I feel like I know the trails in the Old Rag & White Oak Canyon area like the back of my hand. Since I’m on the computer so much, I see the backs of my hands a lot so that really means something. Let’s stop the simile there and move on.

Having hiked in the same area all spring and summer, almost every weekend, and covering up to 20 miles in a day, it sometime seems there aren’t many new places to discover. I try to include one new segment each time, but some parts are common to all routes and many are to most.

The hiking is both a joy and a chore. The real goal is to train for EBC, so these are training hikes. (remember “Yuri the trainer who trains”) I push myself and often don’t stop for more than one 15 minute break the whole day to eat a sandwich and purify another couple of liters of water. Snacks and drinks are taken on the move. I try, and succeed, in overtaking almost everyone that I see. That is the chore part.

The joy part is that regardless, this is still Shenandoah National Park and the forests, mountains, and views are spectacular. The fungi are in all colors imaginable. It is a different world. There are very few hikers in most places. On some trails, I may have been the only person there all day owing to the fact that I am breaking spider webs late in the afternoon. Hiking as far as I do, instead of individual trails I see the park as an interconnected network of segments that can be pieced together and approached in many different orders. That is what keeps it interesting.

It will be sometime after I return from Nepal that Park will again become a place to wander through, at a normal place, with family and friends.