Old Rag

Yesterday I went hiking with my friend David up to Old Rag in Shenandoah National Park. We were advised to bring lots of water and start early. All the websites said that if you don’t get there by 7am, the upper parking lot will be full and you’ll have to park at the lower lot, which adds about 2 miles to your hike. Not a big deal, but I don’t really count it as hiking if you are just walking along the road. We also wanted to miss most of the crowd, so we headed out about 4:30am. I had to laugh when we got up to the lower parking lot and found this sign.

So we started the hike (with a nice little added warmup)

We were so happy-little did we know what we had signed up for. It was an extremely intense hike. Very steep, but really great. After about two hours, we finally hit the fun stuff! Rock Scrambling.






Does it count as scrambling if you are really just jumping down 10 foot crevices?


We were loving it, but it was also nice to get to a place where we could see the top.

Great views





At the top!

It was an amazing hike, but apparantely not enough adventure for David. He decided to take the “scenic route” (no-we weren’t lost) and this is where we ended up.

My poor car.

Billy Goat Trail

Went hiking this weekend to Great Falls. It was really beautiful, but the best part was the rock scramble! For a huge portion of the trail there is only giant boulders where you have to jump/scramble/try not to fall and break a leg.





There's David down there somewhere.

Success!

Now this is hiking!


There used to be a bridge. We saw the remains of it. But this way works too, right?

Recipes for a Cure

One of the local Cupcakeries is having a promotion to support Susan G. Komen breast cancer research. People submit both a recipe and a pic of a decorated cupcake (decorated in tribute to the fight against breast cancer) and Hello Cupcake will select the top five contestants. These five cupcakes will then be posted to facebook and people can vote for their favorite.

My idea was to use the Breast Cancer ribbon for an "L" and write the word "Love". Was a lot of fun and no matter what, its for a good cause!