Hiking the Doyles River Falls Trail
Blue Ridge Trip '24 #10
Afton, VA - Tue, 3 Sep 2024. 1:30pm
Today we've driven up to the Skyline Drive northwest of Charlottesville, VA. We're not here just to drive the Drive, though that is a worthy thing to do on a pleasant late-summer day. We're going hiking on the Doyles River Falls trail in Shenandoah National Park.
Because the Skyline Drive roughly traces the crest of the Blue Ridge mountains, many of the hikes from up there are "upside down". Meaning, we hike down on the way in... and up on the way back. Years ago an outdoors writer quipped it's like going on vacation on your credit card. You pay when you return.
Indeed the first part of this trail was down, down, down... and not just down but steeply down. In the first 10 minutes we'd already descended 300 feet. I figure it's going to take a lot longer than 10 minutes to climb that last leg of the trail on the way out.
Well below that point, more like 800 feet down from the start, we reached the first of three waterfalls.
This is the smallest waterfall of the three and is unnamed. I'd say it's a nice little reward for the energy we'd expended, an appetizer for the main course, except that we haven't really expended any energy yet. I mean, hiking downhill is tough in its own way-tough mostly on knees and toes- but it's not the cardio workout that climbing back up will be.
Not far below the unnamed falls is Upper Doyles River Falls. Yeah, the people responsible for naming things here were really phoning it in. They went from an unnamed falls to an uninspiringly named falls. But hey, it's a double falls. Yes, both the lower and upper halves are Upper Doyle River Falls. Uninspired.
Someone was already splashing around beneath the lower falls with their dogs, so we scrambled up the rocks on one side to get to the base of the upper tier.
It was nice here, so we stayed for a while. I'd say we were resting our aching muscles, but again, our hard work was yet to come.
As other people arrived we swapped places to the lower tier of falls so someone else could enjoy the upper tier.
Of course, from below the lower half we can still enjoy (as in, see) both halves.
Soon enough it was time to continue downhill. Lower Doyles River Falls awaits!
Keep reading: Lower Doyles Falls & back to the top!
Afton, VA - Tue, 3 Sep 2024. 1:30pm
Today we've driven up to the Skyline Drive northwest of Charlottesville, VA. We're not here just to drive the Drive, though that is a worthy thing to do on a pleasant late-summer day. We're going hiking on the Doyles River Falls trail in Shenandoah National Park.
Because the Skyline Drive roughly traces the crest of the Blue Ridge mountains, many of the hikes from up there are "upside down". Meaning, we hike down on the way in... and up on the way back. Years ago an outdoors writer quipped it's like going on vacation on your credit card. You pay when you return.
Indeed the first part of this trail was down, down, down... and not just down but steeply down. In the first 10 minutes we'd already descended 300 feet. I figure it's going to take a lot longer than 10 minutes to climb that last leg of the trail on the way out.
Well below that point, more like 800 feet down from the start, we reached the first of three waterfalls.
This is the smallest waterfall of the three and is unnamed. I'd say it's a nice little reward for the energy we'd expended, an appetizer for the main course, except that we haven't really expended any energy yet. I mean, hiking downhill is tough in its own way-tough mostly on knees and toes- but it's not the cardio workout that climbing back up will be.
Not far below the unnamed falls is Upper Doyles River Falls. Yeah, the people responsible for naming things here were really phoning it in. They went from an unnamed falls to an uninspiringly named falls. But hey, it's a double falls. Yes, both the lower and upper halves are Upper Doyle River Falls. Uninspired.
Someone was already splashing around beneath the lower falls with their dogs, so we scrambled up the rocks on one side to get to the base of the upper tier.
It was nice here, so we stayed for a while. I'd say we were resting our aching muscles, but again, our hard work was yet to come.
As other people arrived we swapped places to the lower tier of falls so someone else could enjoy the upper tier.
Of course, from below the lower half we can still enjoy (as in, see) both halves.
Soon enough it was time to continue downhill. Lower Doyles River Falls awaits!
Keep reading: Lower Doyles Falls & back to the top!