Virginia First Day Hike

New Year’s Day 2026 was the day I started my slow meander from Philadelphia back “home” to Florida, with a few stops in between. Thursday’s plan was to head west on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and then south on 81, making a few stops in southwestern Virginia, before ultimately ending up in western North Carolina for the weekend.

Mother Nature did play a bit of a cruel trick on me though, it decided to snow overnight on New Year’s Eve, so when I loaded up my SUV that morning, it was covered in ice and a bit of snow. Not a huge deal, but my windshield wiper lines were also frozen (?), something I didn’t figure out until I was well on the road and accumulating road salt and grime on my windshield making visibility a smidge more difficult than it should have been.

It made that initial drive on the turnpike a bit more “exciting” than it should have been. Luckily, I was able to stop at a rest stop, fuel up, and use the provided squeegee to clean off some of the caked on filth. It wasn’t until I was well into Maryland and temps had risen a bit that my wiper fluid started flowing again. All’s well that ends well I guess. I can’t remember the last time I had driven in snow.

Anyway, after a long and boring, but quite beautiful drive it was almost 3PM when I decided to stop in Damascus, Virginia. One of my fishing buddies wanted me to check out how some trout stream access was looking post Hurricane Helene. He had heard it still wasn’t in good shape a year+ later and wanted boots on the ground to confirm. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a positive report. All of the trailheads and “official” parking areas were barricaded and closed off. Boo.

That errand checked off the list, and now almost 4PM, I then headed over to Grayson Highlands State Park. I’ve never been there before, but I’ve heard it spoken of fondly on several occasions, so I just wanted to take a look for myself. It also gave me a good opportunity to stretch my legs.

I decided to take a short hike down into a stream to look at the waterfalls. Being later in the day, there were only two or three other cars in the parking lot, and when a park ranger drove up to me in his truck and rolled down the window I could only start to guess what I did wrong. Was he going to give me a hard time for showing up before dusk? Or possibly for not having proper park passes?

Nope, he smiled and gave me this sticker, and wished me well on my hike.

As for the hike, it was nice. As I mentioned before, my legs needed a little bit of a workout after driving for seven hours, and the cold air in my lungs burned in a good way.

I made it down to the stream relatively quickly, but told myself I had to start back up no later than 4:45 as the sun was starting to go down behind the mountain ridges to my right. There were a lot of nice plunges and pools, the kind of place that fishing with a short 3-weight and some dry flies in the late spring or early summer would be ideal. Perhaps I’ll return with those in tow and more time to get better acquainted.

The hike back out was all uphill and far more laborious. My hip flexors just didn’t want to work! I was also losing daylight much faster than I expected as cloud cover started rolling in. Isn’t that the way it always goes? After a few pauses to gather myself and catch my breath along the way, I finally got back to the trailhead parking area, with the tiniest bit of light to spare.

My Virginia State Parks First Day Hike was completed. It was not a planned activity, but happened organically as I was doing some advance scouting for potential fishing missions. Yeah, my final destination for the evening was still 4 hours away, but that remaining time in the car flew by super fast as I recollected the day’s events in my head and plotted future adventures. It was a nice, albeit unconventional way to spend New Year’s.

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