Since we were in the neighborhood anyway, we dropped by Washington during the week-long Cherry Festival. There’s not really much of a specific festival per se, more a series of unassociated events with the name “Cherry Festival” attached – as in the Cherry Festival Croquet Tournament.
Cherry trees along the Potomac
The trees are thickest in the lagoon area between the Jefferson and Lincoln monuments. We intended to visit at least one Smithsonian as well (American Indian) which required circling the National Mall about 5 times until a parking space opened up.
Ran-It Granite is a 3-day orienteering A-meet held a bit west of Baltimore. We stayed in nearby Ellicott City which is a scenic well-preserved town at the bottom of a river gorge – if you can find it amidst all the expressways.
David at Patapsco SP
The terrain at Patapsco has an apparently infinite number of small pits, depressions and other holes that can fill with water during heavy rain and then have a flag placed in them for an orienteering course.
This wasn’t our first hike of the year, but it was our first interesting hike – outside of the Asheville commuter section of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Big East Fork trailhead is on 276 just north of the parkway.
East Fork Pigeon River
There are a couple trails that leave from the area but we followed the Big East Fork trail which follows the Pigeon River all the way up to the headwaters of one particular branch. Just above that the trail meets the Mountains-to-Sea trail near the parkway.
Trout in a creek
Along the way are some great swimming holes. Since there was still snow in shaded valleys, we didn’t actually test this. Trout did though and he seemed to like it.
Normally we don’t take the camera with us for day trips to nearby NC ski areas like Cataloochee and Sugar. We probably should. We did take it to Snowshoe though so we have pictures to post.
snowshoe village
When we arrived at Snowshoe on Tuesday night it was -7 on top the mountain with an insanely cold wind. By the time we left Thursday afternoon it looked like this in the village square.
East side of Snowshoe
The skiing was fantastic on Wednesday. Uncrowded, good snow and everything was covered. The next day it warmed up to 50 and things got a bit slushy but in general we can’t complain about the skiing at all. We will complain a bit about Snowshoe’s management of the village though. When you check in, they give you a printout of all the stores, restaurants and bars in the village with opening / closing hours for that week. This printout is completely and utterly useless. We didn’t realize it the first night but since things were slow most places just closed when they felt like it. Furthermore, half the places on the list have hours like “open til close”. Very useful. The second night there were actually groups of people roving about on the shuttles trying to find open establishments. Information is generally hard to find at Snowshoe so it’s disappointing that the one thing they do give you is wrong.
You know you’re in West Virginia when the beer comes in mason jars. Actually, Melanie spent at least 45 seconds creating this still life so it had to be included on the blog. The local West Virginia beers are worth seeking out. In general, most places that advertise a wide selection of beer actually carry every brand that can be followed by the word “light”.
The Western Territory at Snowshoe is really two 1 1/2 mile runs. These are by far the longest runs at Snowshoe and they remain relatively uncrowded because only advanced skiers venture over here.
