The early-morning cloudy skies coupled with the forecast we had just looked at on my smartphone’s weather app almost caused us to opt out of the hike we had hoped to squeeze in on Day 2 of our roadtrip to North Carolina.
After having spent about eight hours in the car driving some 450 miles, we had reached our stopping point for the day: Blacksburg, Va., a city of 45,000 people located in the western part of the state.
It was the first time in almost 15 years that I had been in Blacksburg, which is home to Virginia Tech. The college campus today dominates the lovely city that I got to know a little during a few visits there from 2005-2007 when one of my friends from college was working on his master’s degree at Virginia Tech.
In addition to the lovely limestone buildings that define most of the campus, there is also a myriad of green space throughout. It is almost as beautiful as Indiana University’s campus in Bloomington.
The surrounding area is equally as beautiful, as it touts a myriad of idyllic places to hike, rock climb, bike, play disc golf and more — all just eight hours from northeast Indiana.
My friends from Arizona had been visiting us in Indiana for almost a week and planned to end their vacation in Durham, N.C., where they would visit some family. We decided to make the trip to Durham in the car with an overnight stop in Blacksburg. In addition to walking around campus, the highlight of the trip was an excursion the following morning to Cascades Falls, located about 20 minutes from Blacksburg in Pembroke in the Jefferson National Forest.
Waterfall hikes are among my favorite treks, as we have so few of them around where we live.
The Cascades Falls Trail is a 4-mile out-and-back trek to the 70-foot-tall Cascades Falls. It only takes about two hours roundtrip, although you could easily spend another hour or more at the falls and surrounding pool of water.
The mostly dirt and rock trail has an elevation gain of about 650 feet and goes through the woods alongside a mountain creek. The trail is rated low-to-moderate difficulty, and we had no problem completing it even with my friend’s three children with us.
There are several benches along the way and a plethora of spots to stop, admire the green forest and mountain creek, and to take pictures.
The highlight, however, is when you reach the 70-foot falls. There is a viewing platform a few steps above the pool of water, as well as a second viewing area located closer to the falls.
The trail is one of the more popular treks in the area yet the forecasted rain last week when we visited must have kept most people home, as we only saw a few other people the entire morning.
It turned out to be a beautiful day — cool, partly sunny and a drop or two or rain. In other words, a hiker’s paradise.
We returned to campus following the hike for lunch before loading up the car to continue on to Durham. There is no shortage of places to eat in Blacksburg, as most all college towns are full of great restaurants at affordable prices.
If you’re looking for a roadtrip this summer that won’t take you too far from home, a beautiful drive to southwest Virginia was a great way to welcome summer last week while not breaking the bank … and gas was still in the $4 range when we filled up in both West Virginia and Virginia, a rarity these days.
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You might notice other columnists filling this space for the next few weeks, as I’ll be across the pond in Spain traveling for the next three weeks and working on a project thanks to the Lilly Endowment’s Teacher Creativity Fellowship Program. I’m already looking forward to sharing several stories with our readers when I return about my adventures across eastern, central, northern and western Spain. ¡Hasta pronto!
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