Ohiopyle

Earlier this year, The Girl got a fitbit pedometer.  The fitbit website's leaderboard and stat tracking, combined with her ravening addiction to competition, has made her... "monster" seems harsh, but it also fails to capture the extent of her dedication.  If, at 10:49 some evening, she checks in on the website and discovers that she has only 14,789 steps for the day, she will pace the length of the apartment with exaggerated fervor in order to win the "15,000 Step Badge," a digital token of her day's efforts.  If the step count is 19,208 steps, she will exit the building, clad in pajamas and a jacket, and walk laps around the block until she has earned the slightly more elusive pixelated medallion for a 20,000 step day.

I mention this only because I aim to express to you the extent of her rage after the battery died at the end of a long day of hiking in Pennsylvania, and even though she replaced the battery to preserve the unit's memory, she was somehow denied the 25,000 Step Badge she would have otherwise earned for that day.  It happened in mid-October, and she still mentions it, fury simmering under her constrained voice.

Otherwise, it was a great weekend.

We had enjoyed an earlier weekend camping and hiking in the spring with the same couple, and even though The Girl had spent some time gallivanting through Germany with them over the summer, I didn't get to go, and they really like eating Dutch babies (I promise that's a real thing that doesn't involve any actual infants, but you feel free to let your imagination run wild), so we planned another excursion this fall.

The variety of colors and shapes exhibited by fungus fascinates me, though I have made very little effort to learn more about them.

This time, instead of the Shenandoah's Middle District, we aimed for Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania, which was more central to our two locations, and offers some fun whitewater which is still easily managed by beginners.

No rafting on this trip, but plenty of good hiking.

Nobody wanted to go rafting with me.  Something about "too cold in October."  To be honest, I stopped listening to the reason when they started laughing like I was crazy.

I hadn't been to Ohiopyle since I was in junior high or high school, when my brother was finally old enough to go whitewater rafting, and Mom and Dad took us there to raft the Youghiogheny River, which is nearly as much fun to spell as it is to say (most people just call it "the Yough," which inexplicably rhymes with "the rock").  We camped, we rafted, my brother was launched high into the air, and we went to see Falling Water.  It was a great trip.

As the four of us planned this trip, I left most of it to the other three.  I knew I'd be outside a lot no matter what they planned, and that's enough to keep me happy.  I directed my attention toward the menu (I was responsible only for dinners and breakfasts--the other two planned lunches).  Despite not baking a single baby, the only criticism I received was that they thought there was too much food.  I managed to solve that problem single-handedly.

Later, we found out that another pair of hiking-inclined friends had also spent the weekend in Ohiopyle State Park--had we only known ahead of time, we could have planned a little better, and I wouldn't have had to eat all the leftovers myself.  Plus, the cabin we rented had two other bedrooms we never used.  It was huge.

Cucumber Falls

Saturday was our long hike, wandering along the Meadow Run trails to Ohiopyle and Cucumber Falls, then trying to find our way up to a higher viewpoint over the valley.  That effort was thwarted by a combination of inaccurate maps and poorly marked trails, but we still got a good hike out of it, and we met a trio of other hikers who had found a young salamander (photo somewhere below).

Plus, it was the height of Pennsylvania's autumn, and the fall colors were pretty incredible.

See?  I told you there was a salamander!

On Sunday, we parked in Ohiopyle, saw the falls, and hiked along a towpath trail for a while.  This side of the park was charted a bit better, and we were able to find the trails we wanted.

Ohiopyle Falls

Handiest trick I learned all week, even if it only works in PA.

Round pupils!  He's just a harmless Eastern Milk Snake.  Adorable, isn't he?

All of us had to drive home Sunday, so we didn't hike as much as the previous day.  As it turns out, we timed the day perfectly, because it started raining shortly after we got back to the cars, and poured like crazy for the entire drive back to DC.  Every time we drove downhill, I wondered if there would be a road or a river at the bottom.

Cucumber Falls from a higher vantage point.

About a month ago, we started planning the next trip.  Maybe this time I'll cook some babies.