Hello friends!
I had such a fun Friday night and Saturday with Matt in Shenandoah National Park! We just got back to D.C. tonight after a full day of hiking. 🙂
I love getting away and being active on the weekends — it makes it the weekend seem so much longer when you go something fun and different, even if it’s just for a day!
We headed down to the Shenandoahs (about 1.5 to 2 hours from D.C.) after work yesterday and arrived in time for a late dinner. Shenandoah National Park has a 100 mile stretch of road going through it called Skyline Drive, and we stayed around the 60 mile marker at a place called Big Meadows Lodge. Skyline Drive is gorgeous!
(side note — Matt’s shirt says “Will Do Moose Stuff For Money.” — Can anyone name what TV show that’s from? 🙂 heh)
There were TONS of deer chilling in the road, so we had to drive very carefully 🙂 They were pretty much completely unimpressed by us, ha.
We also saw a baby BEAR in the woods just off the road!!! So cool! I was glad we were safe in a car 🙂
How cute is this cabin we stayed in??
It had a fireplace, too!
I LOVE fireplaces. They make everything seem cozy 🙂
The area around the cabins was really pretty, too! We spent some time this morning walking around and checking out the view before heading out for our day hike a few miles up the road.
Everything was so GREEN. I loved it!
For our main hike today we decided to hit up the White Oak Canyon Trail — one of our faves that we hiked back in… 2005? Our other favorite Shenandoah hike is Old Rag 🙂
While Old Rag has a cool rock scramble and awesome mountain views, White Oak Canyon boasts beautiful waterfalls and soothing wooded trails 🙂 I’d highly recommend this hike if you’re in the area! It’s strenuous, but fun.
By the time we started the hike, it had gotten colder, foggier, and was starting to drizzle a bit. Boo! But we decided, whatever, let’s make the most of it 🙂 So glad I brought my raincoat!
I love the White Oak Canyon hike — we did about 6 miles round trip in about 4ish hours. The trail takes you all the way down into the falls, so the way back is all uphill. It’s actually kind of nice to have the uphill at the end, though — for some reason I’d rather do uphill than downhill when my legs are tired! Lots of downhill hurts my ankles/knees.
The fog and gloomy skies made everything look very cool and mysterious 🙂
And then… as soon as we got down to the first big waterfall view, it started POURING. Bust! Good thing I brought my point and shoot and not my DSLR!
But we decided to forget onwards anyway! 🙂
My favorite thing about this hike is that you can bust off the trail and play around on the rocks in the falls 🙂
Matt and I are both monkeys, so we decided to try to get as close to the falls as we could 😉
It was so fun scrambling around on the rocks! I definitely bit it once, though — they were slippery! I am going to have a HUGE bruise on my butt. Ha.
Getting closer…
And, success!! (we were definitely soaking wet by this point!)
The rain simmered a bit for our walk back, but it was CRAZY foggy!
And then, about 15 minutes before we got back to the trailhead, it started pouring again. When we arrived back at the parking lot, we were completely drenched but feeling totally hardcore, lol.
And then, this was our drive back out of the park. Wtf!?! We seriously couldn’t see more than 5 feet in front of the car!
Lol. So crazy.
It was such a fun day, even with the rain! 🙂
I’m heading off to bed now — my training buddy Ashley and I have our final super long run (12 miles!) tomorrow before our half marathon in two weeks! Eeeek! I’ve never run more than 10 before so I hope it goes okay… and I hope my legs aren’t too sore from hiking today. Monday is DEFINITELY going to be a rest day!
Goodnight! And please… don’t forget to vote for me 🙂
