2012

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.

Cold day and short time calls for a short hike, and when it can be both nearby and new, we figure we are in for a good hiking day.

Not-so-new instance of a Falls Ridge Nature Preserve hike seeming way shorter than its stated distance (cf Grassy Hill near Rocky Mount and Bottom Creek Gorge near Bent Mountain). Is it maybe chronic with The Nature Conservancy to overstate trail dis