September 2012

If it's a beautiful, tease-of-spring day, it's an especially beautiful tease-of-spring day on the Great Trail, and even more especially with The Greatest Day Hiker.

Some Valentine's Day anniversaries of our first weekly hike (Feb. 14, 2004) are better than others. On this, our eighth return to the scene of the original crime, the day was warm enough to walk with two layers and no gloves or ear cover.

Maybe part of the reason we'd never gone up the Little Rocky Row Trail off of U.S. 501 along the James is that it is off of U.S. 501, where the trailhead's easy to miss and the parking is 200 yards away and on the other side of the highway.

With temperatures projected to be in the 50s, it seemed like a safe-enough day from the perspective of weather to go up to 3,250-foot Barney's Wall above the Cascades in Giles County, Va.

It was 18 degrees when we got out of the car at 1 pm, and so The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All was double-timin' it from the first step; and for a change, I was right behind her with no problem.