Brian and Cip got down to College Park at around 6 o'clock and we ran a few errands and grabbed dinner, managing to finally leave at nearly 9. We made it down to the Whiteoak Canyon parking area from the easter boundary of the park at about 11pm on Friday night. We threw on our headlamps and started looking for a campsite along the trail immediately. Most of Whiteoak Canyon is off limits for camping so we had to find something in the first half mile which was, as you can imagine, fine with us at the time. We managed to find a nice little spot on a ledge about 10 meters up and off the trail that didn't require too much clearing. We made camp, had a bit of whiskey and got to sleep by 1am.
We got a late start the next morning. I was the first up at 8am and got the bear bag and made breakfast before waking up Brian, Cip, and Sophie. A few people had passed us on the trail in the
morning but by the time we hit the trail by 9am there still hadn't been as much traffic as I'd feared. The hike was beautiful! We marched right along this gorgeous little creek for the first stretch and were mesmerized by its beauty until SMACK! we ran right into the Lower Falls (left) which were much bigger and more spectacular than I had even hoped.From there, the trail started to gain elevation at a pretty good clip. Switchbacks took us up from the bottom of the falls up a few hundred feet. Sophie started to have some trouble and I could tell it was a bit more than she had bargained for. But she kept on moving and didn't complain much. Truthfully I was pretty thankful for the breaks. This was the first time I've had the pack on for the year so I was more than happy to take my time!
The lower falls was the last of three waterfalls in a stretch along the Whiteoak Canyon Trail.,
followed by three others a bit up the trail. None of us remember seeing a "first" waterfall but I can't imagine that we missed it considering the trail was right on the water. As spectacular as the lower falls were they just keep on getting better in the next cluster of falls further up. And as you can imagine, where there are waterfalls there is elevation to gain. The trail kept going up up up and the miles weren't coming easily.We took a break at the first of the waterfalls in the next stretch and had a lot of fun just fooling around on the rock bed that the stream had carved a path from. We were able to stand on top of a waterfall of about 30 ft in height. It was quite a view! I think this place would be an unbelievable place to swim when its warmer (not down the falls!). There are a few natural slides and pools that look like they were made from lounging.
After passing a few spectacular falls I had assumed that we had seen the upper falls and was looking for the horse trail when we kind of stumbled onto the upper falls (above right). Man what a site!! It really just blew my mind. There was even a cliff overlooking the falls as if God decided they deserved a viewing platform!
We spent a few minutes snapping pictures and just taking in the falls before we continued on. The horse trail that would take us to Old Rag Fire Road met us at the Upper Falls. We spent an easy mile on that and another on the Fire Road before turning up to get to Nicholson Hollow. The trail descended for a good two miles through a stretch of dead forest. It was kind of eerie and felt empty. No birds sang and it was nearly devoid of color.
Once we made it down into Nicholson Hollow things improved. Most of the hike was along a beautiful little stream. Cip and I kept stopping and admiring holes that surely held some
brookies. We were supposed to look for a campsite in the first mile or so but ended up hiking the better part of the five mile trail before finding a spot on an island in the middle of the creek that worked out. We set up camp and then Cip and I hopped in the water to clean off. It was pretty cold but it was amazing. I've never felt more refreshed!We spent most of the afternoon recovering from out first trip of the season and were able to enjoy being right on the creek. Sophie took a nap while Brian, Cip, and I played some Rummy. I dominated and then Cip got lucky and set me back a few and took the W. (This theme became common for the evening). We were pretty hungry so we had dinner at about 6. Brian, Sophie, and I shared a few Mountain House meals while Cip chowed down on some Spam and baked beans. After dinner we taught Sophie how to play rummy and then played another round. I jumped out to a huge lead after the first two
round and then hit a run of bad cards and bombed to last place. Somehow Sophie actually ended up winning which was a pleasant surprise. After dinner we dug a fire pit and set up some stones around it and tried to make a small (albeit illegal) fire but were forced into our tents by some rain.It ended up raining on and off pretty hard most of the night and the next day we decided that on a wet trail with a heavy pack we would save Old Rag for another day. We ended up just hiking out to the Old Rag parking lot and taking 4 miles of fire roads back to the car. It actually was a pretty beautiful hike and was a welcome change of pace from the switchbacks we surely would have encountered on Old Rag. We made it back to the car around 11 and headed to a diner for our traditional post-backcountry chow down!!
-bdb
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