So after years of being a dc ski member, I am posting my first trip report.

Tim and I drove down to Shenendoah National Park for a nice day hike. It rained a little bit in the morning on the drive down so some places on the rocks were a bit slick, but it cleared up and ended up being a great day. We ran into a few people talking about a small brown bear sighting. We did not see th bear, but we did see what we thing was fresh "evidence" of the bear recently being on the trail. My camera lost battery power halfway through he hike, but here are the pictures I managed to take.

Eager hiker(s) ready to go!:



beginning of the trail:





some pics of the lower falls:




Pic of me at the upper falls:

Very nice Your Highness. Got to keep those batteries charged for the dozens of additional TRs I expect in the future.

I was up there in July with a gang of 12 for hiking and swimming in the bigger pools. Almost an annual thing for me. But it was mobbed. Your damp trip provided a lot more solitude and critter spotting opportunities.

WOC is one of my favorite hikes. Every fall the family heads up to the Apple Harvest Festival at Graves Mountain . After hanging out and enjoying all the Bluegrass music, food, hayrides, clogging, etc., we head up to WOC for an afternoon hike. Now a days, we usually only get up to the 2nd set of falls, but the kids love the hike. But the rocks can be pretty treacherous when wet. The Apple Harvest Festival is the weekend of Oct. 14/15 & 21/22.

I dread the Graves Festival weekends. We live a mile down Hoover Road from rt 29 and on those days we have a difficult time getting out of our driveway, especially in the late PM when the crowd heads back to the confines of Northern VA. The locals in downtown Reva refer to the fall visitors to Graves and elsewhere along the Natl Park as "leafers." I have to agree though, White Oak canyon is one of my favorite hikes, especially in November/December before the snow flys. Be careful of the slipperyness of the falls. Every year somebody takes a sometimes fatal fall there.