Summer 2018. Hot weather and lots of free time – a perfect combination for a trip up north into the mountains and forests. Although technically it wasn’t that high in latitude to be called “north”, especially here in the US, but compared to South Carolina, it still was up north. I had been planning a hiking trip for quite some time, and it seems like I just needed some motivation, very generously provided by my girlfriend Courtney. We bought a bunch of stuff required for hiking for a couple of days because we decided it wasn’t worth renting those things every time we went hiking! However, that’s a story for some other day.

We drove up the Skyline Drive into the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. We decided to hike a few hiking trails over the course of three days, so we decided to start with the Matthew’s Arm Trail. Parking our car at the Hogback Overlook, which was pretty much at the top of the mountain, we started our hike down the Tuscarora-Overall Run Trail all the way to the bottom of the mountain where we decided to set camp. Here are a few highlights from our first day:

• 

• 

• 

The beautiful waterfall is the Overall Run Falls and the last picture is our campsite right by the river for the night. The second picture presents a beautiful view of the Shenandoah National Park from the trail. The next morning we started back up the hill. This was not the original plan, but we came across a couple who had been chased by a bear for about half a mile and they were running away from it, and we decided to join them!

After we got back to the top of the mountain, which took more than half the day, we crossed the Skyline Drive and went on the other side of the mountain, and making a big loop hiking on the Piney Ridge and Piney Branch Trails, and camping a night in the process, we came back to the Skyline Drive. We cut our hiking trip short by one day since it was harder than we expected. Once we got to the Skyline Drive, we realized we were at an unknown parking lot by the highway, with no means of getting back to our car. We hitchhiked and made it, and spent the rest of the day in Richmond, VA. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to capture a lot of stuff, but here are some images highlighting the rest of the hike and the way back. We took the Blue Ridge Parkway to get back to Clemson, which was pretty fun too.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Most of the images above are from our drive through the Blue Ridge Parkway. Any time is a good time for a drive through the parkway, but you should really, really check it out in the fall- it’s sublime! Anyway, that’s about it. It was a pretty eventful trip, one that got me so close to nature, and at the same time reminded how comfortable life is away from the forests! I hope you enjoyed this post!