Shenandoah Natl Park's RipRap Trail

Rip-Rap Trail runs between Skyline Drive and State Road 612 east of Crimora, about eight miles south of Grottoes. It's absolutely Gorgeous, pun intended. Click on the picture below and see if you can see the stream on the left. The trail is about five miles long top to bottom, and about a mile from the bottom, Wildcat Ridge Trail cuts off and returns to Skyline Drive, albeit about four miles south of the start of RipRap. Hence, it is a nice day-long loop. However, ... I like to start at the bottom. That way, when I get tired, it's downhill back to the car. I took it slow and easy today... there was lots to see -- such as this orange shelf fungus that caught my eye. And the lichen on this rock. Click for the big version. The canopy was solid all the way up, and the shady dale was nice and cool. You simply MUST click on the picture below to appreciate the colors in the rocks in the gorge. When you hike in the forest, you see a lot more than when you drive through the forest. And when you mosey through the forest, you see a lot more than when you hike. Today I was moseying. She didn't even notice that I was standing there. The mountain laurel is in full bloom. I had solid flowers for the first mile.

Click on the pic below and imagine "you are here". Ahhhh, heaven.

The picture below is just over two miles up the trail. The cascade empties into a pool that has to be at least 20 feet deep. Lots of huge trout swimming around, possibly as big as 10-12-inches. Click and look closely at the top above the cascade... those are pink rhododendrons blooming up there.

Words cannot begin to describe the solitude, the peace, the feeling of enjoyment I get from being out here...

The mountain laurel dominated the lower mile, the rhododendron started kicking in about a mile up. Solid flowers all the way...

Click below and see if you can see the rhododendrons up above the stream...

What is the plant below? Hint: it's used to make original root beer!

This is where I turned around to come back down. It is just under three miles up from the bottom -- a great walk in the woods.

You can't get lost.

Very enjoyable...

Guess Where I Went Today -- Part X

I got a late start today. Two companies agreed to let me do audits, bringing my total for the trip up to seven. But it meant I didn't leave Billings until early afternoon, to make the 11 hour journey to Sioux Falls. So guess where I went today... Totally over-rated. Terribly disappointing. Not worth the 30-minute drive out of my way to see. Positively not worth the $10 admission fee (no, they didn't honor my National Access Card which supposedly gets me into every single national park, forest, monument, and every other site run by the federal government, but here the lady said, "we are a concessionaire and don't have to honor the passes. Ten dollars please." The carving is visible only from one little tiny part of a valley, and they have constructed artificial hills to hide it from the road, so to see it you have to pay, and then park and walk half a mile to the overlook. And after all that, the carving is on the east side of the mountain, which means that anytime after about 1 pm, you are staring into the sun to see the figures. And the statues aren't really that big after all, especially compared to the Stone Mountain monument in Georgia. The snack bar wanted $6.50 for a hot dog, and $4. 75 for a small Pepsi (no Cokes, even!). I passed on the eats. And the coup de grace: the little town of Keystone, the closest settlement anywhere near Mount Rushmore, is not only a tourist trap which would make the Florida Alligator Farms look classy, it's a speed trap, too, on a six-lane divided highway with speed limit of 65 which goes to 25 about 100 feet from where ten cops were waiting, six writing tickets. Of course, I never speed, so I was doinig 25, although it meant I had to slam on my brakes so hard all the stuff in the back seat went flying onto the floor. (Town of Keystone. Cops. Keystone Cops. The irony is not lost on me!) Three words come to mind: Rip Off Extraordinaire. If you get the chance to see Mount Rushmore, pass. Or at least let me say, I told you so. The weather is still amazingly nice. And I haven't yet hit any deer, antelope, buffalo, prairie dogs, or even any jackrabbits! ... although there are thousands upon thousands of those animals dead along the interstate. Enough to feed the entire state of West Virginia for a month!

Guess Where I Went -- Part IX

Dubby doesn't like guessing games, so I'll go ahead and tell you. Idaho Falls, Idaho. East of Idaho Falls.

Teton Pass, Idaho. That's Jackson Hole in the background below.

There was LOTS of snow up at Teton Pass. The snow under my feet here is about 10 feet deep.

I didn't have much time to hike today, so most of my pictures are taken from roadside overlooks. However, I did take the time to hike about a quarter mile up a trail at the top of Teton Pass. It was only about 15 minutes, but it was a nice walk. Temperature here was about 60 in the sunshine.

A 10% grade, and they weren't fooling. This is twice as steep at the 5% grade coming off Swift Run gap east of Elkton Virginia.

Jackson, Wyoming. Look closely at the arch behind me below. It's made entirely of elk antlers. There were a dozen or more of these in the town of Jackson.

Below: la trois tetons. I can't identify which three peaks are the three being spoken of, but the whole range is pretty. Not as pretty as trois real tetons, of course, but pretty nonetheless.

Jenny Lake, in the Grand Teton National Park.

Another shot of Jenny Lake.

Hmmm. I wonder if this Jenny is the one with the "grand tetons"?

Below: Jackson Lake, a few miles north of Jenny Lake, looking south. Nice reflection.

From the Tetons I drove north to Yellowstone National Park. The road is torn up (really, truly, torn up... right down to the dirt) because they are rebuilding it, so it's one lane all the way from the Tetons to Yellowstone. What would normally be about a 1-hour drive at 65 mph is a five-hour ordeal of driving 15 minutes through thick dust at 25 mph, then waiting for 15 minutes stopped dead while oncoming traffic goes by, then driving another 15 minutes through the dust, etc. ---- But finally... Yellowstone Park.

The park is huge. It takes several hours just to drive from one end to the other. And several more hours if you stop to see things, the way I did. Yep, that's Old Faithful in the background below.

Solid ice on the lake below. It's late May and several lakes are still frozen over completely. It's melting slowly, but the entire lake is still covered with ice.

Where the buffalo roam.

Lots of geysers, steam springs, fumaroles, bubble pots, etc.

Buffalo, and more buffalo. They are like shaggy cows. They wander the roadway, block traffic, make piles of poop, and like cows, ten of them put together have the cumulative intelligence of a rock.

One of the many waterfalls along the road in the park.

Over 800,000 acres (almost half the park) burned in 1988. The good news is, the young trees are growing nicely. They won't be a real "forest" for another hundred years or so (things grow slowly up here), but for now, they are nice and healthy.

Below is the famous canyon that gave Yellowstone its name.

That's the "lower" falls in the background below.

Below is a classic view looking up Yellowstone Canyon. You see this view a lot in picture books and promotional photos of the park.

This is looking across the canyon...

And this is looking down the canyon to the north...

Below is another "classic" view. It was late in the day, about 6 pm. The falls were in the shade, so the photo isn't quite as professional as I would have liked. But click on it to see the big version.

And here is my favorite shot. Again, the falls in the shade, but still a pretty picture. Click below to see a bigger version.

You can see why it's named Yellowstone.

It took me two solid hours of driving to get from the canyon to the northern park boundary at Mammoth Hot Springs. I arrived there about dark. Then it took another hour of driving to get to Interstate 90 in Montana, and two more to go east to Billings. It's almost midnight. Long Day. But worth it.