Welcome to Late To The Trail
A real-time journey in the wild – better late than never
Whether you’re just discovering the trail or rediscovering yourself, you’re in the right place. Pull up a camp stool and stay a while — there’s a lot of trail ahead and we’re just getting started.
New here? Start with the About or head straight to Start Here.
- The Unglamorous Middle: What Happens When Nobody’s Watching
Nobody takes pictures of the Tuesday morning walk. There’s no dramatic waterfall at the end. No rock scramble, no 900-foot elevation gain, no spontaneous four-hour detour to a hidden sandstone pool in southwest Virginia. It’s just me, the trail I know by heart, and whatever is going on in my head that day. Eight to… - Devil’s Bathtub Trail Virginia: The Detour That Stole the Whole Trip
I woke up in the hotel and felt good. Not just okay-good. Genuinely good. No heaviness, no soreness radiating up from my feet, no dread about what my body owed me for the previous day’s punishment. After Bearfence Mountain and Dark Hollow Falls back to back, I had braced myself for a rough morning. Instead… - Dark Hollow Falls: Too Peopley, Too Steep, and a Plot Twist I Did Not See Coming
I should have listened to the sweaty people. We had just finished the Bearfence rock scramble — one of the best things I’ve done in recent memory — and were feeling thoroughly pleased with ourselves when we drove down Skyline Drive to the Dark Hollow Falls trailhead. It was the same trip, the same day,… - Bearfence Rock Scramble: The Day I Felt Like a Kid Again
My daughter showed up Friday night with a cake. Not a regular cake. A sushi cake. Layers of sushi rice, tuna and salmon tataki, cucumber, avocado, seaweed salad, masago, eel sauce, sriracha, Japanese mayo — stacked into an actual cake shape and topped with fish roe and a “Happy Birthday” written in Sriracha. From scratch…. - Miles and Confidence: Windsor Castle Park Trail with My Girl
There is something about doing hard things with your daughter. Not the kind of hard that involves tears or crisis or the particular drama that mothers and daughters are capable of generating together — we are very good at that kind too, trust me. I mean the quiet kind of hard. The kind where you…