Saturday, June 20, 2009

Dark Hollow and Rose River Falls

IMG_5544

Tony really wanted to get out to Shenandoah National Park to see if we could hike to a waterfall. We found one waterfall that was only about 3/4 mile each way, so we thought we’d give that one a try. So, after our soap making class we headed out towards the park. We were all pretty excited to hike through the woods, and made it down to Dark Hollow Falls without any problems. We did notice it was downhill the whole way and we quickly realized that meant an all uphill return, but that didn’t faze us! We were really feeling confident after that first trip down so we decided we would really go for it and hike another 2 miles or so to Rose River Falls.

IMG_5553IMG_5533IMG_5557 

Along the path to Rose River Falls we saw a small waterfall (that I don’t know the name of) and we saw this cool tree with mushroom stairs. We also had to cross the stream twice in order to get to the waterfall…one man made, one just some slippery moss covered rocks and that was kind of scary. (There were actually a lot of moss covered, wet, scary, slippery spots, but I’ll spare you all the details!)

IMG_5560IMG_5561IMG_5564

All of the above photo’s were taken at Rose River Falls. I didn’t get too many…I don’t know if it was because I was too tired, or too freaked out because Landon nearly tumbled down the falls trying to catch a leaf. Either way, I didn’t get anything spectacular of the actual waterfall!

I have to admit that I was really excited about a long hike through the woods with the possibility of seeing beautiful waterfalls. What I didn’t realize though was how long 3 or 4 miles can be in the woods. It was nearly always up or down hill, which can be equally daunting.

There were moments when I thought I might need to start thinking about all those “survivor” like shows on TV, you know, to see what I remembered about surviving in the woods. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember anything so I kept moving.

There were several spots going uphill that I needed a break, and even once where I was slightly dizzy from the effort…but, I am proud to report that I made it. I was a sweaty, grumpy, slightly whiney, dehydrated mess at the end, but I did it.

And, just look what we saw on the way out of the park! This bear cub crossed right in front of our truck! He didn’t seem to be too worried about the cars going up and down the road, so I clicked a zillion pictures and then we were on our way. 

IMG_5565

IMG_5566

IMG_5573

We saw a few deer and fawn while we were out also, but they aren’t as confident around us so I couldn’t get pictures. The fawns couldn’t have been more than a few weeks to a month old though…they still had those baby fawn spots!  

All in all we had a pretty good time. We were all pretty dirty and very thirsty when we got done, but that’s what happens when you spend 4 hours trekking through the woods!

No comments:

April Fools Pranks

The two little kids made me laugh yesterday morning.  I was upstairs getting things ready for school when I heard them talking about how ...