Saturday was gorgeous, so we went to New River Gorge. We’ve gone to Bridge Day in previous years, but hadn’t spent any time hiking the gorge, and so didn’t realize just how many miles of trails there were.

We are going back again, hopefully many times.

Location: New River Gorge
Trails: Kaymoor Miners Trail, Arrowhead Trail (Clovis)
Distance: 4.0 miles
Elevation: 1228 feet

The top part of this trail is steep and rocky, but very beautiful. The recent rains meant the creeks and streams were full and since we were going down the side of the mountain, there were plenty of waterfalls both large and small.

Because the trees are just starting to leaf out, you can still see the river and down into the gorge.

The lower part of the trail is all steps.

More than 800 steps.

But at the bottom, were the remains of the processing plant, coke ovens, and town, which were fascinating.

GPS Map

Elevation Chart:

(the place where it flattens out is where we took the Clovis Arrowhead trail, so we could stretch our legs)
How it came out on FitBit:

So, well, we’ve now been to Hawk’s Nest, and can check it off the list.

It wasn’t a bad park–though it is obviously long in the tooth–there just wasn’t any hiking there. Might be a nice place to stay, however, if you were hiking New River Gorge.

Michael snapped this pic of a hawk.

It was a pretty day, and you can see the trees are leafing out, but the New River was high and muddy.

There are steps going down to Lovers Leap Overlook. This was one of the places that the age of the place was showing. The steps are slowly crumbling and decomposing. There aren’t a lot of steps, so it isn’t a big deal, but it made the park look in need of upkeep.

Since Saturday was lovely, but low mileage, we went to Coopers Rock on Sunday.

I didn’t mean for our hike to be quite as long as it was, but 3:15 and 6.5 miles (closer to 8, with meandering) later, there it was.

Gorgeous day, and although the streams were all full, we avoided the muddiest trails.

Location: Coopers Rock State Forest
Trails: Clay Run Trail, Mount Chateau Trail, Rhododendron Trail, Roadside Trail
Distance: 6.5 miles
Elevation: 937feet

Clay Run Trail

At some point I’m going to remember I don’t really care for the Clay Run Trail. The first half (or even 2/3) is relatively open and sunny, on a right-of-way/maintenance road. It’s not terrible or anything, but it’s not what I really want when I’m hiking.

On the bright side, there are once again frog eggs to see.

Mount Chateau Trail

This is easily my favorite trail in the whole forest. It runs along a stream and it’s beautiful. You can take any number of trails to get there (Rhododendron, Clay Run, Iron Furnace) and when you get to the end, you can sit on the bridge and watch the water.

Once it’s warmer I plan to again start bringing my water shoes so I can hike the stream some more.

And you get zero pictures of the Rhododendron trail and Roadside trail, because at that point we weren’t stopping for much of anything.

But there is water running beside parts of the Rhododendron trail right now (and it is also muddy in spots, but not bad), which is always a draw for me.

Because the two state parks we visited didn’t have much hiking, after walking the boardwalk we decided to take a short hike on one of the close trails.

We got lucky in that it was the prefect hike for late in the day when we only had a little time.

Location: Cranberry Wilderness
Trails: Cowpasture Trail to Thomas Reserve Trail
Distance: 2.2 miles

(Pictures are mapped on Flickr; the mileage link about is a GPS map of the entire hike. If you want specific coordinates for a picture–email me.)

Since the day was lovely, and Beartown and Droop Mountain were very short visits, we stopped at Cranberry Glades.

Location: Cranberry Glades Boardwalk
Distance: 0.6 miles

Saturday was beautiful, so we headed south for Droop Mountain and Beartown State Parks.

Droop Mountain

Droop Mountain is the site of the last major Civil War battle in West Virginia.

I can really only handle a small amount of thinking about war and death and misery, so it was a short visit.

The view is gorgeous, though,

Confederate Graves

The museum is where I really started to get depressed.

Beartown

Location: Beartown State Park
Distance: 0.7 mile

Luckily, just down the road is Beartown State Park, which is a 0.7 mile boardwalk through some pretty fascinating rock formations.

The boardwalk is really nice.

This was a lovely walk.

Yesterday was both a vet appointment first thing in the morning, and the Winter Blues Farmers Market in the early afternoon, so traveling anywhere was right out.

So today, we had a nice hike at the arboretum. Not much in the way of flowers, but we saw plenty of birds, and the plants that will be those spring flowers are popping up.

Location: WVU Arboretum
Distance: 1.4 mile
Elevation: 441 feet

Crocuses are right at the front entrance. I noticed for different kinds of crocuses.

Actual wild flowers! If I wasn’t looking closely, I would have completely missed them.

Baby oak tree!

And I noticed this sitting on a bench.

GPS Map of the walk.

Since the day was so beautiful, we decided to take a bike ride at Coopers Rock.

Because we haven’t biked since last summer, we just biked the main road and then walked out to the overlook.

It was a good choice.

Once again, we missed seeing the falls in the snow. I’d forgotten how much rain we’d had last week, so that wiped out any ice.

The snow was very wet, and difficult to walk in where it hadn’t been compressed down, so we cut our hike short when my ankle started to bother me.

It was still a gorgeous day, and we had a nice hike.

Park: Blackwater Falls
Trails: Pendelton Point Overlook, Pendelton Trace, Dobbin House
Distance: 2.4 miles
Elevation: 409
Time: 1:20

The stairs were not recommended…

In fact…

Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Elekala Falls

Looking down the falls from the bridge:

GPS Map of the Hike

Finally! The first hike of 2015!

Between illnesses and unpleasant weather, we didn’t get out to hike until today, but it was a gorgeous, glorious day for the first hike of the year. Even better, last year I purchased snow pants, which means that I wasn’t afraid to kneel down in the snow to get closer to interesting things, and I didn’t come out of the woods soaking wet from the knees down.

Because the entrance gate is closed, there are a limited number of trails to hike (unless you want to walk into the park and then start your hike, which I don’t), so we took my favorite trail, Scotts Run.

Trail: Scotts Run
Elevation: 1168 feet
Distance: 4.4 miles
Time: 2:13

GPS map of the hike.

Last Saturday (because this Saturday was rainy) we went to Harpers Ferry to try and catch some of the last leaf change in the state.

We’d considering walking on that part of the Appalachian Trail, but instead ended up taking the Maryland Heights Trail which had a gorgeous overview of the Shenandoah River, Potomac River, and Harpers Ferry.

There were a TON of people all over the place, including at least two families attempting to take strollers up the Maryland Heights Trail. (This was a terrible idea.)

See that rockline? That’s where we hiked to, and where the above pictures were taken.

Gorgeous day.

Our whole walk was about 6.5 miles, and our elevation gain was 1579 feet. And the Maryland Heights Trail was quite steep in places.

While we were staying with Mechanicky Gal, we went to Cabrillo National Monument to visit the tide pools. We also got to go into the Old Point Loma Lighthouse. Most of the rooms were closed off to the public, so you could look in and see what it would have looked like when it was in use.

The tide pools were gorgeous, and I loved walking along them.

Oh, well yes, there were a lot of rocks. So I took lots of pictures of rocks. Because I like rocks.

This is the Old Point Loma Lighthouse

You could walk up to almost the top of the tower, but you couldn’t go outside, or climb the ladder to the light.

I took this picture to remind me to look up when and why lighthouses would use different colored lights.

Short answer (according to the internet): it depended upon the light house. The rate of rotation (sometimes in combination with colors) could designate a specific lighthouse. The color could designate the location of the lighthouse in relation to the bay.

Also: This guy again.

Since we were only a few hours away (and in California) we made a point to visit Joshua Tree National Park.

Since I always buy books of the places we visit, I decided this time to purchase the books BEFORE we left. One of the books I got was Joshua Tree: The Complete Guide. This was completely helpful, since it divided the trails into types, as well as distance and time.

Also helpful was the Joshua Tree National Park (National Geographic Trails Illustrated Map).

We combined the two, to give us an idea of what we’d be able to manage in a day, and plan the drive to see as much of the area as we possibly could.

We walked/hiked the following trails:
Cholla Cactus Garden
Arch Rock Nature Trail
Barker Dam Trail
Hidden Valley Trail
Cap Rock
Black Rock Trail

We drove up to Keys View

We entered the park from the south, Cottonwood Springs entrance. All of the Cottonwood Springs trails are closed, because multiple floods have exposed toxic mine tailings, so no hiking. This took us through the Colorado Sonoran dessert, which was full of Cholla cactus, Creosote bushes, Ocotillo trees, and Smoke trees.

But what I liked best were the rock formations.

We drove north, and move into the Mojave desert, which really did look quite different from the Sonoran.

Joshua Tree and the desert were interesting places to visit, but I would definitely not want to live there.

Well, it was more casual strolling than hiking, but both of these are places you shouldn’t miss. Although it was only the 4th of October, it was 42 degrees at Cranberry Glades Botanical Area, and there were a few snow flurries. So the weather there can be quite different from the weather elsewhere.

Which means I was wishing that I had worn much warmer pants.

Location: Falls of Hills Creek and Cranberry Glades Botanical Area
Trails: Cranberry Glades Botanical Area & the Falls of Hills Creek
Distance: Cranberry Glades Botanical Area: 0.6 mile; Falls of Hills Creek: 1.3 miles
Elevation: Falls of Hills Creek: 367 feet

Cranberry Glades Botanical Area

The Cranberry Glades Botanical Area is a flat boardwalk, so it is accessible to everyone. Although it is only a 0.6 mile loop, there is incredible biological diversity in that small area.

Yup. Snow.

Cranberry Wilderness Area

This area was in an area not in the boardwalk, but similar botanically, and the light was a lot better.

The Falls of Hills Creek

The upper falls are accessibly by a gently sloping path. They were also kinda boring without much water going through the area.

The rest of the path was a lot of stairs. But utterly worth the hike.

The Middle Falls

The Lower Falls

The stairs are quite steep in places.

Cranberry Glades Botanical Area GPS map
Falls of Hills Creek GPS map