Skiing in November!

We decided to take advantage of the snow that's been falling in Canaan Valley, so we drove up to Whitegrass on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was a sunny day, not crowded and the snow wasn't skiied out yet. We went up to Roundtop then on to Bald Knob, then up to Weiss Knob via the gas pipeline and did the first tele turns of the season... not bad for the first ski day of the season.

We camped at the State Park, and discovered the bar in the lodge that had $2 WV brewery beers. Then back to van for a celebration dinner and fun tunes on the satellite radio. It was 11 degrees outside when we woke up Saturday morning.

On Saturday we did the "around the world" tour, up Falls Overlook to 3 Mile to Powderline, then up into the "wilderness" area, over cabin mountain to Bald Knob, then down to Boundary trail and Upper Springer then through the woods back to the car.

The snow is great up high, and gets sketchier the lower you get. Here's a bunch of pictures from Saturday...

Bob on 3 Mile trail


Anna going up Wilderness trail


Where am I...


Bob breaking trail toward Bald Knob, wearing his blaze orange shirt
(hey, it's deer season after all!)

Happy Birthday Bob

We got up very early and drove 2 hours to the Cedar Run trail head past Sperryville. We both spotted a gorgeous bald eagle soaring over Rt. 211, although it wasn't hard to miss with the bright orange glow of the morning sun glinting off its underside. Bob hit the trail shortly after arriving, at about 8:00am with cold and partly cloudy conditions.

Anna started up the trail about 45 minutes later at a very easy pace, enjoying the scenery since it had been awhile since she'd hiked up Cedar Run. Here is the first falls and a water slide further up the trail.



She turned around after about an hour and fifteen minutes, and made it back to the van by 11:00 or so. By this time it was snowing quite hard, and sticking to the ground. She boiled water for hot chocolate and hung out in the cozy van listening to tunes, waiting for Bob's call on the 2-way radio. He beeped at about 11:30, still a mile out. Here he is at the end of the first leg in his vertical mile, with the wet snow pounding down...

After drinking hot chocolate, eating and changing socks, we both started up the Berry Hollow fire road to the top of Old Rag. It had stopped snowing by this point, but there was a lovely coating of snow on the ground to make the hike different.

Here is a nice view of Hawksbill, where Bob hiked to in the morning. It's the highest point in Shenandoah National Park. The first leg of his vertical mile from the bottom of Cedar Run to the top of Hawksbill was 3300+ feet. Hawksbill is the hump in the middle of the picture.


When we reached the top the sun was out and it was very windy, probably 20 to 30 mph and quite cold, probably low 20's. Our hands froze, and Bob's hydration hose had frozen a long time ago. Here's Bob at the official sign post, and at his high point on Old Rag! Congratulations Bob!!



It turned out that Bob's first event in his continuing epic fitness challenge really was an epic, with the cold, wind and snow. See more about his 50th year challenge on his epic blog.

Back at the van, we celebrated by eating the most amazing chocolate cake, thanks to our neighbor, Laura. It was triple layer chocolate cake, very rich chocolate frosting, and chocolate dipped strawberries on top (we also had a "proper" recovery snack of protein & healthy carbs).

Last Training Hike

Bob does his vertical-mile-birthday-continuing-epic-kick-off hike on Friday, so this weekend was his last training hike. We took it easy, and went up to Catoctin Mountain Park in Thurmont, MD. We haven't been there in years. We stopped at the visitor center and learned that a large section of the park was closed due to secret service request. We guess number 43 was hosting some pals for an autumn visit to Camp David. At any rate, we figured out a nice hike circuit, starting by hiking up the hill to Chimney Rock, then over to Wolf Rock. We then backtracked down for about 3 miles total.

The weather was beautiful: windy, cloudy, sunny, snow pellets. Awesome hiking conditions. Especially since yesterday was shorts & t-shirt weather.

Here's the close and long view from Chimney Rock.


And here we are at Wolf Rock. We used to go climbing here in the 1980's. Kind of fun to go back...


After going back to the car and having a bite to eat, we headed up the hill on the other side to Cat Rock. We couldn't resist this photo opportunity.


Here's Bob at the 3rd rock outcropping of the day, Cat Rock. We only hiked about 6 miles and less than 2000 vertical - a perfect pre-event workout to keep Bob's legs happy.

More hiking!

In an effort to help Bob train for his big birthday hike, without putting too much wear-n-tear on his knees or his feet, I dropped him off at the bottom of Little Devil's Stairs, then drove around and up to Skyline Drive, parking at the Little Hogback overlook.


I bushwhacked down to the fire road to meet Bob and he appeared shortly thereafter. He flew up the trail! We then drove down to hike up Mary's Rock, but the Panorama parking lot is closed for construction. In fact, the old Panorama building is gone. It's been closed/condemned for years since it was full of asbestos. So we parked along the road and cut through an overgrown median strip to the trail.

Here's Bob at the top (yes that's him)

And the view looking west from the top. It was one of those days in the mid 60's, and as you can see there is still some golden color up there.


On the hike down, I found a tick on my leg, probably from the short trek through the median to the trail head. It was pretty well dug in, but Bob got it out with his close-up, x-ray vision (thanks Bob).

Back at the van we sat in the grass, and another much smaller tick was on my water bottle. We scrammed out of there, and Bob had one on his shirt. We both had the heebie-jeebies on the ride home but found no more ticks. We thought it was strange to find so many ticks in November?

Been a long time...

since we've updated the blog, so here it is:

Training hikes continue...
Bob is working hard, training for his upcoming vertical mile hike on his 50th birthday. We went up to the Elizabeth Furnace area one weekend in October and hiked the loop to the radio tower on top of Signal Knob, about 10 miles. We camped out (in the forest service campground) and had a nice little fire and even grilled some steaks. Here we are taking a snack break on the trail.


Looking toward Signal Knob, with the haze of Winchester in the distance.

The next day we mountain biked part of the Mud Hole Gap trail. We were both pretty sore from the day before so we turned around after the 3rd or 4th stream crossing. Here's Bob crossing one in great style!

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Halloween was mellow, with only the cute 3 year old boys in the cul-de-sac and 2 or 3 other groups ringing the doorbell. I say it every year, but I swear I'm not buying any candy next Halloween!

There was an avian theme this year, with a penguin and a toucan...