South River Falls - September 14, 2013

Reported by Dan Ralston

Iva and Father

This was a joint hike between the PATC - Charlottesville Chapter and the PATC - Southern Shenandoah Valley Chapter. The hike was dedicated to Iva and the memory of her father, who passed away this week.

We had 17 people show up on this beautiful Fall day to hike: Dan Ralston (hike leader), Karen Waterman (co-hike leader, SSVC), David Carter, Emerald Young, Brad Young, Ken Moss, Marian Styles, Kelly O’Rouke, Christine Ballard, CJ Woodburn, John Brandt, Mike Waterman, Michael Grogh, Roxann Atwood, Wanda Hamlin and Bryan Burns.  We also had a guest from DC join us, Laura Kasper, who is a psychologist moving to the Charlottesville area.  She did a Google search for a hiking group, found us and showed up for the hike.

The weather was perfect although it started off a little cloudy.  The sun soon broke through the clouds and the day turned out to be gorgeous.  At the bottom of the loop trail lies the South River Falls and today it did not disappoint us; twin falls flowed to the basin below, where we spent an hour having lunch at the base of the beautiful falls.  We were joined by a young Northern Water snake but he kept his distance sunning himself on a rock.

Kelly, Marian and John decided to add a few miles to the hike and took a side hike on the Pocosin Trail to pass by the ruins on the return hike.

A perfect hike on a perfect Fall-like day.  It could not have been a better hike.