The Northern District of Shenandoah National Park in Virginia made for a week of exploration, hiking, and even playing a little catch-up with work and research basecamped at Mathews Arm Campground. Each day I set out to do a minimum of five miles hiking while setting aside time to work on projects I've had no time to tackle in this new universe of work-from-home/ at-work-all-the-time daily routine. I finished a journal article, did some artwork, attended Zoom meetings for work, and did 30 + miles of hiking. I considered it a major victory week for not a having heard one notification bell alerting me of new emails. This was also a work test for a future nomad adventure.
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| North Entrance at Front Royal, VA |
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| Day of arrival, late afternoon hike on the Traces Trail |
After arriving at Mathews Arm Campground off the Skyline Drive, the major road through the park, Amos and I set out to hike the Traces Trail accessed from the campground entrance. Setting up camp could wait as daylight was quickly fading and we needed to get a good walk in after three hours driving. We made a fast circuit hike through beautiful transitional forestland where one can still see the outlines of old pastures and stone fences. It is important to remember when hiking these mountain landscapes that nothing is totally "natural" and very few places within this large Eastern park have not been modified by human activity in the last century. More on that in a future post. Once back at camp, it was an easy task to set up my simple site - tarp, work table, stove, water. My little SUV provided sleeping room for both Amos and I and was warm and cozy.
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Starting Day Two in morning fog.
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Day Two dawned with mountain fog blanketing the highest peaks and we set off to hike a six-mile loop around Hogback and Little Hogback Mountains in mysterious light. Using a combination of trails, including the Appalachian Trail, we traversed old roads, rocky footpaths, and pasture traces (now trails), to circle the mountain along its flanks and summiting two peaks. Gildart names this the Sugarloaf-Keiser Run Road -Hogback Lariat with an added mile to the forested summit of Hogback. Little Hogback afforded a great westerly view but Hogback Mountain was a bit of a let down as its highest point was socked in with a rather ugly radio repeater station and tower. Never mind, the hike was wonderful and we saw so much along the way. More on that later, too.
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| Day Two: Hogback Mountain Loop |
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The Appalachian Trail is always close by - or underfoot.
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| Summit of Little Hogback looking SW towards Hogback Mountain. |
Day Three we hiked a combination of trails that lead off the Compton Gap parking area for total of five miles. We started with a morning loop past Fort Windham Rocks, across the Dickey Ridge Trail, connecting to the AT and a visit to Indian Spring. Then off to find wifi for a Zoom meeting (work). We returned for the second hike from Compton Gap to the fantastic outcrop of columnar jointing and summit at Compton Peak and an out-and-back lollipop towards Jenkins Gap on the AT. This second section is where we met a family with a leash-aggressive dog that the owner could barely control. It yowled at Amos with its teeth bared and its family all screaming for it to stop. Amos was trying to protect me and accidently pushed me over into a scree pile. A little cut-up and angry, I waved off the family when they approached (with the angry dog!) to see if I was okay. "Go away!" I said. Amos was very helpful in the steep climb and rock scramble down to the rock formation on a side trail. He stayed on alert the whole afternoon.
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Fort Windham Rocks and the beginning of a nice ridge of columnar jointed basalt.
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Indian Run Spring bubbles up from the mountain flank.
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AT approach to Compton Peak.
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| Amos keeping an eye on a leash aggressive dog as the family scurries down the mountain. |
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A bit of a rock scramble to get here but worth it!
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Day Three we hiked a nine-mile loop that took in Overall Falls and a remote mountain ridge trail. We'd already seen a bear at a pull-off on Skyline Drive, but this hike encompassed such great bear habitat that I knew we'd more - and we did. Two cubs and a Momma bear! We also saw a Timber Rattlesnake and stopped to visit with it for a few minutes. This was a hard hike and we were both dragging at the end, but luckily it started and ended practically at my campsite with no drive needed today. The Overall Falls Trail was weak on water but huge on steep, treacherous climbs down into the ravine where hikers can find a nice cascade and a sheer drop falls within a mile. Overall Run Road made for some very rocky and slow hiking and the return up Beech Mountain Trail was up, up, up. This connects with the Mathews Arm Trail, an old farm community and fire road road to the saddle between the peaks at Mathews Arm Campground. This was a modified version (longer) of the Tuscarora-Overall Run Trail Loop in Gildart's Falcon Guide (see below).
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Beech Mountain Trail for the return - near where we saw Mom Bear and two cubs.
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| At the bottom of the ravine on Overall Run Road (note stone wall) at the river. |
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| View to the west from Overall Run Trail near the sheer drop falls. |
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| At the sheer drop falls, a little short on water, Overall Run Falls. |
On Day Four I had a morning Zoom meeting to attend so it was back up the road to the Visitor's Center for wifi service, then an afternoon exploring another old woods road and Lands Run Falls. Amos seemed a little sore from the previous day's nine mile hike so we only did five miles on an out-and-back on the old road. He had plenty to explore though, and we spent a good amount of time peering under rocks in the creek looking for aquatic life. More on that later, too. We also hiked a section of AT - about a mile - around an old CCC camp and Amos had his picture taken by a nice park maintenance worker who showed us photographs of the camp mascot in 1935, a Black and Tan Coonhound named Blackbird Joe. We had a great conversation with him and wandered some more around the old camp.
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| Lands Run Road |
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| A little off-trail bush wacking to explore the creek above the falls. |
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Some wandering after our hike found this great site.
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Amos does a proud pose on the porch of the CCC camp HQ building
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| Another CCC building near the barracks site. |
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The only original CCC building left in the parl. This was a great wander walk.
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On our last day we did a few slow miles on the Dickey Ridge Trail and Snead Farm Loop. Amos was a little tired and so we took it easy. I'd massaged his paws the night before and checked for cracks or cuts and found a little blister between his toes. He can go a long time hiking, but when he's hurting or sore, he's he first one to say "time for a wander, not a hike." Still we did just under five miles, slowly (it took hours) and Amos was very happy with all the smells and cold spring water stops.
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| Dickey Ridge Trail |
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| Snead Farm Road |
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Our last lunch on the trail was at the Snead Farm barn.
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Total hiking thirty miles for the week with a few extra miles of just wandering and exploring. I'll post another time on the plants and animals we saw. Amos did great but I was paying very close attention to his paws as many of the trails we hiked were very rocky and he wasn't wearing boots like I was! This was prefect weather for strenuous hikes, cool and breezy with the coming of deep autumn. It's good to remember that any trail leading off from parking areas along the Skyline Drive always goes down, so saving snacks, water, and energy for the long, steep returns is important. We stopped and gave water to one exhausted hiker and his small collie who were just slogging it uphill. The AT is really the only trail that travels the ridge line with less ups and downs than all the side trails and old roads. Next post will cover geology, plants, and animals.
Notes:
Bert and Jane Gildart offer a nice set of hikes for all three districts of the park in their Falcon Guide Hiking Shenandoah National Park, Fifth Edition (2016). I wouldn't rely entirely on this guide book, however, since there are so many more trails to explore or combine with what they have here. I used my All Trails app as well as a small booklet on circuit trails I picked up at the Dickey Ridge Visitors Center.
I stayed at the Mathews Arm Campground just off Skyline Drive in the Northern District. It was the perfect basecamp from which I could go hiking each day whether by car to a distant trailhead or right out of my tent site. There are no showers and the campground does close in November for the winter. https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/232432
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