Whiteoak Canyon Hike

Hello Everyone! Today I want to share a few pictures from our waterfall hike last Friday. We hiked the Whiteoak Canyon Trail from the boundary entry to the bottom of the upper falls, approximately a six mile out and back hike. If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I like to chase waterfalls. There were plenty on this hike.

We started early in the morning and drove down one of our favorite drives to get there. Whiteoak Canyon is part of Shenandoah NP and there is an entrance/parking fee to enter the trails. Our plan was to hike just to the lower falls or to the next fall after that. We all know that plans tend to change!

It was a beautiful cool morning and temperatures stayed in the 60’s and low 70’s for the hike. We started about 9:00 and we only met a few people on the trail as we hiked in.

Above are the lower falls. There is pool in front of both sets of falls. Evidently, it’s a nice place to spend some time on a warm day. When we passed by again a few hours later, the area was starting to fill up with people there to sun themselves and play in the water.

You can see the pool at the bottom of the falls here.

At this point we decided to hike to the next set of falls. We did but it was hard to see them through the trees.

So we hiked up to the next set of falls. By now, the trail was much steeper and had a lot of stone steps cut into the trail. We also had to climb over a boulder that was in the middle of the trail. It was okay to climb up, but another story going down. I had to do a slide maneuver on my bottom to get down. I have short legs and I’m older and more cautious now. I’m glad my kids and no one else saw me!

By the time we got to this fall, we had already taken a break for a snack. I was okay to turn around, but after looking at the map, my husband said, it looks like it won’t be much further to the bottom of the upper falls. I agreed and off we went.

On the way, we passed this area. The water is coming out of the rocks and mountain. It was one of the prettiest places on the trail.

We finally arrived at the bottom of the upper falls. From this point, this was all we could see. We could have hiked up higher, but I felt that we had done enough. I came home and looked at pictures and we probably only saw about half of the fall. You can access this waterfall from the top of the mountain on the Skyland Drive. I think it’s about a 4.5 mile round trip hike from there.

We’ve done lots of hikes in the mountains while we chase waterfalls. Whiteoak Canyon has the most falls and was one of the prettiest hikes we’ve done. It’s not an easy hike, parts of it are rated moderate and nearer the top it’s rated strenuous. I usually don’t have a problem hiking uphill and that was the case here, although those stone steps were tall in lots of places. I don’t like going downhill and this one was tough. My thighs were pretty sore for the next few days. My husband’s calves were sore. The difference in leg height I guess. With a couple of good rest stops, it took us about 4 1/2 hours.

We will probably hike this trail again, maybe in early April when there should be lots of water and no leaves on the trees to see all of the falls.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!