Weekend trip to Virginia
This weekend we went for a trip to explore some of the Virginia roads. We found some really great roads in Jefferson National Forest that had some decent technical sections. And some beautiful roads further north east and closer to the George Washington National forest area.
Here is the full track.
Track (8/31/13, 1:01:24PM) at EveryTrail
EveryTrail - Find the
best Hiking in Virginia">
Track (8/31/13, 1:01:24PM) at EveryTrail
EveryTrail - Find the
best Hiking in Virginia
We hit the back roads just north of Bland by I-77. This was a nice stretch of roads following a ridge line of a peak. There were several different options of roads to take here. We could probably have spent a full day or two just exploring these roads. As you can see on the track at one spot we headed west on the ridge to later turn back going east. There was an old road continuing on here which seemed pretty cool but there was a thunderstorm going on and we were in the middle of the clouds and decided to head down to lower ground. The next time I want to take that road and see where it leads. Along this entire stretch of road there was a lot of places that one could set up camp. We got back out in civilization at road 42.
http://i1293.photobucket.com/albums/b585/Marten_Medin/image5_zps288c4bb4.jpeg
From there we drove to Eggleston which apparently has a really good restaurant. The Palisades Restaurant. This is actually one of the better restaurants that I have been at in the southeast and as a European I am pretty picky about food and restaurants. It well worth an additional hour or two of driving to eat there.
http://www.thepalisadesrestaurant.com/
We had a plan to head further north after dinner. But since the food and wine was so good I didn’t really feel like driving to far after some wine. So the staff was kind and recommended a local campsite. This was a pretty good campsite next to a river and we got a really good campsite about 10 feet away from the water with a small sandy beach. The only downside was a railroad track on the other side of the river with trains passing every other hour.
Campsite:
On Sunday morning we drove north east after scouting the topo maps. We found a beautiful road, not very technical but some great scenery with creeks and small waterfalls. We spotted a detour road with a few campsites where we spent the night. Right next to a creek where you could clean up and the dog could play around. There were quite a lot of hiking trails in the nearby area.
Monday morning we started driving south. Back towards Greensboro, NC. We tried to scout the topo maps for some back roads. We found one that was pretty fun, Tom’s Road. It look like a state road on the map but just when the road started to get exiting “no trespassing” signs popped up. So I turned around, but really would like to drive this road. We drove down to Smith mountain lake for a swim and then headed home.
Overall a great weekend and found some great areas to camp and get back to so I can explore more of the roads in the area. I never got to try out my sliders but the roof rack did a great job hauling gear and the RTT was still there went I got back home.
//Marten
