Return to Shenandoah National Park - Blisters, Bears, and Boulders

Another amazing trip up to the mountains and a ton of pictures to go with the story!

The weather forecast was calling for rain, but after much deliberation, BT and I decided to risk it and left bright and early Saturday morning.

Try not to look so excited, BT.

We had scoped out a map of the northern region of the park and decided that Matthews Arm campground would be our base for some epic hiking (hopefully...if it didn't rain).

After a trip to Walmart to pick up some supplies (travel pillows, beer, etc.  You know, the essentials when you go camping.), we arrived around 1:30 and set up shop.  

(In other words, I sat around stuffing my face with trail mix while I watched BT set up the tent.)  

Once our campsite was all set up, we were off the explore Matthews Arm, with the goal of eventually making it to Overall Run Falls, the tallest waterfall in the park at 93 feet.  

This area had a lot of trails, and we didn't really have a solid plan.  Figured it would be more fun just to wing it.  

BT checking out a trail head along the Appalachian Trail.  

We did get an answer to the age old question along the way!  Does a bear shit in the woods??

Why, yes it does.  

A few miles into our hike, BT began getting some blisters.  Previously, he had worn his military boots which were now packed up and with a moving company to be delivered to his new place in J'ville, so he had brought a pair of Timberlands to wear.  I had my doubts about this because I've always thought of those boots as more fashion than function, but it wasn't like we were going rock climbing or anything (well...actually we kind of did, but that's for later), so him and I both hoped they'd suffice. 

They didn't even last 4 miles.  

I felt so sorry for him.  We were DEEP in the woods with miles to go until we could get back to camp.  He tried everything.  Socks off.  Socks rolled down.  BAREFOOT!!!!

Finally, he ended up taking his socks off , tying them around his heels where the boot was rubbing, and putting the boots back on.  That seemed to give him some relief, thank goodness.  "I'm good now!  I can hike for days like this!"  He tells me.  My response:  "We are going back to the campsite, getting in the Jeep and finding the nearest place to buy you a new pair of shoes.  I will not hike one single step more with you until you are in comfy shoes."  

I'm sorry, but I had to lay down the law.  I know he felt bad because we had to cut our first day short to go into town, but we both knew that if we didn't do that, the next two days would be absolute misery (for him at least, my feet were fine!).  

By now we had just about a mile to go until we made it back to camp.  We were discussing how we were kind of disappointed by the lack of scenery in this section of the park (hardly any waterfalls/overlooks) when we rounded a corner and {{GASP!}}, BEARS!!!!  

There were two.  A mama and her cub (pictured).  I wasn't able to get a picture of the mama.  They were just foraging for food and unfazed by us.  Except for every time I clicked the camera, the cub would look up. 

We followed them down the trail for a good 50 yards.  BT was able to capture some video.  

 

Finally getting to see some bears definitely made our crappy and painful hike worth it.  

Back at camp, we asked a park ranger where the nearest outdoorsy type shop was and they pointed us to Appalachian Outdoors Adventure in Luray.  A hop, skip, and a jump.  (Or in his case, a limp, stumble, and a collapse.)  

Upon arrival we were greeted by the owner, a very nice lady.  He explained his situation and in no time she had boxes of different shoes for him to try.  Being such a small store, the selection was limited and his size was not available in some models, but she was bound, and determined to find a proper shoe for him.  And she delivered!  I can't remember the exact model that he ended up with, but they were the same shoe that she had sold to an Appalachian trail thru hiker named Yogi Bear, earlier that day.  He was hanging out in the store and chatted with us for a few, suggesting that we do the Stony Man hike in the Big Meadows (BIIIIG MEADOWS!!!) area (we didn't make it down there).  

Check out that nasty blister on the left heel!  Ouch.  

On the way back to the park, the ol' Jeep needed gas, so we stopped right outside of Luray Caverns and look what we found!  

Oh how I love finding these!  

We got back to camp and it was almost dark.  We were starving and ready to kick back in front of  a fire and have a cold one.  But first, we had to get the air mattress blown up.  Easy day!  I brought a battery operated pump!  (So I thought.)  Only...the batteries were dead.  No biggie!  We had extras!  Only...this pump didn't run on batteries, it needed to be charged.  Ugh.  And this was not a mattress that you could just blow up like a pool raft.  What to do?  Well, fit it over the Jeep exhaust and try to inflate it that way, DUH!  (I wish I had a picture.)  That DID NOT work.  Next up, slap a piece of gorilla tape over the hole, poke a straw through it, and pray that you don't pass out from all of the blowing!

Don't let this picture fool you, I helped!  

Once we had that squared away, we were far too exhausted to cook anything, so we scarfed down some veggies & hummus, PB & pretzels, and a few beers before hitting the sack...err...the full size, air mattress that we blew up with our OWN LUNGS!!

SUNDAY

We were up bright and early Sunday morning and ready to tackle some trails!

Typical.  Me working away in the "kitchen", him taking selfies.  ;)

I'm pretty sure my breakfast thoroughly grossed BT out.

Hard boiled eggs, quinoa, and horseradish hummus.  YUM.  

He preferred to down the eggs whole.  

Blech.

First order of business was Overall Run Falls, being as we never made it that far on Saturday.  It involved a little bit of uphill, nothing too bad.

The park map warns you that this waterfall is the first to dry up in the summer, so we weren't the least bit surprised when we rolled up to a 93 foot trickle.  :(

We tooled around on the trails for a couple more hours.  Coming across this pretty neat swimming hole.

I was this close to jumping in, but the water was freezing!

And this incredible "spring".  

Words could not express my disappointment.  

Unimpressed with what else this portion of the park had to offer, we headed back to camp for lunch and to figure out where to go next.  We had already logged 10 miles worth of hiking!

We still had hours of daylight left, so we chose to take a little drive over to Comptons Gap and hike to Comptons Peak.  It's described as a fairly easy, 2.4 mile circuit hike (out and back).

At the top, two side trails lead you 0.2 miles to the east and west.  We took the east trail first and were greeted by some pretty gnarly downhill.  I started getting angry when it felt like we had gone WAY more than 0.2 miles.  AND we still had climb back UP!  

Once we finally made it, we got to see some pretty spectacular rock formations!  

This geological feature is called columnar jointing.  Pretty fascinating stuff!

BT suggested a shortcut on the way back up which involved us scaling dangerous, loose rocks.  As you can see, he was more concerned about getting a picture of my ass than getting hit in the face with a falling rock.

Thankfully, we made it up unscathed and shaved a whole one hundredth of a mile off of our return.  (Just kidding, it was fun climbing up the rocks!)  

We almost didn't walk over to the west side, because the park lies to you and tells you 0.2 when it's more like 0.9, but "when in Rome".  

When we got there, I couldn't believe we almost passed it up!  

What a view!

He does this torture me.  I get so nervous when he's this close to the edge!!!

You don't read much about this trail in any of the guides.  It's definitely underrated in my opinion.  I don't think we saw but maybe one or two other people out there that afternoon.  Oh, and as you can see, the weather was just awful ((rolling my eyes)).  

Back at camp, we gathered up some firewood and (with the help of lighter fluid) got us a nice little fire going. 

Beans & rice.  It's whats for dinner.  And it was good!  

We enjoyed a couple of cold beers and walked over to another campsite to watch some deer grazing.  

Notice how close he is to them.  They must be used to people being around.  

As soon as the sun went down, we were both ready to call it a night.  We had covered 15 miles that day and were so tired and sore.  

MONDAY

Old Rag Mountain is the most popular trail in the park.  Reviews warn you that it gets very crowed, especially on the weekend, which is why we chose to do it on Monday.  It's also one of the most difficult trails in the park, with strenuous rock scrambles to reach the 3,291' summit.  We had to do it!  

View of Old Rag from the drive in.  It's easy to spot because it's much rockier than the others.

We arrived around 0900.  It was a fairly overcast day and there were only a few cars in the parking lot.  

I think it was roughly 3 miles to the summit, so you're climbing approx 1,000 ft. per mile.  It's tough, but the last mile leading up to the summit is where it gets fun!  

There are a lot of boulders that you have to climb, squeeze through, and use your upper body strength to maneuver through.  I didn't pull out my camera for any of these because they required your full attention.  BT did wear his GoPro cam during the rock scramble, so I'll have to share those videos another time.  

Stopping to take a breather.

One mile of rock scrambling is waaaay different than one mile of trail.  It takes a while, but when you finally reach the summit, it takes your breath away!  

There he goes, making me nervous again!  

There is a huge area of rocks at the top for you to explore.  A 360 degree view.  

There were a handful of other people milling around up there.  

We managed to talk the guy on the left into snapping a picture for us.

The hike back down almost hurt as much as the hike up.  All that downhill wrecks your quads!  No joke.  As soon as we returned to the Jeep it began to rain.  Talk about perfect timing!  

We conquered Old Rag!  

Sadly, it was time to head home.  Of course, we've already talked about when we'll return.  Next time, we're going to try our hand at some back country camping.  

RANDOM STUFF

Animals Spotted:  Three black bears.  Two on our first hike and one on the drive back from Luray.  

Deer everywhere.  

One of them was tagged.  

A cute little snake at Comptons Peak.  

Injuries Sustained:  Massive blisters for BT (poor thing).  Glad we were able to nip that in the bud ASAP.  

Showers Taken:  Zero.  'Nuff said.  

Weather:  We lucked out!  No rain!  Temps in the high 70's/low 80's.  Not too cold at night.  With the exception of Monday, it was sunny and clear!  

Motivation:  

What the hell is with the little stuffed alien in some of the pictures?  That, my friends, is Travelling Leonard, BT's motorcycle riding companion whom he found on the side of the road during his epic journey to Michigan back in June.  Travelling Leonard (named  after BT's dad, Leonard), now travels with him and gets to see some pretty amazing stuff!  He even has his own Twitter page!  You can follow him @Travelin_Leo.  

He's a sneaky little guy!

Final Thoughts:  BT left on Tuesday to move into his new home in Jacksonville, NC.  I'm so thankful that we were able to spend some QT together without the phone calls, texts messages, emails, etc. that take up so much of our everyday lives.  

I already miss him terribly, but am excited for him to start the next chapter of his life and career with the military.  

I hope that there are many more adventures in our future and know without a doubt that we will make the most of them, as we always do!