Since the fall leaf color is done anywhere within driving distance, we jumped straight into winter with a hike at Blackwater Falls.

Since I’ve been slacking on walking / hiking in recent months, we decided to take a relatively easy hike, and hiked part of the Davis Trail. This is the part of the Allegheny Trail that runs from Blackwater Falls to Cannan Valley State Park.

It was lovely.

Location: Blackwater Falls
Trail: Davis Trail / Allegheny Trail
Distance: 5.1 miles
Elevation: 3203-3669 feet (660 ft)

Saturday was supposed to rain, plus my aunt was coming in, so we did our hiking on Friday, which turned out to be a perfect choice.

Checked what the leaf color was supposed to be, so headed back down to the Canaan / Blackwater Falls area.

Canaan Valley State Park: Blackwater River Trail

Blackwater Falls

Table Rock

This was more of a casual stroll than any kind of hike, but it was lovely, so here you go.

On the 7th of September we headed south towards Spruce Knob and decided to hike at Seneca Creek Backcountry, which I love but don’t hike enough.

I really have no sense of self-preservation. I was startled by a falling leaf and by a butterfly, but noticed the noise of a rattlesnake only when Michael started freaking out behind me. Seriously, he’s hyperventilating and I’m all, “What? What?”

But leaves? Those will totally startle me.

Location: Seneca Creek Backcountry
Trail: Horton Trail
Distance: 5.2 miles
Elevation: 2955-4154 feet (1229 feet gain)

Aside from the hike being straight up the ridge, it was a lovely day and I really do need to hike there more often.

Location: Cranberry Wilderness
Trail: Blue Knob Trail
Distance: 2.0 miles
Elevation: 3742-4161 feet (423 feet gain)

Oh look! If I stand on this log and peer carefully, I can see the Highland Scenic Highway!

If you remember way back into the spring, beavers had flooded the boardwalk over the winter. Last visit the walk was dry, but still not repaired.

Now, they’ve fixed this section of boardwalk (but others are problematic) but the pond is almost gone.

Also, please enjoy these views:

As I mentioned previously, the monitor on my Asus laptop died, so although we did take a lovely hike a couple weeks ago at the Cranberry Wilderness, I did not manage to write about it or post any pictures.

This weekend Michael was still recovering from the start of school (couple weeks of 10-12 hours days. Ugh.) so we didn’t want to go far, so the Blackwater Falls / Canaan Valley area it was.

I remembered that it’d been a couple years since I’d taken any pictures of Douglas Falls, so that’s where we headed, and then continued out the defunct rail trail (it’s private property, so the trail is not maintained for 5 1/2 miles, but it was perfectly fine to hike).

The fun part was our argument as to whether Michael has seen Pace Point or not. I’m pretty sure he didn’t. We did definitely see Lindy Point though. (We’ve argued for years as to whether you can see Lindy Point from Pase Point. I say definitely not.)

Location: Blackwater Canyon Rail Trail
Distance: 6.2 miles (partial, out and back)
Elevation: 2755-2918 feet (410 feet gain)

Definitely Lindy Point, as seen from across the river.

This is what Michael says is Pase Point. I say NOPE.

The old coke ovens along the trail are AMAZING.

It’s actually a lovely trail.

Douglas Falls

Lovely!

I’ve been sickly for about two weeks, getting over some kind of cold/respiratory thingy. So yesterday we wanted to hike somewhere close, and take a hike that wasn’t too strenuous.

Apparently, we have a strange definition of strenuous.

We ended up going to Thomas/Davis because it’s a short-ish drive, and there are tons of places to hike. We were considering the Canaan Wilderness, but I looked through the hiking books on the way down, and decided we should try some more hiking in the Blackwater Canyon (across the gorge from Blackwater Falls State Park).

Location: Blackwater Canyon
Trails: Allegheny and Limerock Trails
Distance: 8.2 miles
Elevation: 2863-3118 feet (590 feet rise)

It seems that for us, 8.2 miles turned out to be taking it easy. We did have a much slower pace than we normally hike (30 min mile vs 20 min mile) and the majority of the hike was on a railroad grade trail, so it was a slower elevation rise. Essentially, we parked, and hikeed out until we decided we were ready to turn around.

The temperatures were perfect for hiking, the weather was lovely, and aside from one dirt biker on the RR grade trail, we didn’t see anyone else while we were out.

So: a good day.