Virginia Archives - crunchy kat explores

explore (greater) dc: great falls national park

In honor of National Park Service’s 101st birthday (ya don’t look a day over 100 NPS!), I present to you… the NPS park that is in DC’s backyard: Great Falls Park!

In order to celebrate their birthday, all National Parks sites had free entry today. I hope you all were luckier than me and had a chance to #optoutside instead of sitting behind a computer all day (regretting not playing hooky!)

explore gwnf: three ridges wilderness

Three Ridges Wilderness had been on my “to hike” list for a while now. Located in George Washington National Forest near Charlottesville, Virginia, it’s a popular backpacking loop known for the vistas, swimming holes, and insane elevation change. The typical route is a two day/one night, 14.4 mile loop where the loop includes a portion on the Appalachian Trail (AT) and a portion on the Mau-Har Trail.

Just a heads up– this loop is no walk in the park! The constant inclines and declines here are no joke (maybe 5-10% of the trail is actually level?!)! AT Thru-Hikers often include this as one of the toughest parts of the entire Appalachian Trail! Hiking Upward has the elevation gain of 3,960 feet, but I’ve read the actual change in elevation is about 7,000 feet! So I definitely recommend you be in decent shape (and bring lots of water or a water filter to fill up at the creeks!).