Sunday would have been my cousin Ben’s 33rd birthday. My aunt and uncle held a memorial hike along the Appalachian Trail on Sunday, but I’ve felt very uncomfortable recently around groups of people I don’t know, so Michael and I chose to hike up Seneca Rocks, which is one of the first places he climbed.

There are two ways to get up Seneca Rocks: climb the face or hike from the side. We–unsurprisingly–chose the hike.

Here are some views of Seneca Rocks:

This is the end of the hiking path: only climbers with proper gear are supposed to go beyond here.

We also made the slightly more arduous hike (because it’s not a path, but a trail) to the base of the rock. We came in from the left, so it’s looking up at the lower face on the far left. Here’s a look upwards.

This is a gorgeous stream running below the rock face. One of the nice things about visiting state parks is the water ways tend to be clean and clear and unpolluted (ie, not orange from acid mine drainage, which used to be the state of all the creeks local to Morgantown.)

Here’s the view from the observation deck:

And here’s a sign that caught my fancy. You could see several areas of erosion where people took “shortcuts.”