Old Rag Mountain

Today I was lucky enough to get to go on a hike with some friends in beautiful Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. We all decided we wanted a break from the city (even though some of us live in the suburbs) and had heard good things about Shenandoah. None of us being regular hikers we naturally decided to try Old Rag Mountain, an 8 mile 2,000 ft elevation gain hike. There are not a lot of pictures of me from the front; apparently I am still not used to the humidity here and after walking for about 7 minutes I looked like I had jumped in a pool.

After about an hour and a half we reached rocky outlooks with a lot of other hikers and congratulated ourselves on making it to the peak so quickly.

It was super foggy which was a little spooky, especially at the top

Sitting on the edge of the world

After lunch we realized we were actually nowhere near the peak and thus began the rock scramble portion of the uphill hike.

This reminded me of something out of Lord of the Rings

Thanks goodness for all the blue trail markers or we would have been totally lost in all the rock formations

Obligatory "holding up rock" picture

Even though I am not really a city girl yet, it was still nice to get away for a day in such a beautiful place. It was definitely a challenge (especially because I am no regular hiker like my parents) but well worth it. The hiking is so different from what I'm used to in California and I loved seeing all the green!