Climbing Old Rag
The town where I grew up is some fifty miles North-East of the Shenandoah river valley, Northern Virginia's resident portion of the Appalachian trail. My friends and I have spent many a summer day climbing in that range, finding swimming holes, dodging snakes and watching sunsets from 3,500 feet. I've caught a couple sunrise hikes too, which take your breath away. To see the fog of an early morning moving over a sleeping town far, far below you, and know the only people awake are the ones who came with you and anybody else with the right blend of stoic and crazy in them. Our Shenandoah mountains may be small in the grand scheme of things, but they've always been something to me.