June 7, 2009: Cave Mountain Lake

In a recurring theme, on the 7th, the Wine-Hiking Club intended to go to the Devil's Marbleyard with a later visit to the Fincastle Winery, but because the parking lot for the Devil's Marbleyard was full everytime we visited with warning signs not to park on the grass, we diverted to Cave Mountain Lake and ended up not making it to Fincastle Winery because we visited Escape from Dinosaur Kingdom which we had seen advertised at the the White Rock Winery on a previous hike.

Cave Mountain Lake is a man-made lake just off of 501, north of the Blue Ridge Parkway and south of Natural Bridge nestled in the Blue Ridge mountains. It's primarily used as a recreational area (there's a fee to enter) for swimming and fishing with lots of space for camping / RVing with several nature trails. We followed a loop trail around the lake which was a light, mostly level hike on a well-maintained trail about 1.5 miles long with lots of views of the lake. It appears that the trail had washed out below the dam so we had to ford a knee-deep creek at one point.

Cave Mountain Lake.

The following are pictures from the hike. Pictures from Escape from Dinosaur Kingdom are in this facebook gallery.

Beginning the hike around Cave Mountain Lake. It's primarily a recreational area.

A stream that flows into Cave Mountain Lake.

Vineet and Rekha examine the closest thing we had to a trail head. This was actually for a nature trail that launched off of the lake loop trail that we hiked.


A view of the lake from the loop trail.

It was a very well-maintained trail with bridges over the little streams that flowed into the lake.

Vineet and Van hiking up the trail.

A view of the lake from the lake side. At various points along the trail, there were short spurs down to the lake for fishing.

The lake has a beach area where local kids come to swim. The sand looks like it was trucked in. I assume the swim zones are there to keep the fishermen separated from the swimmers.

Rekha and Vinnet on one of the fishing jetties on the other side of the lake.

Some interesting mushrooms along the trail.

The lake was made by this dam at the far end of the lake. We had seen quite a bit of rain over the last few days, so water was flowing over the center spillway.

The bottom of the dam.

I don't know if the trail was washed out or if there was never a crossing, but we had to cross the stream from the dam outflow to continue on. At this point, Van, Rekha, and I had crossed and were waiting on Van.

Still waiting on Van.

Here he comes.

Another view of the lake from the trail.

After crossing the stream and climbing back up the hill, we made it to the other side of the dam.

There were a couple kids who swam in the lake right next to the spillway.

After visting the lake, we returned to the Devil's Marbleyard where the parking lot was again full. We then bailed on that hike and drove up the road (about 10 miles) to Natural Bridge with the intent of visiting Escape from Dinosaur Kingdom. Tickets had to be purchased in the Natural Bridge visitors center where this umm tasteful display was located.

It was a package deal - a dinosaur kingdom ticket comes with a ticket to the monster museum. Unfortunately, the batteries in my camera ran out before the monster maze, so there were no pictures taken there.

A picture of an artist's rendition of the Natural Bridge on a T-shirt in the visitor's center. That's as close as we got to the actual bridge.

Wine wasn't completely a lost cause as the Natural Bridge visitor's center had a selection from a local winery. No tasting room though. :(

Close up of the bottles.

Rekha found a rather unique cork next to the display.

I didn't see anything else that looked like a bridge, so surely this must be the Natural Bridge. ;)

A dam on the James River that we saw along the way.

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May 24, 2009: Falling Water Cascades and White Rocks Winery

For Memorial Day weekend, club members Jody, Vineet, Van, and Fritz der Hund took a hike at Falling Water Cascades (mile marker 83.1 on the Blue Ridge Parkway) and visited the White Rock Winery in Goodview VA on the way back.
Originally, we were going to hike the Devil's Marbleyard and visit the Fincastle winery, but it was drizzling when we met and thought it would be a bad idea to go scrambling across wet boulders.

Falling Water is about a 1.5 mile canyon-style hike (down and then up) and is moderately steep but not very long. We comfortably hiked the loop in about 45 minutes. There's not much in the way of views outside of the valley the Falling Water creek but the main cascade is nice (though not much space to just hang out around the base with a German Shepherd).

Because we finished so quickly we drove down to Bobblett's Gap and hiked along a fire ranger access road for about 40 minutes where we met a ranger and his wife (?) who asked if we had seen a Black Chou. There wasn't anything particular to see on the access road, but it was nice and shady and Fritz seemed to enjoy being able to walk off leash.After the hike, we drove on down the Parkway to VA 24 and drove East to the White Rock Winery which we knew for its Moon Glow white Merlot.

Vineet and Van at the base of the cascades. There were a few other picture opportunities on the way, but nowhere near as many as at Crabtree Falls.

Jody, Van, and Fritz at the base of the cascades.

Jody and Fritz cross a bridge on the way back up.


At this point, we had effectively finished regaining elevation and just had a brief (1700 ft) mostly level hike back to the parking lot. For perspective, the trailhead to Flat Top is also pretty close. It's on the list of potential future wine-hikes, but was too long to add on today.

Vineet and Fritz on the way back to the parking lot.

Van styles it, like a Nike commercial over a fallen tree.

Van and Vineet back at the original trailhead at the parking lot.

Van and Vineet follow Fritz underneath an overpass on the access road we followed from Bobblet's Gap.

Fritz hiking up the access road.

Fritz ponders what's for dinner.

Fritz hiking down the access road.

Vineet and Van inspect a flowering bush at the end of our hike down the access road - which was determined by a 15-minute timer on Van's phone.

Vineet sniffs the white Merlot at White Rocks Winery.

Jody tastes (again) the white Merlot (Moonglow). It's real nice on a hot summer day.

A view of the White Rock vineyard. It's not a real big winery - having four wines on hand for tasting - a red Merlot, a white Merlot, a Cab Franc, and a Chardonnay - and just 6 acres of grapes - a number that immediately made Jody think of what he could do with his 6 acres...

Van, Jody, and Vineet pose in front of the vineyard.

We went on a brief winery tour which is self-contained inside of about a good size home basement. They do everything from grape crushing to labeling in that space.

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April 5, 2009: Crabtree Falls and Lovingston Cafe (Operation Nosepick)

In the club's latest expedition, Vineet Jolly, Rekha Menon, and Jody Neel set out with the intention to hike Crabtree Falls and visit Rebec Winery. However, hiking Crabtree Falls took longer than expected, so the club was diverted to the Lovingston Cafe for dinner which was accompanied by the house Pinot Grigio.

Click through to see photos from the hike.

Crabtree Falls is a series of photogenic waterfalls in Nelson County on Route 56. We began at the bottom of the falls and hiked to the top (about 2 miles each way).

At the bottom, there's an ominous warning that 23 people have died on the trail from stepping out too far onto slippery moss-covered rocks. Rekha and Vineet wanted to plan ahead for this event, so they practiced their "living dead" poses (which oddly enough was useful for getting through Piney River).

As if to reinforce the danger, there's a small graveyard next to the sign.

The lowest falls. It's actually wheel chair (and living dead!) accessible.

Rekha at the lowest falls.



Vineet and Jody at one of the many landings along the trail. The trail is a sequence of switchbacks on the right side of the falls, so there's lots of these landings along the way to rest or just to take a goofy picture.

Yet another spectacular cascade.

Another cascade at another switchback.

Rekha and Vineet looking out over the Tye River valley.

Vineet and Rekha, who appears to be caught at an inopportune moment - a moment to be repeated again and again.

Jody unneccessarily crawls out of a cave (he could've walked up the slope) along the trail which he unneccessarily entered (going through the cave actually took longer).

Rekha and Vineet hike towards the falls.

A section of the falls between larger drops.

Vineet decides to join Rekha in mining for nose nuggets.


Nearing the top of the falls.

Rekha and Vineet on the landing at the top of the falls overlooking the Tye River.

Rekha and Vineet at the top of the falls. Vineet attempts to pick his nose, but ends up as Dr. Evil.

Jody gets in on the nose-fun at the top of the falls.

After the hike, it was too late to get to Rebec (tastings end at 5:00) so we went to downtown Lovingston, which at least for one block, looks like this, for dinner and wine.

Rekha and Vineet outside Lovingston Cafe where we had the house Pinot Grigio to complete the wine half of the wine / hike excursion.

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