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Published: July 25th 2010
As I was lying in bed this morning I thought about what we could do today. We both had haircut appointments. This meant driving to the Skyline Drive and hiking was out of the question. Then inspiration struck, I thought of Reddish Knob. We had not visited Reddish Knob for over 40 years. About all I could remember were the beautiful vistas from the top of the mountain. At breakfast Nancy agreed, Reddish Knob was a good idea.
It is a beautiful drive through the rolling hills and farm land of the Shenandoah Valley. The mountains are always in view. The narrow two lane roads are well maintained and there was little traffic. It was a very enjoyable morning.
Rising to 4,397 feet, Reddish Knob is the highest peak in the Northern Shenandoah Mountains. I had forgotten how narrow the last few miles of the road are, one lane with no room to pass an oncoming car. Fortunately we met no one on our way up or down the mountain. When we got to the top, we realized it was a foggy morning but by the time we left the fog had lifted and we could see far into
West Virginia.
The only unpleasant thing about the morning was that people had left a lot of trash all over the place. We gathered up 4 bags of bottles and cigarette packs, plates and socks (yes socks) and lots of other disgusting things and threw them in the trunk to carry out with us.
The peak was a riot of wild flowers, butterflies were there in great numbers and the bees were having such a good time collecting nectar that they completely ignored us. That was fine as far as we were concerned.
On our way back to Harrisonburg we stopped off at a spot called Hone Quarry. We used to camp there when we lived in Bridgewater. We have such fond memories of those good days and nights. We had carried a picnic with us so we sat at a table near the Dry River and enjoyed the coolness under the trees. We had desert of wineberries (hope the bears forgave us for eating part of them). The river was as Dry as its name since the Valley is in the midst of a very long dry spell with very high temperatures. This lack of
water in the stream convinced us that hiking on the Skyline Drive to various waterfalls would be a big disappointment. This gave us a good idea about a place to hike the next day. This is a small hint about a 'coming attraction' on this blog site!
Enjoy the photos.
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mary
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harrisonburg
we spent a week in that area in 1999, loved it!