Latest / Virginia Outdoor Adventures: Hiking, Camping, Kayaking, Local Travel and more! / Summer Hiking & Travel Adventures: Shenandoah National Park, British Columbia, Mount Rainier, & Mexico City (Ep 90, Pt 1)
Transcript
- 0:01Jessica Bowser: From the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia is a mecca for outdoor travel and adventure. Virginia Outdoor Adventures podcast is your local guide for hiking, camping, kayaking, travel, and so much more. Get the information and the inspiration to plan your own adventure right here in Virginia, I'm your host Jessica Bowser. What do you get when you pack a season with mountain hikes, national park trails, sunset paddles, waterfall rappelling, and a little international travel? A pretty epic summer. In this episode, we're going on a North American extravaganza from the snow-capped Rockies of British Columbia to the trails around Mount Rainier and into the mountains surrounding Mexico City, back in Virginia there are sunset paddles in regional and state parks, a road trip to a national wildlife refuge, conquering the Cascades of White Oak Canyon, a weekend escape in Shenandoah National Park, and a sneak peek visit to the first Virginia's Adventure Towns episode of the new season, but this isn't just a recap of places I visited. Along the way, I'll share the trails, parks, paddling spots, wildlife destinations, and practical details that can help you turn some of these ideas into adventures of your own. So, if you're looking for inspiration for your next trip, or just want to discover somewhere new?
- 1:24Jessica Bowser: There's a lot to cover. Let's go! Welcome back, friends, to another solo episode. I don't usually do two solo episodes this close together, but I have done so much traveling this summer, and I'm really excited to share it with you, not just for the fun of it, but also to share what I've learned along the way, so that if you want to plan a trip, you've got all of my advice and tips to help you do it. So I was hiking in Shenandoah National Park last week, and I looked down and saw a bright red leaf on the trail, and then a little further into my hike, I saw a bright yellow leaf, and then an orange one, and then many other orange and yellow ones. And I realized that the leaves are changing, and this just seemed weird to me. It was July still, isn't it? A little early. I'm used to seeing the first signs of fall in August, not in July. So I don't know what's been going on. I thought maybe it was just the high elevation, but then I came home to Northern Virginia, and my driveway is covered in leaves. And I looked out my back window at the forest behind my house, and there's like a hint of orange here on the tree and a hint of orange there. I don't know. It seems a little early, but what surprised me is my actual visceral reaction to the idea that summer is coming to an end and there are signs of fall, and don't get me wrong, I love fall. Many people love fall for really great reasons, but I think summer is my favorite. And so, whenever I see that summer is coming to an end and fall is on its way, I just feel really sad about the whole thing, which reminds me of something that I read a couple of years ago.
- 3:03Jessica Bowser: There was this article where they polled a bunch of random people and they asked them what was the most depressing holiday.
- 3:09Jessica Bowser: Can you guess what it is? I'll give you a hint. It's not Christmas or Thanksgiving, and it's not Valentine's Day. It's Labor Day. The reason why it's Labor Day is because people view Labor Day as the unofficial end of summer, and for many people, that means missed opportunities and regrets. I mean, you know what it's like at the beginning of summer. People set their intentions for their plans. They want to relax more. Maybe they're finally planning that trip or spending more time camping, hiking, or at the beach, spending more time with friends and family, or maybe just not working as much. But life gets in the way, and we don't always follow through with our intentions. And before we know it, summer's over. So if you're thinking that this is you, there is good news. Summer is not over yet. There's still time to make good on your intentions and avoid Labor Day being a depressing holiday for you too. I've been taking full advantage of my summer.
- 4:10Jessica Bowser: I've been hiking and wildlife watching all over North America, planning other adventures close to home here in Virginia. And when I'm not traveling, I'm at my neighborhood pool for aqua aerobics with all of my retired friends. Back to recapping summer adventures, starting with my favorite event of every summer, which is my birthday.
- 4:27Jessica Bowser: And not because I want to celebrate myself, I've finally gotten to the age where I am no longer excited about being another year older. But this birthday was especially meaningful because so many of you contributed to my birthday wish list, and I was worried that I wasn't going to reach the goal. But the goal was met and exceeded, and there are still contributions coming in. So, in case you missed it, I set up this birthday wish list on my Buy Me a Coffee page. I set a$750 goal to cover the production costs of. Of this podcast for the month of July, so that includes things like podcast hosting, editing, production software and tools, travel costs like fuel, food, hotels. Then there's monthly website fees, episode promotion.
- 5:14Jessica Bowser: There's all these behind the scenes expenses that most people don't think about. So I set up the wish list and then I left for Shenandoah. So more on the wish list later. I want to talk about Shenandoah. My annual birthday tradition since the pandemic is to go up to Shenandoah National Park for a few days, shut my phone off for the entire time, and just go solo for three straight days doing whatever the heck I want.
- 5:39Jessica Bowser: And this started back in 2020, I had a milestone birthday that year. I had spent months planning this epic trip to Banff in the Canadian Rockies, and then everything closed. So I pivoted and went to Shenandoah instead. And before I made the decision to do that, I was trying to figure out what else I could do to celebrate this milestone birthday, given that everything was shut down and everyone was social distancing, so I come up with this idea. I ordered a three-tiered cake that literally was big enough for a small wedding, and I had it made to look like the Blue Ridge Mountains. Basically, I wanted it to look like the park. So the woman who made it for me is amazing. She's done cakes for me in the past, but every single tier of the cake had the Blue Ridge Mountains on it. So there were ridge lines of old rounded mountains on every layer of the cake. There was a bear. There were birds. There were trees.
- 6:36Jessica Bowser: There was a silhouette of a female hiker, and then the top tier of the cake had this little trail sign on it that said"Adventure on Jessica. So I ordered this cake before I left.
- 6:46Jessica Bowser: I had my husband pick it up while I was gone, and when I got home, it was sitting on the kitchen counter, and it was beautiful. I just wanted to sit and stare at this cake forever.
- 6:57Jessica Bowser: I couldn't even bring myself to cut into it because it was the coolest looking cake I've ever seen. I loved it so much more than my wedding cake. Sorry, dear, that's just the truth. And it was just-it was awesome. It was absolutely stinking awesome.
- 7:13Jessica Bowser: And I probably would have left it on my kitchen counter had it not started to collapse a little bit, because it probably should have been in the refrigerator, but it wasn't. So after like a day, I was like, "Okay, I finally need to do something with this thing. So I ate more cake than any person should ever eat, and then when I finally had my fill, I sliced it up and I started delivering it to all of my friends, and that was how I celebrated my birthday. And in the end, I had a little bit of cake left over, so I sliced it up. I double wrapped it in Saran wrap and then tin foil, and I put it near tight containers, and I put them in my deep freezer. And every single year on my birthday, I pull a slice of that cake out, and I take it with me to Shenandoah, and I eat it while I'm watching the sunset at an overlook on my birthday.
- 8:00Jessica Bowser: And I've done that every year since 2020, and this year I finally had the last piece, and it was very sad. But also, like, how many years can you really have cake in your freezer and have it be good? I don't know.
- 8:13Jessica Bowser: It was good to me. It tasted to me like the day it was made, so I had no problem with it. But some people had asked me why do I have this birthday cake in my pictures, but then I also have the Shenandoah's signature blackberry ice cream pie. Every year, I also, while I'm in the park, go up to Big Meadows Lodge and make sure I get a piece of their signature blackberry ice cream pie, and I asked them to put a candle in it. Although one year, which I think was last year, they didn't have candles.
- 8:44Jessica Bowser: So this year I came prepared with my own candle. When the server brought the pie out to me, and I asked her, "Was it okay if I put my own candle in it and light it? She looked at me like I was completely nuts.
- 8:57Jessica Bowser: And then she's like, "Is it your birthday? And I said, "Yeah.
- 8:59Jessica Bowser: She's like, "I'm going to get you a candle. And I was like, No, no, I brought my own. It's fine. She goes, No, no, I'm gonna go get you one. So she goes out in the back, and I see her like behind the bar talking to the other staff, and I'm like, Oh no, this is gonna be a production. I don't want it to be a production. I just want a picture of this cake with the candle on it, while the whole staff comes out and they're all singing "Happy Birthday, and then the whole room starts singing "Happy Birthday, and I'm like, "Okay, this is overkill. I don't really need this kind of attention. So when they all finish singing, I said, "Don't sing, buy me a beer, and the whole room laughed, but nobody did. So so much for that attempt. There was another year that I was there on my birthday, and I ordered the ice cream pie.
- 9:42Jessica Bowser: I asked for a candle, and the server said, "Is it your birthday? And I said, "Yes. And then she turned around to go get the candle, and then she stopped. She spins back around and she says, "If it's your birthday, why are you here alone? And I just smiled at her and I said, "I." Can't think of a better way to be, and she like turned and looked out the window, and I swear I could see the wheels turning in her head.
- 10:05Jessica Bowser: And then she turns and looks back at me with this weird smile, and she goes right on.
- 10:12Jessica Bowser: And then she goes back to get the candle. And when the bill came later on, there was no pie anywhere on the bill. One of my favorite memories from one of my birthdays, but so that is two of my annual traditions on my birthday in Shenandoah. The other one is kind of reflective more than anything else. Several years ago, I bought this journal from one of the gift shops in the park on my birthday in 2020.
- 10:37Jessica Bowser: I sat in the lodge at Big Meadows really late at night and wrote down like everything that had happened that weekend and what it was like to hit this milestone and just all of the things that were going on in my life that year. And then for the next several years, I brought that journal with me and I did the exact same thing. I sat in Big Meadows Lodge and I wrote down what had happened and whatever other significant things I thought were going on.
- 11:05Jessica Bowser: And I'm not somebody who journals. Like I don't keep a journal at home. This is literally like the one and only time a year that I actually do this. And then I forgot to do it like the last couple of years, which is kind of unfortunate because what I did this year was I sat in the lodge at Big Meadows, and I reread all of those entries going back six years. And six years does not feel like a lot of time, but when I reread these things, I realize how much I've evolved as a person in just a short amount of time.
- 11:36Jessica Bowser: And I feel like the park itself has played a really big role in that evolution because it provides me with the space and the time to reflect, and it pushes me out of my comfort zone at times. And then that brings me to my final Shenandoah birthday tradition, and that is doing something that scares me every year, and that has looked different every single year. One year I went solo backpacking for the first time, which was a really big deal to me because even though I had backpacked with other people, I had never done it alone. And if you've probably heard me say before that for most of my life I've been terrified of the woods at night, and I know that that's silly. Going out there alone on my own was sort of like a really big deal, so that was one of them. I've hiked in the dark because, again, don't like being out in the dark in the woods by myself at night. So I've done that one year. I I picked a waterfall that was not on a trail, basically hiked off trail into the backcountry, and that made me really nervous because there's no trail to follow, and you can get lost pretty easily.
- 12:44Jessica Bowser: And so I had to really rely on all of my resources and do a lot of planning and really be prepared and sort of suck up that heavy feeling in my gut that I got before I took off.
- 12:57Jessica Bowser: Absolutely worth it. I had this magnificent waterfall all to myself. I didn't see a single other person because, of course, who else is going to be hiking off trail? And when I got back to the top, I was like, "Yeah, I did that. Don't know if I'll do it again anytime soon, but yeah, I did that. And so every year, I pick something new, something that I've either never done before or something that just basically scares the bejesus out of me, and I go and do it. And I don't always do it again after that, but I can say that I did it that one time and feel like a badass afterwards. So this year was the first time that I chose not to do that. 2026 has been a really challenging year to say the least, and it has been a year of a lot of self care. And so this year, I thought, no, I just don't feel like scaring myself this year. I think I will be much better off in relaxation mode. That was my decision. I didn't make any big plans, but I ended up, I ended up scaring the crap out of myself anyway. More on that in just a moment. If you're looking for the perfect Virginia mountain getaway, I've got a recommendation for you.
- 14:11Jessica Bowser: Just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Iris Inn and Cabins and nearby Afton Mountain Vineyards make an incredible base camp for outdoor adventure. The two properties are only about nine miles apart and surrounded by some of Virginia's best public lands and hiking trails. You can spend the day exploring iconic destinations like Shenandoah National Park, Humpback Rocks, or the waterfalls of Crabtree Falls. Then return to relax in the mountains. If hiking is the reason for your trip, be sure to ask about the Iris Inn's Trail Hikers Package. Whether you choose a cozy room or one of their private cabins tucked into the forest, you'll have a peaceful place to recharge after a day on the trail. The cabins offer a quiet mountain retreat where you can slow down, soak in the scenery, and enjoy the fresh Blue Ridge air. When it's time to unwind, head over to Afton Mountain Vineyards. Their estate-grown wines reflect the character of Virginia's Blue Ridge, and the tasting room offers sweeping vineyard and mountain views that make it easy to linger over a glass. It's the perfect way to celebrate a day spent outside. Another reason I love supporting these businesses is that both the Iris Inn and Afton Mountain Vineyards are proud Virginia Green Travel partners, helping protect the beautiful landscapes that make this region so special. So, if you're planning your next hiking adventure, make a weekend of it.
- 15:34Jessica Bowser: Stay at the Iris Inn, enjoy an afternoon at Afton Mountain Vineyards, and discover why the Blue Ridge is one of Virginia's most unforgettable outdoor destinations.
- 15:44Jessica Bowser: Start planning your getaway now by clicking on Iris Inn and Cabins and Afton Mountain Vineyards in your show notes.
- 15:55Jessica Bowser: So, what did I do in the park for three days? Well, people ask me for a park itinerary all the time, so this is a good one.
- 16:03Jessica Bowser: This was primarily in the central and southern districts because when I go up to the park for just the day, I tend to spend a lot of time in the northern and central part since those entrances are closer to Northern Virginia where I live.
- 16:16Jessica Bowser: And so, if I'm going to spend several days, then I try to stay somewhere farther south so that I can explore the Southern District, because I almost never go farther south than Big Meadows. Staying at Big Meadows means I get to go to new places in the park, or at least maybe not new, but places that I don't go to very often. If you have ever stayed at either Big Meadows or Skyland or any of the other accommodations in the park, you know that these were all built by the CCC in the 1930s, so they're old, and when you go inside, they are kind of outdated. So none of this is particularly luxurious, and it's not cheap either. But you are basically paying for the location and the experience.
- 16:56Jessica Bowser: There are so many beautiful Airbnbs just outside the park, and cute little motels that I have stayed in and have enjoyed.
- 17:05Jessica Bowser: But every now and then, I just like the location. I like not having to drive in and out of the park, especially late at night down Skyline Drive when there's wildlife jumping out in the road in front of my car. So that's why I chose Big meadows this time. There are many different types of accommodations in the park. If you stay at either of the lodges, you have your choice between staying in the actual lodge building, which is usually like a very small room, or you could get like a hotel motel type room. Some of them have balconies with views; others do not. Or you can get a cabin.
- 17:39Jessica Bowser: None of these have air conditioning, I don't think, which you don't really need even in the middle of the summer because it gets cool at night in the mountains. So I've never really felt like I needed air conditioning. There might be some of the more expensive ones that do have air conditioning, but I just don't think that's a splurge you need to make. The cabins, and actually this is true for all of them. I would all of the accommodations. I would say there is no noise barrier whatsoever because these are all really old structures.
- 18:11Jessica Bowser: So the cabins, I think, are especially bad when it comes to the noise because every cabin is split down the middle. You're staying on one side, somebody else is staying on the other side, and you can hear everything. So the last cabin I stayed in this year, somebody was snoring, and I heard that all night long. There was another time I stayed in a cabin, and there was an older couple staying on the other side. And I only know this because I heard them. I never saw them. They weren't doing anything particularly noisy or abnormal, they were just talking. Sometimes they would sneeze, or cough, or just walk around, and I heard all of it.
- 18:47Jessica Bowser: And then there was another time I accidentally set the fire alarm off at 1230 at night. I checked in really late, and I needed a shower, and the steam from the shower set off the fire alarm, and I jumped out of the shower, panicked because I knew that I was waking up everybody around me. But there was like nothing I could do, and I felt really awful about it. So if noise bothers you, keep that in mind. If you're going to stay in a building that has two levels, I would suggest the upper level.
- 19:17Jessica Bowser: If you don't have a lot of bags or stuff that you're carrying upstairs. It's just it's it's better for the noise.
- 19:26Jessica Bowser: So this time, I was in the main lodge at Big Meadows, and if you're standing in front of the lodge looking at the lodge, there's a row of rooms off to the right, and the doors are right there at the front of the lodge. And so I had the very last room. It was room seven, and I was so excited. I thought it was fantastic when they gave me my key, and I realized how close I was to the lodge. I was like, I don't even have to make coffee in the room. I can just walk right out and get it over in the main lodge. But then I quickly realized that it was not all. That fantastic when a very lovely family from Germany pulled up behind me and checked in, and then went right up to their room, which was right above my head. And so for three days, all I heard were kids running around at night at 6o'clock in the morning, and I was like, "Oh my gosh! It was like it was just constant noise.
- 20:18Jessica Bowser: It didn't stop, and again, they weren't particularly loud. It's just that you hear everything, so that is definitely something I don't love about it. But it's a trade-off. It's all it's all a trade-off. You get to stay in a historic building. It's all about the experience and location, location, location. So after checking into my room, it was already getting close to 5o'clock, so I decided I needed dinner. Didn't want to pay for it at the lodge, so I had backpacking meals with me that I had made at home in my dehydrator in my kitchen. So I jumped in my car, started heading south down Skyline Drive, and went to Lewis Mountain. There is a campground there, but if you turn into the entrance to the campground before you get to the campground, there's a really beautiful picnic area. I pulled into there, and nobody was around, and I had the whole huge picnic area all to myself. So made dinner. After that, got back on Skyline Drive, drove a few more miles south because I decided to do South River Falls.
- 21:22Jessica Bowser: South River Falls is located also at the beginning of a picnic ground. It's not a big hike, and because it was already like 6o'clock, I I needed something that was short. And it's 2.6 miles, I believe, round trip to the observation point for the waterfall and back again. I think the sign estimates it at like an hour and a half, and I was like, "Oh, good, I could do this. Except that I completely underestimated it because I didn't just go to the observation point and back up again like I've done so many times in the past. This time, I wanted to make sure I actually got to the base of the waterfall. I once you get to the observation point where you can see the waterfall, although I would argue you really can't see it anymore because it's so overgrown. I have never gone all the way down to the base. You you can you can keep going down the trail, and there's a fire road that takes you down to the base of the falls, so it's relatively easy. And then on the way back, you can either backtrack or you can take another fire road that then connects to the Appalachian Trail, and you turn onto the Appalachian Trail to bring you back to your original starting point. So I decided, in all of my wisdom, I decided that I was going to hike to the bottom of the waterfall and also take the fire road back. Brilliant idea at that hour of the day. So I get down there to the base of the waterfall, and it is spectacular. There is nobody else around. The waterfall just had this like I don't know how to describe the feeling about it. It was like I was in some sort of a fairy tale, everything was sort of dark. Everything was really green and lush and mossy, and I'm like, "Wow, I could sit down here all day until I realized that all day was only about 20 more minutes before the sunset.
- 23:14Jessica Bowser: So I sat there for a while because I wanted to enjoy it, but then I packed up and I start heading back up, and I'm like,"This is cool. There's still plenty of daylight left. I don't need to worry about getting stuck in the dark. This is going to be totally fine. And of course, I have a headlamp with me. I always do. It's part of the 10 essentials. Always have your headlamp. Make sure it's fully charged. But at the same time, I was like not really planning to be hiking in the dark, so I'm walking up, and it ends up getting completely dark.
- 23:44Jessica Bowser: I'm not even halfway up the fire road, and it is pitch black.
- 23:48Jessica Bowser: There is no moon, and I prefer to hike without a headlamp on because I feel like it's easier to see, especially when there's some moonlight. It doesn't even have to be a lot, but your eyes adjust to the dark, and then you can see everything around you.
- 24:03Jessica Bowser: If you put a headlamp on, your eyes adjust to the light, and then that's all you see is what's being illuminated in front of you. And my comfort level is I would rather see everything around me, even if it means walking in the dark, than only see a few feet in front of my face and nothing else. But it was way too dark for that, and so I'm hiking up the fire road in the dark for as long as I can without a headlamp. And normally, this is something that would just scare the bejesus out of me. Like in past years, I would have been completely freaking out if I would have somehow miscalculated and ended up still on the trail in the dark, especially for that long.
- 24:43Jessica Bowser: But this is, like I said, this has been a rough year, and I was just so darn happy to be outside on my own on my solo birthday weekend, nobody around, my phone completely shut down, and just hiking. And I didn't care if it was in the. I didn't care. I probably wouldn't have cared if it started thunderstorming.
- 25:03Jessica Bowser: There was just enough breeze to stay cool. Like it was an extremely hot and humid day, and I didn't feel any of that. I'm trekking up this hill. It's not particularly difficult because it's a fire road, but it's a nice steady incline. So I'm still huffing and puffing, but like not pushing it, and just so like in a zone. At some point, it occurred to me that I never would have been able to do this a few years ago, and to be able to do it this time and not be freaked out even the least bit, to actually be calm and happy and like Zen was a really big deal until I turned onto the Appalachian Trail because there's a very big difference between hiking on a fire road in the dark and hiking on a narrow footpath that is full of large rocks and tight bends and all of the things. So there are things you have to navigate. So at that point, once I turned on to the AT, then I did finally pull my headlamp out of my pack and turn it on, and then the bug starts swarming around your head. It's just, I do have a red light on that, which helps a lot. So I I hiked with the red light on. If you can get a headlamp with the red light, I would recommend that. Even if you don't hike in the dark, if you go to any of the dark sky programs, by the way, that is an excellent thing to have with you. Just to go from your car to the viewing area, from the viewing area to the restroom, from the restroom back to your car, all of those things. Having a red light is just fantastic because you cannot have white lights at dark sky viewing programs. Which, if you're interested in those and you haven't heard the recent episode about dark sky parks in Virginia, that would be episode 86, stargazing in Virginia, dark sky parks with Ranger Patrick McNamara. Check that out. I made it all the way back to the car alive, and I was particularly proud of myself after that.
- 27:04Jessica Bowser: Not so much because I had done the hike in the dark, but because I realized that I think I have finally gotten over my fear of hiking in the dark. So I left the picnic ground and started to head back to my room at Big Meadows. When I finally got back into cell service range, I went to text my husband to let him know that I had made it back. I was a little concerned that he was going to be worried because I always let him know where I'm hiking and when I'm supposed to be back, and I'm almost always supposed to be back before dark. So I was a little concerned that he would be freaking out that I hadn't checked in yet. So it took me a while to get back to cell service range, but then I went to text him just to find out that he had texted me first 20 minutes before to let me know that he was going to bed. So pro tip: always let somebody know where you're going to be hiking, how long you're going to be, when you're going to be back, and choose carefully because if you don't, the person that is supposed to be making sure that you're alive might decide to just go to bed before making sure that you're not dead. Known as the Grand Canyon of the South, Brakes Park is a hiking destination in the heart of Appalachia. You'll find trails for every skill level, featuring geologic wonders, canyon overlooks, stream crossings, and abundant wildlife. Stay close to the adventure with lodges, cabins, and campgrounds inside the park. Beyond the breaks, the heart of Appalachia invites you to hike and bike through breathtaking mountain landscapes, paddle hidden hollows, reel in trout from crystal-clear streams, or hop on an ATV to conquer the rugged spearhead trails, take a scenic drive, embark on an elk tour, and explore Virginia's treasured Southwest, where you'll also find vibrant local dining, shopping, and celebrations. Your next outdoor adventure starts in the heart of Appalachia. Tap the links for Brakes Park and Heart of Appalachia in your show notes. So the next morning, I headed off to do the Doyles River Upper and Lower Falls and the Jones Run Falls hike. I've done this hike in the past, but I've done it as an out and back to see the three waterfalls. I wanted to do it as a circuit this time. So there's a connector trail that leads up to the Appalachian Trail, and you end up taking the Appalachian Trail back, so it does a big loop. I stopped off at Loft Mountain Wayside to use the restroom right before I started off down this hike, and I'm coming out of the restroom, and they have the radio playing through the speakers, and I hear the woman on the radio say that there are very severe thunderstorms predicted for the day, and please, everybody, be safe out there and don't let yourself get caught outside. And I'm going, wait, what? That is not what I saw on the forecast.
- 29:50Jessica Bowser: But I had checked the forecast the night before and forgotten to check it that morning. I don't know what the heck is wrong. With me, maybe it's age again, but I just keep making these rookie mistakes. I don't know why I've been doing this way too long to have this happen, but I immediately tried to check my phone, and there is no cell service. I asked the only person working there if there was Wi-Fi. She said no. I said, "If you did, you happen to hear the weather forecast today, and she's like, "Um, I think it's supposed to be usually 70 degrees every day. And I'm like,"What are you talking about? She was trying to give me the overall like weather for the entire season instead of telling me what it was supposed to be for that day. So she was completely useless, and there was nobody else there, and no way for me to check. So the rest of my hike that day was completely altered by me freaking out that there were these horrendous thunderstorms coming that I was going to probably die from. So I changed my whole plan. I was supposed to start at a different trailhead and do about a six-mile hike.
- 31:02Jessica Bowser: I instead decided to start at the trailhead that was closest to the waterfall, so that I could do the out and back again.
- 31:08Jessica Bowser: And the whole time, I'm like watching the sky. Well, I get down to the last waterfall, and everything's beautiful. Like sky's blue, sun is shining. Now we all know that that can change at a moment's notice. But I thought I just you know I I don't really feel like anything's happening here. I'm probably going to eat those words later, but I think I'm just going to keep going. And just as I was about to take off, another couple arrived, and I asked them if they had heard the weather, and they were like, "Oh yeah, a friend of mine was saying that it's supposed to thunderstorm. I said, "Well, do you know what time? And they're like, "No, and I'm like, "Do you not have any concerns about thunderstorms? They're like,"No, just absolutely not. So I kept going. But before I decided to keep going, I had this really lovely afternoon. If you have never, or morning, I should say, if you've never done this hike before, there are three waterfalls on it: upper and lower Doyles, both of them are really pretty, and you can get really close to them this time of year. There's not a whole lot of water, but there was certainly enough water to make it enjoyable and make it worth the hike. The last waterfall on the hike, the Jones River Falls, is particularly nice because it's a much taller waterfall, and there is a lot of flat, smooth rocks at the base of this waterfall that you can sit on. I sat there and ate my lunch, and in the time that I was sitting there, I saw a whole lot of different things. Some very large animal lost its spine, and it was at the base of the waterfall. So I don't know if it was a deer or a bear or what, but it was a really big animal spine at the bottom of of this waterfall. Lots of butterflies in this one area. They were eating something out of the ground. I know that they really like different minerals and stuff out of the dirt, and so there was just dozens and dozens of tiger swallowtails, buckeyes, all kinds of different butterflies just eating off the ground and fluttering around.
- 33:05Jessica Bowser: Fish swimming in the little puddles. I saw some American goldfinches bathing in the waterfall, which was really pretty. Bright yellow birds bathing in the falls. A snake, a northern water snake came out of the rocks and was slithering around. I always love seeing snakes. I always get excited no matter how many times I've seen a northern water snake. It was a juvenile. It was just a very serene morning. I decided to keep moving up the trail. I came across a family with two young kids. I asked them if they had heard about the weather, the wife was like, "Oh yeah, I heard it was a thunderstorm this afternoon. I'm like, "Do you know when? She's like, "I think sometime after six. That's what I saw in the weather when I checked it three days ago. And I'm just like, "Really, you two?
- 33:53Jessica Bowser: I finally, after like another half hour past another couple, at this point, I'm already like getting panicked because I see like one isolated dark cloud in the distance, and when you're in the forest under the canopy, you can't see the whole sky. So I couldn't tell like how big it was, how far away it was, and I was like, "Yep, that's that just about figures. I'm gonna get caught in the worst thunderstorm of the summer. I'm gonna get electrocuted. This is like gonna be the headline across all the papers. Like local D-list celeb dies on a hike, but I passed this other younger couple. They were fly fishing, and they told me that yes, there were supposed to be thunderstorms, but not until much later. And that one isolated cloud was nothing to be concerned about, or they never would have headed down the trail. So I finally felt some reassurance. Hiked up to the Appalachian Trail. There was a little bit of rain on the way back, but it literally lasted like 510, minutes, and it was light.
- 34:54Jessica Bowser: It was like just enough for me to take my pack off, put all my camera gear into. Pack get the rain cover out, put that on, and then have it stop. There's really pretty views on that section of the AT because it crosses a couple of overlooks, and then made it back to the car. I don't, I forget how much, how how long it took me, but it ended up being a 7.7 mile hike when I thought it was only going to be like six or six and a half, and that's because I had changed the trailhead where I started because I thought it would be shorter in case I needed to get back quicker. But it actually ended up being much longer. That hike is rated strenuous, and I felt every bit of it in my old bones by the time I got back to the car, I know that there are people who think that I just hike all the time. That couldn't be the farthest thing from the truth. I think the last big hike that I did was the bottom of the Breaks Trail at the first week of May with Rangers Ronnie and Daniel for that episode that I just put out about trails and trail developments at Breaks Park, that was that trail is a doozy.
- 36:04Jessica Bowser: I'm sure you've probably heard that episode, but if you haven't, it is really popular.
- 36:06Jessica Bowser: The downloads on that are going off the charts, so people are loving it. I'm getting all these messages about how people are planning their next trip to the breaks after hearing that episode. So check that out if you haven't done it yet. But really, I don't, you know, I don't get to do that much hiking anymore when I'm running a small business. So unless it's part of the business, or if I'm just, you know, if I'm traveling and I get to do some hiking on my traveling, so it's really not the luxurious hiking lifestyle that you're probably imagining a podcaster might have. I was really feeling it by the end of that hike, but then I drove to no, I went to the picnic grounds, and here's where it gets really funny. I went to the picnic grounds to eat, and whenever I hike in the summer, I always hit, or even in the winter, I always have a change of dry clothes with me because I know I'm going to be all sweaty and all of my clothes are going to be wet and I hate feeling wet, especially if like the wind starts to blow or it gets a little cooler. You can, I mean, you especially in the winter you can get hypothermia pretty quickly if your clothes are wet.
- 37:13Jessica Bowser: So I packed dry clothes, but I did not pack. I did not pack a dry sports bra. I don't know what the heck I was thinking, but I didn't. So I'm on the I'm at the picnic ground making dinner, and I'm like, I've boiled the water and I've poured it into the bag, and I'm waiting for my meal to rehydrate. And I was like, I've got to get out of these wet clothes. There's nobody around, so I take the sports bra off, and I'm like, where am I going to hang this thing? There was like no place to hang it, even with all these trees around, no place to hang it. So I grabbed a carabiner out of my car. The biggest one I had was a climbing carabiner, and I tried to hook it to the roof rack of my car, but the carabiner wasn't big enough. So I managed to just barely get it hooked onto the door handle, and I left it there the whole time I was eating. And then I heard the thunder start to rumble, and the the sky got super dark. And I was like, "Okay, time to go. So I pack up. It's still not dry.
- 38:12Jessica Bowser: So I decide that I am going to drive down Skyline Drive with my wet sports bra flapping in the wind, and so that is exactly what I did. I'm like looking out my side mirror, watching this thing flowing around, and I'm thinking, I wonder what other people passing me are thinking of this.
- 38:40Jessica Bowser: Like it's it's flapping too fast to know what it is, so I'm wondering how many people are like, "What the heck is that?
- 38:47Jessica Bowser: And then when the rain finally started, I pulled over and I unhooked it from the door handle and I hooked it onto my rearview mirror. I spent the rest of the day driving around with it, dangling from my rearview mirror, yeah. You know the best part about getting older is you stop giving a you know what about so many things. I'm gonna blame it on age now. That's gonna be my mo. And then I just drove to an overlook and enjoyed my last slice of birthday cake from 2020 while I watched the sunset, there wasn't much of a sunset that night, but nevertheless, you cannot go wrong with any sort of mountain sunset, regardless of whether it's the most spectacular one or not. And then I headed back to the lodge for a very peaceful night of sitting in the quiet lodge next to the fireplace, writing in my journal, and being especially grateful to making it to this age because a lot of people don't, and that's what I'm told is that as you get older, you should always be grateful for the privilege of getting older. So that's what I did. That's where we'll wrap up part one with the beginning of a three-day escape into Shenandoah National Park. When we come back next week for part two, we'll pick up where that story leaves off before heading much farther from home, with hikes through the snow-capped mountains of British Columbia, the trails around Mount Rainier, and some high-elevation adventures in and around Mexico City, and there's still plenty more closer to home, including sunset paddles, waterfall rappelling, a road trip to a national wildlife refuge, and a visit to the next destination in the Virginia's Adventure Town series. There's a lot more adventure ahead, so I hope you'll join me next week for part two. Virginia Outdoor Adventures is inspired by and supported by listeners like you, which is why your messages and feedback mean so much to me. You can text me directly by clicking on Send Jessica a text message in your show notes. I answer questions, respond to comments, and share your feedback on the show. Never miss a new episode.
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- 41:21Jessica Bowser: Thanks for listening. Until next time, adventure on.