Hiking Signal Knob 10.5 miles

On Memorial Day, Shawn and I went on hiked Signal Knob.

Length: 10.5 miles
Difficulty: 4 out of 5
Time: 5.5 hours
Elevation Gained: 2,680 ft between two ascents

It was the longest hike I have done with Shawn, and it was hard. Our feetsies were very tired and sore after the hike. It wasn't so hard because of the up and down, but the fact that we didn't bring a watch or cell phone and our GPS didn't tell us the time so we had little way of telling how far we had gone, how long it had been, or how far we had left. It felt like the never ending trail. It wouldn't have even been the fact that it was never ending, but we didn't start the hike till 1:20, so as it got later it was getting a bit dimmer out (it never got dark) so of course I got scared of bears. And since we didn't know how much farther we had, I was scared it would get even closer to night and I was constantly on the lookout for bears.

This is me at roughly 1/3 the hike (happy and stress free):

This is me about 3/4 through the hike (stressed out and frustrated that I don't know how much longer the hike is, and after a long ascent, a rapid descent, we were on another sharp ascent that JUST WOULD NOT END!):

It ended up that we finished around 6:45. We were so happy to get back to the lot. Of all of the cars that were in the lot when we arrived we were one of the last two. 

The hike was fun, but would have been better had we started earlier.

Another thing that made the hike difficult was that you walked through just about every type of terrain: dirt, mulch, flat rock, boulders,  medium rocks, & gravel fire road. The majority of the trail was walking over very unstable rocks ranging fromt he size of a baseball to basketballs. Good thing I was wearing hiking shoes because these rocks were so pointy the bottom of my feet would have been bruised eith normal tennis shoes. Also stepping on them, they would wobble and I would have hurt my ankles a lot more if I hadn't have had high top boots (though even with them I rolled my ankles about 6 times). It got exhausting walking on these rocks that I beat up my boots because my feet started getting lazy and would bump into them.

The first stop on the trail is Fort Valley Overlook. If you look in the far distance behind Shawn you can see Fort Valley, but the camera hardly captured it. It was much more impressive in person.

I got to use my super awesome new Osprey day pack.

Our lunch spot, 5 miles in

Getting ready for lunch. This is the "Signal Knob" view.

 

This is my super awesome new day hiking pack. It is an Osprey. It was $140 in the store, but it was on sale and after a discount using my Government ID, I got it for $100 in Annapolis! I didn't even realize when I bought it that it came with a super nice 3 litre water bladder in it made by Nalgene, that has a  magnet on it that snaps to the shoulder strap for easy access while hiking!

Though it doesn't sound like it, the hike was fun (maybe more so in the beginning and after the fact) but I think it will be a while before we do another 10.5 mile hike! The views were rated as some of the best in VA, but I enjoyed Old Rag's views more, as a Bang for your trail mile perspective. One thing that kept me going was the Trader Joes trail mix we bought, and I think that will be a must for all future hikes.

Shawn picked this hike.. I will be picking the next!