Tag: vista

virginia hikes: Roanoke Star & Mill Mountain, April 10 2020

.Reading time 7 minutes.

The Roanoke Star sitting atop of Mill Mountain is the largest free-standing illuminated man-made star (wikipedia). It is where the city of Roanoke, VA gets its nickname, Star City. On the way into the city or atop prominent peaks in the area like McAfee Knob and Fort Lewis Mountain, the star can be seen above the city (though you’ll need to know where to look and maybe squint).

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Roanoke and its star from Fort Lewis Mountain.

In the middle of COVID-19, the trails on Mill Mountain was as local as it got.

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virginia hikes: Fridley Gap loop, May 23 2020

.Reading time 13 minutes.

If you’ve read enough of these hike reports, a common theme you’ll find is that I love hiking next to running creeks, streams, and rivers. As we get into the summer in Virginia, they can also provide a perfect respite to the hot and humid weather in the form of swimming holes. So after a week of none stop rain, I was excited to go check out a hike featuring some swollen creeks and wide swimming holes.

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virginia hikes: Rock Castle Gorge, May 9 2020

.Reading time 13 minutes.

A different season in Virginia can make the same hike a completely different experience. It was winter the last time I visited Rock Castle Gorge. When we returned for a spring hike, we found a completely new experience.

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my first time here was different experience with the Roanoke Outdoors Meetup group

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virginia hikes: Buzzard Rock at Read Mountain Preserve, March 19 2020

.Reading time 6 minutes.

The same trails in Virginia has a tendency to have completely different feel to them through the seasons. In the winter and spring, you can catch the trees barren revealing more than the tunnel of green typical of late spring and summer. This is why summer is my least favorite hiking season here. To that end, I may have a tendency to penalize a hike during summer. So I gave a local hike another shot and subsequently found it slightly more enjoyable a second time around.

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virginia hikes: Petites Gap, Highcock Knob, & Sulphur Spring loop, March 21 2020

.Reading time 11 minutes.

With COVID-19 pandemic shutting down everything, there are a lot of questions regarding if hitting the trails is something ok to do. My impression on the aspect of social distancing is to avoid other. So it’s not just a simple questions of is heading outdoors ok. Rather the question is can I go hike somewhere not many other hikers are. Remember it’s not just contact with other, but also surfaces others have contacted. You know that rock everyone likes to sit on (McAfee), probably should avoid that. This is the reason popular parks such as Yosemite are closing as they should. Not to mention how the popular parks get tramped on the most without rangers upholding infrastructure (see the damage from government shutdown of 2019, Business Insider).

So the takeaway is go hiking, but probably should be limited to day hikes in your local area on the lesser trafficked trails. With all of that in mind, we headed to an out to explore an out of the way trail we hadn’t done before. We saw only 2 groups of hikers along the 8 mile stretch, so I’d consider that minimizing the risk.

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trip report: Patagonia – Parque Nacional Queulat & Ventisquero Colgante, January 2019

.Reading time 11 minutes.

The vastness of Patagonia contains many spectacular mountains, valleys, glaciers, and lakes. Many of these areas are untouched by trails and very difficult to access without extensive skills. It may be one of the hopes of the Chile’s Route of Parks initiative to eventually expand accessibility for hikers and tourists to these hidden vistas. But for now, we would only catch a glimpse of the glacier spilling out between the rock faces. That sums up my descriptions of the popular Ventisquero Colgante, one of the only established and open hikes in the area around Parque Nacional Queulat.

This is part 6 of my Patagonia and Carretera Austral trip report series. You can navigate to the other parts in the index below as they are posted. Read More

trip report: Patagonia – Mirador Laguna Cerro Castillo, January 2019

.Reading time 15 minutes.

Cerro Castillo is one of the rare multi-day backpacking (trekking) opportunities that is well established along the Carretera Austral. We had tentative plans to do just that, but lingering health issues and the logistics in planning a point to point backpacking trek that would rely on hitchhiking or buses when we didn’t speak Spanish brought us to the alternative day hike options. In the end, I don’t feel like I missed out and at the same time, I look forward to returning to do the trek.

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This is part 5 of my Patagonia and Carretera Austral trip report series. You can navigate to the other parts in the index below as they are posted.  Read More

virginia hikes: Compton Peak via AT from Jenkins Gap to Chester Gap, November 9 2019

.Reading time 11 minutes.

As the fall colors start to taper, we headed out for a hike at the northern tip of Shenandoah National Park. What we found was the leaves were pretty much gone at higher elevations and the vista views were mostly brown, we did find some nice foliage in the woods at lower elevations where we would have typically been in a tunnel of green during the middle of the year. For weekly reports, you can also check out Virginia.org, Virginia Department of Forestry reports, or Shenandoah National Park.

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