Charlottesville, where I'd been hosted by my daughter, who's studying at the University of Virginia. This was the day that we would get hit by the western edge of Hurricane Michael. With predictions of heavy rain and flooding I almost called off my intended hiking plans, but then decided to continue with them. Battling atrocious driving conditions in said rain, I headed through the worst of the quickly moving storm, south to the Little Stony Creek area, in Jefferson National Forest. For a while I thought I'd lucked out with the weather, because by the time I reached the parking area (2:40pm) the rain had tapered off to a drizzle. My destination was Little Stony Creek Falls, and its "cascades". Two trails lead to it: an Upper Trail and a more scenic Lower Trail. A sign at the parking area said that the Lower Trail had been washed out at some spot, but the "cascades" were still accessible via the Upper Trail. As I made my way up that, beside Little Stony Creek, I was quite impressed by how not-little the creek was. The water thundered its way down, with the creek fed to capacity, and then some, by the copious rain that had just fallen.

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1.7mi in, a sign for "cascades" pointed me down towards the Lower Trail and the creek. As I reached the creek and turned upstream, towards the cascades, I was dismayed to find that the trail now lay beneath two feet of swiftly flowing water. I made a couple of ever more determined attempts to head up the trail, but was repulsed each time. Most of all I was afraid that the water would rise even higher and that I would get stranded. What to do? I decided to check out at least some parts of the Lower Trail, and was rewarded for my effort by a pretty side waterfall, and then by an impressive chute down which Little Stony Creek fell.

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I retraced my steps back to the Upper Trail. I was not totally ready to give up. I thought that I would continue up the Upper Trail and see if I could find a way to make it back down to the creek further uphill. Imagine my surprise, when 0.3mi later I came upon a sign for "Falls", just like the one for "Cascades" earlier and an equally well established trail down to the creek! I did have to splash my way through a somewhat dangerous side stream that was running swiftly, about 1-1.5ft deep, but right after that I was at the stupendous 69ft tall Falls of Little Stony Creek. The waterfall looked nothing like the one or two pictures I'd seen of it. For a medium sized waterfall, this one was a monster. Spray rolled off it in clouds and its splash pool was a raging maelstrom of frothing water. Obviously, I realized that it was all to do with the conditions, but this was easily one of the most impressive waterfalls I'd ever seen.

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Due to the spray and drizzle, I only took a few actual photos, although I did take plenty of mental ones, before reluctantly making my way back to the car. Stats: 5mi, 1200ft elevation gain, 3.3hrs Day III: The Priest and Shenandoah National Park The Priest After the previous two days of hiking in the rain, I was looking forward to the forecasted day of sunshine. Unfortunately, while I got my sunshine I also got blasted by 30-40mph winds, a goodbye kiss from Hurricane Michael. Whenever a sunny day is on the menu I schedule hikes to viewpoints. The Priest, in George Washington National Forest, and the highest point in Nelson County, fit the bill. I reached an empty trailhead at 7:30am and immediately got going. A 30mph+ wind was whistling through the woods which made it quite chilly, even though the temperature was in the low 50s. A sustained 2000ft, albeit moderately graded climb took me up to a nice viewpoint overlooking the lowlands. Unfortunately, the wind had picked up even more and was now maybe in the 40mph range, so I didn't linger, although I decided to take a photo on my way down if the conditions moderated.

17- Taken on the return

A final 1000ft elevation gain push deposited me on the treed summit. I wandered through it until I was able to find the rocky outcrops and its promised views. These were nice, but trying to stay upright against the wind atop the outcrops required quite a bit of effort. I was able to brace myself and take some selfies with the cameras timer, but only after multiple tries as I fought the wind.

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The way back down to the car was much calmer, as the wind all but died down. Stats: 8.6mi, 3120ft elevation gain, 6hrs Little Stony Man, Shenandoah National Park After my morning workout, I was looking for something tamer. I decided to head over to Shenandoah National Park. I had vague plans of doing something simple off Skyline Drive, which featured a viewpoint from which I could catch the sunset, which had been in short supply the past two days. As I drove along Skyline Drive, past the trailhead for Little Stony Man, it occurred to me that I'd never been up there before. I'd been up the higher viewpoint of Stony Man, but from the upper trailhead. So, I decided to head up to Stony Man from the lower trailhead, hitting Little Stony Man along the way. After checking out one viewpoint about 0.4mi from the trailhead, I headed up another 0.6mi or so to the main Little Stony Man summit and stopped in my tracks. All thoughts of going up to Stony Man vanished as I stood looking at a small infinity pool in a fold of a rocky outcrop. This was it, this was my sunset spot.

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22- AT through hiker, heading south to Georgia

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Stats: 2mi, 500ft elevation gain, 2hrs Day IV: Cold Mountain My final hike in southwestern Virginia before I was to head back to Pittsburgh, and it did not disappoint: 360° views from atop vast Sound of Music style meadows; Virginia's answer to Austria. Most trailheads in the mid-Atlantic can be accessed by paved roads, but this one required a rough drive on a lonely mountain road for the final 2mi. So, imagine my surprise at finding about a hundred cars lining the side of the road at the trailhead. What? How? As I headed up the Appalachian Trail, heading south up the flanks of Cold Mountain, a stream of young adults tripped their way down the trail. It seemed like some type of youth group who had spent the night on the mountain and were now heading down after having just caught the sunrise. Just 0.6mi in I reached the first of three meadows that adorned the rolling summit ridge of Cold Mountain. Clouds and filtered sunshine played tag, and views of mountains and valleys as far as the eye could see unfolded before me. I just gawked at the finest 360° views I'd seen to-date in the mid-Atlantic. Amazingly, as I dazedly walked through the incredibly vast second meadow, I found that I had the entire place to myself; every one of the kids who'd been up there just minutes ago had disappeared.

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After rolling over the third and highest of the meadows I dropped down steeply to Cowcamp Gap, where I left the Appalachian Trail and headed down the Hotel Trail. This took me down through peaceful forests, and then up and over various side ridges of Cold Mountain. I completed my loop around noon, completely satisfied with this little gem of a hike.

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Stats: 6mi, 1500ft elevation gain, 4.25hrs

[Bernardo]

Nice. Great pictures as always. I love these VA reports.

[GaliWalker]

Southwest Virginia was surprisingly more beautiful and hillier than I’d expected. It took me about a half day to come up with a plethora of hiking opportunities when I put the trip together.

[williswall]

I always love your waterfall shots. Assuming you are using a filter, which do you use and approx what exposure time?

[GaliWalker]

I always have a polarizing filter on, which I rotate as necessary. That cuts the light by about 1.5 times. Other than that, because of the cloudy/rainy conditions, I didn’t have to use anything else. My camera does allow me to drop the ISO to 50 though. Exposure times were from 1.6-8sec.

[HermitThrush]

Brings back precious memories of driving up to Sugarloaf Mountain in Maryland as a boy.