Oh, Shenandoah

I know I am way behind, but I wanted to skip ahead to this last weekend so I can write about it before I forget too much.

One of my favorite websites that I have used for finding hikes to do in Virginia/North Carolina is www.hikingupward.com. It gives great details about hikes and also ranks them on things like difficulty, views, solitude, water, etc. I was perusing it earlier this fall and saw a hike that sounded good - Stony Man, in Shenandoah National Park. Fall is obviously a beautiful time to hike in Virginia so Dan and I put our heads together to figure out how we could do it. Sam has soccer every Saturday smack dab in the middle of the day, so the only way we could work out to get hiking and still be home in time was to camp.

Dan suggested we backcountry camp. I was a little hesitant, but after trying to reserve a campsite in a typical campground and finding that they were all taken, I came around to the idea.

We left Friday around 4 and got to the trailhead of Stony Man at sunset.

We hiked in for about 3/4 of a mile and then found a campsite as it was getting dark. (Dan carried Eli in a baby hiking carrier thing, as well as some other stuff, I carried the tent and a few sleeping bags, and Sam and Afton each carried a sleeping bag and a full water bladder thing.) There were a few other campers who had taken the best spots. It was too late to really look around for a long time so we took what we could get. After we got set up, we walked a little ways away (so bears didn't come to our site) to have dinner - hot dogs.

It was getting pretty cold at this point so the kids and I all huddled up while Dan prepared dinner. After we ate, we basically just went to bed. I shared a 2-man tent with Sam, Afton, and Eli. Eli and I shared a sleeping bag. We were afraid that he would get cold otherwise. He was so hard to sleep with! He was noisy and kept moving around and I kept having to try and pull him back in. Worst night's sleep of my life. Dan slept outside the tent. Dan offered to switch with me several times, but I turned him down. Don't know what I was thinking!

The next morning we woke up bright and early, packed up some of our stuff, and hiked to the summit. We were the only ones there, which was great. The sun had just risen and the clouds were sweeping by. It was really pretty.

We headed back down to load up our gear and hike back to the car. This was where our campsite had been:

Then we drove over to the other hike for the day - Hawksbill, the tallest peak in Shenandoah (which isn't really saying much, but, you know...) It was much more steep than Stony Man and also much more crowded. Still, a beautiful view and a beautiful morning!

We drove home and got back just in time for Sam to play in his soccer game. I'm glad we were able to make a hike happen this fall. We bought a year-long pass so hopefully we can make it over there again soon!