Archive for the ‘articles-Virginia hiking trails, etc.’ Category

Snowshoeing in Virginia

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

With the snowier than normal winter we’re experiencing, I purchased snow shoes. Snowshoes are a great low-tech invention to spread your weight over the snow so you can walk on top of it without sinking down in it.

Wooden Snowshoes

Wooden Snowshoes

One of the neat things about snowshoes is that not many people have them so you can have normally popular trails all to yourself. There were no human tracks on this section of the Appalachian Trail several days after the recent big snow storms (only animal tracks).

Animal Tracks on the Appalachian Trail

Animal Tracks on the Appalachian Trail

Here’s a shot of a nice winter view.

Winter Mountain View

Winter Mountain View

See Also: Recommended Snow Shoes

2009 Year in Review

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Some highlights from 2009…

Spring Wildflowers

Virginia Bluebells

Virginia Bluebells

OK, I’ll man up and admit it. I’m a guy who likes wildflowers. Highlights include Virginia bluebells (pictured above), yellow lady slippers, bloodroot, and spring beauties. Some of the best photos are now available from qoop. All wildflower pictures are accessible by name on the right panel of this page.

Parade of Black Bears

Patriotic Black Bear

Patriotic Black Bear

The 4th of July parade of black bears was my wildlife highlight of the year.

Hiking

Strickler Knob View

Strickler Knob View

We got in some good hiking trips last year. Our first hike up Strickler Knob with the McDonalds was a great hike. Strickler Knob is a really nice hike, not too far from the DC area.

Farther away, we also really enjoyed hiking Mt Rogers from Grayson Highlands State Park. I still need to upload and post the pictures from that trip. Look for that in the coming week(s).

Weather

After the December 19th Snowstorm

After the December 19th Snowstorm

I’ve started blogging more often about the weather here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Highlights from last year include the October snow event and the December 19th snowstorm, which dumped 21″ of snow (pictured above).

Bull Run Occoquan Trail Access and History

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
Virginia Bluebells

Virginia Bluebells

I recently responded to a question from J.D. on the PATC Trails Forum about access points to the Bull Run Occoquan Trail and historical sites along the trail:

The Bull Run-Occoquan trail is marked with blue blazes on trees and is pretty easy to follow. There are yellow and white horse trails branching off at various points so just look for the blue at intersections. In general, the trail has some steep but fairly short climbs.

Bull Run Regional Park

At the upstream end, the trailhead is near the Bull Run Regional Park campground store. You’ll see a big sign for the trailhead on the right side of the park road before getting to the campground building. This northern-most section is nice one along Cub Run and Bull Run, especially in early April when the bluebells are in bloom.

Route 28

Access at Rte 28 is a parking lot on the west side of 28 on the north side of the bridge. Downstream towards Hemlock Park, there are remnants of earthworks from the Civil War. Farther, towards Hemlock Park, you pass underneath the Norfolk Southern Railway tracks (originally the Orange & Alexandria RR). The bridge over Bull Run was destroyed and rebuilt seven times during the Civil War.

Hemlock Park

To access at Hemlock Park, you have to hike downhill a ways before reaching the Bull Run Occoquan Trail. At this point you can see the remains of a Bull Run power station which provided power to Clifton in 1925. Downstream between Hemlock Park and Bull Run Marina, the trail passes by the soccer fields at Kincheloe Rd. Here the trail may be a bit confusing to follow but just look for the blazes.

Bull Run Marina

At Bull Run Marina, you can access the trail by parking at the large lot where Fairfax County stores mulch for its residents on the south side of Old Yates Ford Road. There is a short trail toward Bull Run that passes an abandoned brick restroom before intersecting with the trail. Downstream from here, there were a couple of relocations a few years back where the old trail is now blazed yellow. You can use these to make loops (take blue trail out and yellow back for example). As a former overseer of this section, I liked this section a lot as it included some good views of Bull Run.

Fountainhead Park

Driving into Fountainhead Park, there is a large parking lot on the right side. On the other side of this lot (toward the woods), there is a large sign indicating the trailhead. Very near the trailhead is the Davis/Lewis family cemetery. About 2.5 miles up from the end of the trail at Fountainhead, there is a sign near Wolf Run Shoals indicating the trail overlaps the Washington and Rochambeau route they traveled in 1781 on their way to meet Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown.

See Also: Blue Bells and More along the Bull Run–Occoquan Trail

Virginia Wildlife Prints for Sale

Monday, November 9th, 2009

I’ve started uploading some of our better photographs to Qoop, where you can purchase prints (and more) for reasonable prices. If you see something on this site that you’d like to buy that isn’t in the Qoop store, just send me an email at spgass [at symbol] embarqmail [dot] com letting me know what you’re interested in.

Deer After Ice Storm

Highly Recommended

I’ve ordered several photo albums from Qoop.com and am very impressed with their quality and service.

Click the link to check out the store.

Buy My Photos

The Warrenton Branch Greenway

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
Warrenton Branch Greenway

Warrenton Branch Greenway

History

The Warrenton Branch Greenway is a paved trail running from downtown Warrenton to the east side of the eastern US 29 bypass. Long after regular passenger rail service stopped in Warrenton, Southern Railway operated some steam excursions to downtown Warrenton from Alexandria, Virginia in the mid-1970s. The branch line tracks into Warrenton were torn up and converted into a rail trail. Part of the branch is still in use from the mainline at Calverton to a quarry at Casanova about halfway towards Warrenton.

There are some railroad relics to be seen along the trail, including the site of an old turntable, a couple cabooses, and some railroad signage. Pictured above is a Southern Railway whistle sign. The two dashes, a dot, and a dash on the sign indicate to the engineer to blow the locomotive’s whistle (or horn) as a warning to the public. These signs are placed where the railroad approaches road crossings. Although the whistle pattern (2 long blasts, a short blast, and a long blast) is widely used, most other railroads used a simple W on their whistle signs. Norfolk Southern (successor to the Southern Railway) is now using W signs in places along former Southern trackage although there are still plenty of the old signs still in existence.

The old depot in Warrenton is now home to Claire’s at the Depot, a nice restaurant.

Wildlife

The 1.5 mile trail runs through town with views of backyards, but there is also an interesting marshy area on the north side, just west from the bridge over US29. Here is a link to a picture of some pokeweed at the east end of the trail. Wildflowers are also planted along the trail which I’m sure would look nice in the spring.