Back to Shenandoah!  This was an interesting hike because it started out downhill for about a mile or so, then we headed up an old fire road to the summit of Knob Mountain. There wasn’t much of a view on the way up, or at the summit, but we saw lots of mountain laurel and swallowtail butterflies. We hiked downhill for quite a ways, and then turned onto the trail that crosses Jeremy’s Run several times. The first crossing was relatively easy. My teammates picked their way across some semi-submerged rocks and I chose to take the high road, across a fallen log. At the second stream crossing, we changed out of our boots into our water shoes and just walked across the stream. The weather was comfortable—mid-60s and sunny—but the water was FREEZING. We stopped for lunch around 1:00 beside the stream. We left our water shoes on for about 5 more stream crossings. I led the pack for a while, keeping an eye out for bears (our hike leader had spotted two on his way into the park), rattlesnakes and copperheads (that like to sunbathe in the middle of the trail).

After checking out a waterfall and taking many pictures, we got back on the trail. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something slither. I made a noise that sounded something like “yeeeeeeeaaaaaaohmigod!” I immediately thought ‘yikes—rattlesnake!!’ Jon told me I jumped at least a couple of feet. It turned out to be a very large, but harmless blacksnake. Three of my teammates had breezed right past the snake without even seeing it.

The trail paralleled Jeremy’s Run for quite a ways, all the way heading gradually uphill. We put our boots back on, not realizing that we would still need to cross at least 6 more times… At around 3:00, it suddenly got dark, and then it started to rain. We quickly donned our raingear and trudged on. The rocks in the stream got even more slippery with the rain. Two people in my hike group had brought trekking poles, so we took turns using them to get across the stream, and then hand them back to the next person. Thank goodness for that—it would have been MUCH more difficult to cross without them. The pictures of the stream crossings kind of run together, but I assure you, there were something like 13 of them. Check out pictures here.

We wound back up the trail, which got steeper and steeper with every step. The last mile felt like the longest mile ever, but we finally made it!  After 8.5 hours (including breaks), we had hiked 13.5 miles. Whew!