2019 has come and gone, and it was an excellent year for hiking. Over the course of the year, I added 43 posts to Live and Let Hike and notched nearly 150,000 site visits (81,000 visitors). As always, the travel was diverse, spanning hikes and scenic drives from 13 states (plus the District of Columbia), …
Once a prominent landmark for wagon trains travelling along the Howardsville Turnpike in the early 19th century, Humpback Rocks is today an iconic, jagged promontory in Virginia’s George Washington National Forest frequented by hikers. Its proximity to Interstate 64 and Charlottesville, Virginia makes Humpback Rocks a dizzyingly popular destination, but no amount of crowds can …
Continue reading Humpback Rocks Trail (George Washington National Forest, VA)
Dropping more than 1,000 feet into the lush Tye River Valley, Virginia’s Crabtree Falls is often claimed to be the highest waterfall east of the Mississippi. This is a deceptive title, as the falls is actually a series of cascades, dropping in fits and starts over the course of more than a mile. But the …
Continue reading Crabtree Falls and The Priest (George Washington National Forest, VA)
The start of the new year offers a time to reflect on the year that was: although other commitments slowed my rate of production in 2018, I still managed to add 37 new posts during the year to Live and Let Hike. Like usual, the quest for hiking had me crisscrossing the country in 2018—from …
Eagle Rock, August 2018 The 252-mile Tuscarora Trail—the shorter cousin to the much-vaunted, nearby Appalachian Trail—weaves through tree-studded mountain ranges and rolling farmlands spanning four different Mid-Atlantic states: Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. While completing the full length of the trail takes several weeks, day hikers can cover short sections along the trail. There …
Continue reading Tuscarora Trail to Eagle Rock (George Washington National Forest, VA/WV)
This excellent hike combines two of the finest summits in northern Virginia in a strenuous circuit with considerable elevation gain and loss. The trek up Duncan and Strickler Knobs is not for the casual hiker; it involves significant climbs and drops, including a borderline Class II/III rock scramble to the summit of Duncan and a …
Continue reading Duncan Knob and Stricker Knob Loop (George Washington National Forest, VA)
2017 is nearly in the books, and it’s been a banner year for Live and Let Hike. Viewership reached new heights (roughly 85,000 visitors and 167,000 page views in 2017), and I added 76 new posts this year that covered hikes, scenic byways, and other destinations in 11 different states: California, Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, …
Tibbet Knob (2,920’) is the slightly lower, less crowded cousin of nearby Big Schloss, situated along the Virginia-West Virginia border in George Washington National Forest. The summit offers sweeping views of Trout Run Valley in the heart of the Great North Mountain range, while a lower viewpoint ½ mile from the trailhead looks out across …
Continue reading Tibbet Knob (George Washington National Forest, VA/WV)
Big Schloss, George Washington National Forest, October 2017 At 2,964 feet, Big Schloss is not the highest peak on Great North Mountain—which stretches for 50 miles along the Virginia-West Virginia border—but it is arguably the grandest. Named for the German word for palace or castle, Big Schloss offers panoramic views of some of the most …
Continue reading Big Schloss (George Washington National Forest, VA/WV)
Live and Let Hike hit its stride in 2016, nearly tripling the number of visitors and page views seen in 2015. I also passed a new milestone—my 200th blog post—and greatly expanded the geographic breadth and depth of hike descriptions, including posts from Colorado, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington, DC, and Quebec. Taking a break …
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