West Virginia!

Friday, October 19, 2012:

A quarter of the Appalachian Trail is in Virginia, and today I finished that and moved into West Virginia.  It's the home stretch - just 70 trail miles to go now.

Today was a Jekyll-Hyde sort of day.  Thick fog filled the woods all morning, then it broke up and the sun came out in the afternoon.

But despite the lack of views, or really because of that, the fog was magical - a soothing, mild, calm cocoon of serenity that followed me around wherever I went.  Funny how it does that.

Fall color in the fog is a special sight.  Here are a couple of views, including the "viewpoint" at Crescent Rocks - a very popular local day-hike destination:

And here's the "money-shot" from Crescent Rocks in the late afternoon sans fog:

I covered 9.9 miles of new trail today, finished the "Roller Coaster" and then hiked a lot of easy trail along the ridge that straddles the WV-VA state line, passing the significant milestone (or mile-tree) marking 1000 miles from Springer (The actual 1000 mile point for 2012 precisely coincides with the WV-VA boundary sign shown up top).  Tomorrow I'll do the rest of that ridge walk and will be ready to drop down to the Shenandoah River and hit Harper's Ferry.

------------------------------------------------------------

Here's today's hike map and photo link:


AT Day 261 - Crescent Rocks at EveryTrail
EveryTrail - Find the best Hiking in Virginia