Unexpectedly finding ourselves in New York on an unplanned road trip, my partner and I decided to do what we do best — hike in the mountains. This would be my first significant hike in New York since the Appalachian Trail in 2016. Wanting to go somewhere new to both of us, we set our sights on the Adirondack Mountains, a roughly 160-mile wide circular dome of mountains in northeast New York. Our target: Cascade and Porter Mountains, two of easiest of the Adirondack High Peaks to summit.
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My second hike on Friday was the Frazier Discovery Trail, a 1.4 mile loop in the southern district of Shenandoah National Park. The trail, starting from the Loft Mountain Wayside at milepost 80 on Skyline Drive, forms a loop with a short section of the Appalachian Trail as it climbs and descends from Skyline Drive to, and from, the ridge between Big Flat Mountain (home of the Loft Mountain Campground) and County Line Mountain.
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I took two short hikes in Shenandoah on Friday. The first was the Turk Mountain Trail, a short (2.4 miles) out-and-back trail in the southern district of Shenandoah National Park that leads to the summit of Turk Mountain and some nice views of the Shenandoah Valley to the west.
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Today, I took an excursion to the Meadowood Recreation Area in Lorton, VA. Managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Meadowood has about 14 miles of hiking trails, in addition to mountain biking and equestrian trails and two fishing ponds. The park’s trails also are host to two national trails: the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail, and the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail.
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