Skyline Drive drive

A few times this fall, Teri and I thought about hitting Skyline drive, doing a little hiking, and checking out a brewery or winery. Usually this idea came to us after the weekend was over or it was too late to plan. So we finally planned it. She picked me up at 8am on Sunday and we were off. Good thing we had an extra hour of sleep thanks to the DLS time change.

The weather was nice. The leaves were about peaking in DC, which means they were past peak out in the mountains, but they were still very nice. Skyline Drive wasn’t as busy as I thought it would be. Traffic wasn’t bad at all. We picked two of the shorter hikes. One with a large waterfall and another with a 360 degree summit view. They were probably the more popular hikes for people doing the drive like us but they weren’t too busy. The waterfall hike was downhill the whole way there and a bit cold without my jacket. It was worth the hike though and much warmer walking back up. At the end of Skyline Drive we hiked up to a little rock covered summit. It only took 15 minutes so I convinced Teri to hike on. It was actually part of the Appalachian Trail. We ran in to two guys who were finishing up an overnight 14 mile segment. It wasn’t the most exciting portion of the AT though so we made a U-turn before we got to our planned turn around.

After the drive and the hiking we were ready for some food. I originally planned to go to Devil’s Backbone brewery which is a favorite of mine but when I saw that the Blue Mountain Brewery was having their 4th Anniversary Birthday party we headed there instead. There was a lot of people but not much special going on besides a moon bounce and kettle corn. We missed the special menu by about 30 minutes. We had some decent food, sampled all seven of their beers, and each got a growler fill to take home. Teri got the Rockfish Wheat and I got their Full Nelson.

On the way back we ended up on I-95 somehow thanks to our GPS. And as we were stuck in traffic we looked over and saw Mark and Michelle trying to get our attention. After connecting with them on the phone we followed them on Rt-1 for a bit to avoid the traffic. Not sure how much time we saved but it was nice to be moving.

It was a long day in the car but Skyline Drive, the hiking, and trying new beers was fun. I didn’t see any black bears as I did once in the past but maybe next time. I gotta get out in the mountains and woods every so often or I get withdraw.

The GPS data includes the whole day from the drive out to the drive back. If you go to the split times you can see that laps 2 and 4 are the two hikes we did.