Saturday afternoon I spent some quality time on the Appalachian Trail. We started south of Front Royal, Virginia and marched nearly 12 miles north to Linden, Virginia. The mountains of Western Virginia are beautiful this time of year. The temperatures were about 20 degrees at the start and never warmed up much. The climb up the first hill was over 1000 feet. (This why I’m sitting on a downed tree) The second hill was merely 500 feet and seemed easy. The Shenandoah Mountains lie just to the west of the trail and are truly something to see.