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Day two of the Southwest Virginia weekend, and we were not done yet!

The Channels State Forest and Natural Area Preserve sits perfectly on the route between Abingdon and the DMV, which made it an easy yes on the drive home. Barbarian Scientist needed shakeout miles after his ultramarathon the day before, and I always want an adventure. It was absolutely magical, although more of a workout than his tired legs wanted. 😆

At the crest of Middle K**b on Clinch Mountain, 400-million-year-old sandstone has been worn into a labyrinth of narrow crevasses. Imagine slot canyons, in Appalachia, just wide enough for a human to squeeze through! They were formed while the high-elevation sandstone cap was under the influence of permafrost and ice wedging during the last ice age, which shattered and enlarged the joints in the caprock.

Before it was a trail, this mountain was a boundary and a corridor. Clinch Mountain’s Moccasin Gap linked the valleys of the Holston and Clinch Rivers and served as the main trail between Cherokee territory to the south and Shawnee lands in present-day Ohio. The Clinch River valley was contested hunting ground between the Cherokee and Shawnee for generations, and the trails that brought European settlers through here were largely Indigenous trails first. The land holds that history whether the signage acknowledges it or not.

The Channels became the 53rd Virginia Natural Area Preserve in 2008, after The Nature Conservancy protected the land and transferred it to the Virginia Department of Forestry. The parking area holds only 10 vehicles. Go early. Earn the climb. It’s worth every step (but also, *watch* your step! Peep the juicy Timber Rattler in the pics 🐍 👀)

Happy from the consolation adventure I didn’t know I needed.

Both Barbarian Scientist and I were registered to run the 55K with . Then we lost our dog sitter. One of us had to drop. It was me. So Sam Dog and I had our own day and completely fell in love with Abingdon.

Spoiler: I may have walked just as far as the runners. I should have just stayed in the race.

On the Creeper Trail —The trail runs 34 miles from Abingdon to Whitetop Station near the North Carolina line, built on the bed of a mountain railroad, and before Hurricane Helene it drew around 250,000 visitors a year. What Helene did to the upper half of this trail is devastating and worth understanding. In just a matter of hours, the storm destroyed the upper 17 miles of the Virginia Creeper Trail, washed out portions of US-58, and closed over 400 miles of the Appalachian Trail. Eighteen of 31 trestles between Damascus and Whitetop were destroyed. The Creeper Trail is considered the lifeblood of Damascus, and business remains significantly down as the town rebuilds. Restoration is underway. If you love this trail (and you should) the Virginia Creeper Trail Club is accepting donations and Yeti Trail Runners is matching them.

On Yeti Trail Runners — We love this race organization. The Virginia Creeper Trail is sacred ground for Yeti runners, and they back that up by matching donations dollar for dollar to the Virginia Creeper Trail Club to maintain and protect the trail for every runner who comes after. What sets Yeti apart is their commitment to the experience over everything else. They keep registration costs as low as possible, refuse to sell out to sponsors, and put their energy entirely into the runners experience. These are race directors who remember why this sport matters.

On Abingdon —This town. THIS TOWN. Abingdon traces its roots to the mid-1700s, when the area known as “Black’s Fort” became the first English-speaking settlement in the watershed of the Mississippi. In 1760, Daniel Boone camped at the southern base of what is now Courthouse Hill. His dogs were attacked by wolves emerging from a nearby cave, and so Boone named the place “Wolf Hills.” The name stuck.

The town was formally established in 1778, and two years later, patriots from Virginia and North Carolina gathered at the Abingdon Muster Grounds to begin a 300-mile march to Kings Mountain, South Carolina, which was a battle that became a turning point in the Revolutionary War.

Three Virginia governors and a Secretary of the Treasury called Abingdon home. The Barter Theatre, established in 1933, is the oldest and longest-running repertory theatre in the country. Senator Tim Kaine keeps a constituent office here, because when you’re representing all of Virginia, you show up in Abingdon.

On the Abingdon Wolf Project —The Wolf Project is a public art fundraiser for the William King Museum of Art: locally painted fiberglass wolf sculptures displayed throughout town. Dam Dog and I put in a lot of miles to find all 25 wolves — 10 adults and 15 pups — each painted by a regional artist and installed at businesses and gathering places around town.

On the Abingdon Urban Pathway — The Abingdon Urban Pathway runs east-west through the downtown district, from Tanner Street to the Abingdon Muster Grounds, and intersects with the Virginia Creeper Trail trailhead on Green Spring Road, meaning you can stitch together a surprisingly full day of trails without ever getting in a car. Sam Dog approved.

Some places just hold something. Abingdon is one of them. We’ll be back, and next time, I’m staying in the race!

Court Blocks Censorship and Erasure of American History and Science at National Parks Injunction Halts Effort to Unlawfully Remove History and Science from Park Displays

The last hike I took my NOVA students on was on Massanutten Mountain for the Buzzard Rock Overlook trail in George Washington National Forest, and it delivered.

Before we hit the trail, we took a moment to acknowledge that Massanutten Mountain sits within the ancestral homeland of the Manahoac people, an Algonquian-speaking nation who inhabited the Shenandoah Valley and surrounding ridges for generations before European contact. We don’t take that lightly. Every time we step onto these landscapes, we’re walking in a place that carries a history longer and deeper than any trail name or forest boundary.

Buzzard Rock is one of those hikes that earns its payoff. The trail winds through second-growth hardwood forest before opening up onto a rocky quartzite outcrop with sweeping views of the Shenandoah Valley below and the ridgelines of the Blue Ridge stretching out to the east. It’s the kind of vista that resets something in you, and it’s hard to take yourself away once you’re there.

The hike itself is accessible enough for newer hikers but engaging enough to feel like a real mountain day: some elevation gain, rocky footing at the top, and just enough exposure on the overlook to make the view feel earned.

George Washington National Forest covers over a million acres across Virginia and West Virginia. It’s public land and most people have no idea it’s right here.

Tomorrow, I’m taking a small group to one of Virginia’s newer state parks for a ranger-led program — maybe we will see you there!

Took my NOVA students to Shenandoah National Park, and we didn’t just hike. We started at the Byrd Visitor Center, and yes, we talked about who it’s named after.

Harry F. Byrd Sr. was the Virginia governor who championed Shenandoah’s creation in the 1920s and ’30s, and that origin story is not a clean one. Establishing the park required the forced displacement of roughly 400–500 families which were predominantly Scots-Irish and African American mountain communities who had farmed, hunted, and built lives in the Blue Ridge for generations. The state condemned their land, demolished their homes, and relocated residents by force. Some of the elderly never recovered from the uprooting. The park we celebrate was built on that erasure, and I want my students to sit with that before they ever hit the trail.

We also paused to acknowledge that we were walking on the ancestral homeland of the Manahoac people, an Algonquian-speaking nation who lived throughout the Piedmont and Blue Ridge long before European contact. That history doesn’t disappear because a park boundary was drawn.

Then we hiked it out. Hawksbill Summit sits at 4,051 feet, and is the highest point in Shenandoah. Watching students who had never hiked above treeline stand on that ridge with the valley sprawling out in every direction? That’s yet another side of why this work matters.

Hard history. High summit. Great group. Let’s go again.

June is the turning point. 💫

The days are long, the wildflowers are peaking, and the world outside is asking you to show up for it!

This month’s bingo celebrates the trails that connect us, the histories that ground us, and the communities that remind us that the outdoors belongs to everyone.

Get outside. Notice what’s blooming — in the landscape and in yourself. 🌺

✨No pressure. Just momentum.

See you out there!

https://yourhikingcompany.com

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