Big Falls on Overall Run

ByMatt

Big Falls on Overall Run, originally uploaded by Matthew Singer.

It’s great to have my camera back. Two weeks ago, I bent a pin in the card slot which rendered the camera useless. After speaking with Canon support, I packed up the body and shipped it off to the nearest repair facility. It left FedEx that Monday and arrived at Canon on Wednesday. I authorized the repair and it was fixed on Thursday and shipped back on Friday. I received my camera on Friday. While I’m not happy to shell out the expense of fixing my equipment, I am very pleased at the speed and helpfulness of Canon’s support and repair.

In the weekend I didn’t have my camera, I hiked up Old Rag in Shenandoah National Park, which has the best views around. I brought my old EOS 3 and a roll of Kodak E100GX with me. Two weeks later, I still haven’t gotten the roll developed. Of course, it doesn’t help that I forgot to bring it to Maryland with me this weekend.

Monday and Tuesday we were on an overnight canoe trip with the most gorgeous weather. I left my camera behind until I get a good dry box to port my gear in. But Tuesday evening, I headed into the park to find the big falls on Overall Run. The 93 foot waterfall is the highest in Shenandoah National Park, but it also tends to run nearly dry in the summer. A few weeks ago, the falls would have been raging, but the peak Spring greenery made this week the perfect time to look for the falls.

I found it easy enough. After 3 miles of down-hill, the trail opens up atop a cliff with a great view of the valley and a great view of the Big Falls. There are a few other notable cascades before the big plunge and I’m sure there are some more after. At the bottom of the mountain, Overall Run has a nice water slide and swimming hole, easily accessible by the Thompson Hollow Trail.

I’m glad I have my camera back and I’ll surely be careful not to damage it again. There are so many places left in the area that I wish to visit, and my time is dwindling before I leave Virginia for Idaho.

Similar Posts

  • Hells Canyon

    Panoramic View from our vantage point, originally uploaded by Matthew Singer. This story begins with Luke and I itching to get out into the backcountry. Although it’s the middle of June, the combination of an unusually cold and wet Spring with the very productive winter has left many of the high country destinations (above 5000 ft.) still buried under 100+ inches of snow in places. And even some of the lower areas are still blocked with impassible snow drifts on the road. This makes our options quite limited. The one place we’re sure to have access is Hells Canyon. With…

  • Backpacking: Seven Devils’ Lower Cannon Lake

    My father-in-law and his wife have been visiting us since last Wednesday. Before coming out, he had asked if we could go on a little male bonding trip into the backcountry for a night. So, I set about looking for a short and easy hike to a spectacular place. I figured he had probably never spent the night under the rocky peaks next to a glacial tarn, and the high lakes are also one of my favorite places to spend a night, but most of the lakes around here are either fairly strenuous hikes, long hikes, or take nearly all…

  • Labor Day Weekend: Backpacking the Seven Devils

    This is the story of how Dan Beck and I ended up spending much of our Labor Day weekend in the backcountry of one of Idaho’s most scenic and rugged mountain ranges, the Seven Devils. It begins over a week before when I sent out a message for a backpacking trip over Labor Day weekend. I suggested a 3-night trip into the Eagle Cap Wilderness with an emphasis on summiting peaks rather than counting long miles. I had some interest and was all set for our 3rd annual Wallowas weekend, when some of the members decided it would be a…

  • Adventures with Clara: Hobo Cedar Grove

    The Hobo Cedar Grove is a nice easy 1-mile hike through a grove of giant old-growth trees. It is the perfect hike for toddlers to explore nature, which is why we brought Clara up there on Sunday. She enjoyed the large trees, but wasn’t into walking the trail much. Eventually Erin had to carry her for most of the hike. In hindsight, she may not have completely gotten over her illness from Friday and Saturday.

  • Grandfather Mountain: A pre-winter hike

      I’ve been very busy with graduate school, and that has put hiking and exploring on hold, but that also has me itching to get out, especially as my days of decent hiking weather grow shorter and shorter. I’ve been trying to get up to Sandpoint to get in one last snow-free summit for the season, but time just hasn’t been on my side. So this weekend, I headed up to Grandfather Mountain with Erin for what might be our last chance to get up there this year. I’ve been to Grandmother Mountain many times since moving out here, but…

  • Winter Hike to Jerry Johnson Hot Springs

    Last weekend, I reported on a snowshoe hike along the Potlatch River and alluded to a second snowshoe adventure the same weekend. In fact, we had planned a little excursion out along Rt. 12 to Jerry Johnson hot springs. It turned out that the hot springs are still popular in winter, at least enough so that the one-mile trail was packed down such that we didn’t need snowshoes after all. So, for the second time this season, a snowshoe hike simply became a winter hike. While we were all looking forward to snowshoeing in, the real goal was to soak…