White Oak Canyon is a nice little trail that lets you see 3 waterfalls! Although this hike was rather ill timed, I actually ran out of daylight to go further and finish the trail. My initial plan was to loop back up to another trail called Cedar Run (?) and back to my vehicle. But I got lost going to Shenandoah National Park, even though I know how get there.
The trail starts at a nice parking lot with ample of spaces to park. The first mile is a shallow decent and pretty much stays that way through the hike (except section B-C). Some websites have this hike rated a 4 / 5 difficulty and I would have to disagree. Even at the trails “B” to “C” where markers turn red, I didn’t find it very difficult. I’m not a super athlete by any stretch, but I also didn’t feel like it was a lvl 4 trail. I would call this trail 3 / 5 at the hardest portion, which is the middle of the trail. “A” to “B” was easy and “B” to “C” was tricky footing at best, but not difficult.
bit of geeky trail data..(it’s longer than 5.2 mi, I don’t know why it didn’t record the B-C hike)
Total Distance: 8.42 km (5.2 mi)
Total Time: 2:34:08
Moving Time: 1:25:48
Average Speed: 3.28 km/h (2.0 mi/h)
Average Moving Speed: 5.89 km/h (3.7 mi/h)
Max Speed: 20.54 km/h (12.8 mi/h)
Min Elevation: 741 m (2431 ft)
Max Elevation: 1048 m (3439 ft)
Elevation Gain: 613 m (2011 ft)
Max Grade: 0 %
Min Grade: 0 %
Recorded: Sun Apr 17 16:13:50 EDT 2011
This trail is very well marked and paths are clearly visible. It’s a very popular trail and during my hike we must have seen a dozen people with family and little kids at the “A-B” section.
The top section waterfall. From section A-B, this waterfall can be seen at an overlook. The waterfall is actually much steeper and bigger than the photo suggest. My choice of lens (50mm 1.4f) has a limited field of view, making it difficult to capture the fall at a wider angle. I’m working on getting a 24mm L lens for my Canon, but I’m torn between that lens or a wider angle Zoom lens that would allow me to take a wider photo, but image quality may not be as good a prime.
This picture is pretty much the trail in a nutshell. We had a nice rain storm the day before and the water over run was crazy. The trails path became little streams and only a few dry spots were left, making footing tricky especially without any waterproof shoes.
Yes he’s filthy, then again he’s always filthy… 
View at the top of the trail when finished. This overlook is about 200 yards from the parking lot of White Oak Canyon, heading south. This is the kind of image I live for and the reason why I stayed out late at the park. The sunset was 19:48 this day, meaning I have 1-1.5 hours to get some good shots before twilight. This photo has very little editing done to it, I just basically brightened it up a bit because I took the photo a bit underexposed.
