Shenandoah ... pretty, yet far away

This past Saturday I went to Shenandoah National Park with my Co-worker Kiri. They day was beautiful, and the leaves were just beginning to change. This is a view from where we stopped for lunch (pardon the hazy phone photo):

After lunching Kiri and I decided to go for a nice 3 mile round-trip hike to "Rose River Falls". The hike was lovely, although over rough terrain, and we clambered up and down steep hillsides as we followed the Rose River. We saw several waterfalls, but none of them were "impressive" as the guide book claimed that the Rose River falls would be. But we persevered, convinced that the impressive waterfall was up ahead. Sure enough, after about 1.5 hours, we came upon this:

Impressive

Only later, after turning around and walking most of the way back, did we realize that we'd passed "Rose River Falls" almost as soon as we'd started our hike, and that the waterfall that we eventually found was probably "Dark Hollow Falls" another 2.5 miles away, which when we stopped to think about it, explained why we'd been wandering for over 3 hours.

Bottom line: wandering delusionaly into the park is quite fun, but your legs will feel it the next day.