Lookin for trails

Ok, I live in Luray, SURROUNDED by mountains, but where to ride? where to ride?
The only trails going up to the Skyline Drive are just that, up up up and then turn around and come back home, down downd down. Really no circular trails

So, on Tuesday night, Betsy returned my call, saying that she could ride with me on Wed. We started talking about a new place to ride....where oh where. I dug out my Shenandoah map and Wayyyyyyyy over on the far right side of it, it did show the Masanutten range to the west.

So Betsy sped over and picked me up at 7 pm and we headed 15 min down the road to Catherines Furnace and started driving up the State Forestry Road. It did show a horse trail that parralleled it, but how to get there from here?

So we drove and drove and found some 4 wheeler trails and then also one that looked cleared high enough to ride a horse through.

The gravel road had a gradual grade and plenty of creeks (Cub Run) along the way so we figured that we would park at Catherines Furnace, ride up the state road to the next county and return on the horse trail and we might get an 8 to 10 mile ride in.

Ok, so that was a fun outing, with the top down on her car and the hair blowing wild in the wind.......

Wednesday I was awake at 7 as usual. We had planned to leave at 9:30 BUT ALAS it was pouring down rain.....grrrr. Neither of us felt the need to condition in the rain...plus there was a lot of dangerous thunder and lightening....oh shoot and now Betsy is gone on one of her "Inn Sitting" jobs and won't be back for 3 or 4 weeks. So I guess we won't get to ride together before the Virginia Highlands Challange.

Oh well, guess I will go it alone around the home trails this evening....DARN