Post by GaliWalker on Jun 28, 2015 18:46:34 GMT -5
Strickler Knob and Great Falls, Virginia (June 27, 2015)
Rain, rain and more rain. From a light drizzle to extended downpours to blankets of mist - I got the full temper tantrum, this Saturday, from an irritable weather god.
With a 5:30pm family pickup time at Dulles Airport, I decided that the long drive from Pittsburgh should feature some fun and frolic. A little bit of research brought up Strickler Knob, in northern Virginia's George Washington National Forest and just west of Shenandoah National Park, as a likely destination. Plus, one of my favorite waterfalls - the Great Falls of the Potomac - was a mere half hour away from the airport. This would make for a good place to wait it out, if I got done early at Strickler Knob.
Strickler Knob
We've been battling storms the past two weeks straight. Saturday was forecast to feature wall to wall rain. As I left Pittsburgh at 2:15am, it was drizzling. This hung around throughout the drive to the Scothorn Gap Trailhead.
As I started the hike along the Scothorn Trail the rain started to fall harder, so I decided to unlimber my umbrella, on top of the rain jacket I'd already draped myself in. The hike began along an old woods road, somewhat steep in bits but quick to hike on due to the relatively easy terrain. The surroundings were a mix of pines and hardwoods, though most of the hardwoods seemed dead from some disease, and a lush green understory. Everything was dripping wet.
Wet!
A little less than 1.5mi in I intersected the Massanutten Trail and continued along this one for 0.7mi. By now I was quite wet, since increasingly encroaching greenery had kindly dumped as much water as it could shed onto the only hiker around. I would only get wetter, because the next 0.75mi to Strickler Knob was through a veritable jungle of the drippy kind. The going was quite slow now, due to a 'trail' that was a jumble of slippery, slimy boulders. Wrestling with the occasional scramble over the odd rocky outcrop, I kept on working my way towards the knob.
Mess of boulders
Strickler Knob was supposed to feature great views. For a while there, I thought I'd see none of them, because the brief looks I got towards the west featured nothing more interesting than the inside of a cloud. Thankfully, once I reached the knob, and carefully scrambled up the wet rocks for the final bit, I was treated to fine views to the east and south (Luray Valley and Shenandoah National Park), and southwest (New Market Gap). The north and northwest, however, was a wall of angry looking clouds.
Opaque view
Tree
Branch
Misty mountains
View from the knob
Rampaging mist
Green valley and misty Shenandoah
Shenandoah River
Lowering clouds
I stuck around for some time up there, but eventually the steady rain I'd been trying to ignore became a downpour, so it was time to vacate the premises. The hike back to the car was under an onslaught of heavy rain.
Stats: 5.6mi, 1600ft gain, 4hrs
Great Falls of the Potomac
After my Strickler Knob hike I still had plenty of time to make a pilgrimage to the Great Falls of the Potomac, before my date with Dulles Airport. The drive was an adventure: the rain was so heavy that everyone was crawling along the highways. My 'plenty of time' had got replaced by 'just enough time', when I reached my second destination. Thankfully, the weather, deciding it had been bad tempered for long enough, had taken a coffee break.
Under a light drizzle, I walked over to the main viewpoint for the falls, but had only taken a single photo, when heavier rain returned. I had time for one more photo, and that was it. The rain had begun to fly sideways, which meant that it was impossible to keep the wetness off the camera lens.
Chocolate water
Drop
The drive back to the house, from the airport, was through yet more crummy conditions, but we made it back in one piece, thus ending a successful and satisfying day.
Total trip time: 22hrs
