I had to travel to Atlanta on Sunday to get an office setup so later that same week I took Thursday off. For a June day the weather wasn’t that bad so I headed to the Shenandoah for a hike. I figured middle of the week the trails would be less traveled and I could get in one of the more popular hikes without much hassle.

A while back I hiked up Hawksbill and it didn’t go so well. The park was smashed with people that beautiful spring weekend. When I finally found a place to park it was on the backside of the mountain. Quickly I made it to the summit and it was smashed with people so I just skipped it.
This time I was able to park in the main lot at the start of the loop. I choose to take the slow and steady approach to climbing the mountain. One thing to always remember when hiking is the weather. When I checked it was going to be a no rain kinda day. As often happens I check the weather for where I am, not where I am going and it bit me in the butt again. This time the one tiny rain cloud in the entire state of Virginia was centered on my location as I hiked up Hawksbill. The one good thing about the rain was it was never to heavy. The trees helped blocked a lot of the rain as well and that allowed something really cool to happen. The entire hike up the mountain I was in a real life relaxation sound track like you would find in the App Store. With so few people on the trail all I could hear was the rain falling through the leaves and it was amazing. It was raining but the misery of being soaked faded as I focused on the sounds of nature.
Once I made it to the top the mountain was pretty fogged in. Thankfully with so few people at the summit I was able to hang out for a while in peace. Over time the summit kinda cleared for brief periods you could see the valley below. More importantly it had stopped raining so it was nice sitting on the edge of the mountain.
This is also the highest point in the park so a very popular hike. Hence my frustration the first time I tried to tackle this mountain. Hawksbill is rather an impressive hike in the sense that it is the highest point in the park. I wouldn’t say it has the best view but they are pretty decent. If you can hike this when there are less people definitely take advantage of the empty trail. You can find longer, more elevation change, and better views with other trails in the park that are generally less traveled. Still a solid hike and a great day out.