From Stony Man to Thornton Gap

My quest to hike every trail in Shenandoah National Park continues, and when my hiking club announced a hike for a section of the Appalachian Trail that I'd never been on, I was happy to join in.  We hiked north from spectacular Stony Man to Thornton Gap, past equally spectacular Mary's Rock, just as autumn is really kicking up its heels in the mountains.

There were 14 of us on this hike, and we had to shuttle cars:

Here's the track for the 10.5 miles of hiking, going south to north.

And here is the elevation profile.  As you can see, by hiking from the south (left), we did more descent than ascent, although there was still plenty of climbing.

Fall colors are finally starting to pop.

There were four great view points on this hike: Stony Man, Little Stony Man, the Pinnacles, and Mary's Rock.  Here is a view from each one:

On Little Stony Man, we saw a number of ravens, and four bald eagles - 3 mature and one immature.  I don't think that I've ever seen eagles in Shenandoah before.  Here is one of the ravens:

And the immature eagle, visible in the lower right (with a zoom below that):

Along the way, we encountered an outing group from Oberlin College camping at Byrd Nest #3 shelter, which is a sturdily built stone structure.  I didn't know that it was now allowed to camp here.

I think that my favorite part of the hike was Mary's Rock, with its incredible westward views:

Here I am on Mary's Rock, thinking of my Mary:

From Mary's Rock, it was a steep 1,300 foot descent in about 1.8 miles, with a few final views to remember this wonderful hike by.  Get out there and do it!

Brown Mountain Loop

Last Saturday was a gorgeous day, and I spent it back in Shenandoah National Park, my first time since the October Road Scholar week.  I picked an area where I'd never hiked, and even been a little intimidated by based on descriptions that is was for experienced hikers only.  It's the area in the west of the southern district of the park, in the Big Run, Rockytop, and Brown Mountain wilderness area.  I made it into a 10 mile loop over Rocky Mountain and Brown Mountain, returning along the Big Run Portal and Rocky Mountain Run Trail. 

On one side was Rocky Top and on the other was Rocky Mount.  With all the names including the word "rocky," you might guess that this is a rugged, remote, and rocky area, and you would be correct.  The first half of the hike was especially so.  Here is the track for the hike, hiking counter-clockwise.  Ignore the two straight lines on the west side of the track - I am not sure why the inReach put them in there, but I didn't hike those.  The high point of the hike was the start at 2,840 feet, and the low point was at Big Run at about 1,240 feet, with a total of about 2,000 feet of elevation loss and gain.  Most of the gain was the 1,600 foot climb out of the Big Run valley.

It was great to explore this area, and get some ideas for future hikes.  It's big and remote enough, with so many miles of trail, that I think I need to spend some time backpacking in here.  The leaves were starting to change, but there was a lot more green than yellow, orange, red, and brown.

This photo shows an overview of the area that I was going to hike into, mostly downhill, but with one 500 foot climb over Rocky Mountain.

The first really good views were from Rocky Mountain.

After crossing over Brown Mountain - no real view - I crossed through an area that looked like it had once had a forest fire, and not too long ago.  It was open and shrubby - not many trees - with views to the Shenandoah Valley.

I didn't see much wildlife on my hike, but in this open area, I did find this really beautiful butterfly - a buckeye:

It was after this point that the trail became even more steep and rocky, descending into heavy forest.

This one looked like a sleepy rock man to me.

After a while, I had good views of the sheer cliffs of Rocky Mount.  I remembered hiking there about seven years ago.

Near the bottom, I looked at the cliffs and talus fields of Rocky Top, across Big Run.  I'll save that for another day.

It was nice to reach my lunchtime destination, Big Run.  The Big Run watershed is the largest watershed in the park.  Another hiker came along there, also for his lunch break, one of the few others I saw on an October Saturday.

After lunch, I started the 5 mile 1,600 foot climb out of the valley.  It wasn't as tough as the hike down, actually.  Much of it was a steady but gradual climb along a pretty stream through a nice forest.  I crossed the stream 4-5 times.  In the spring, I could see it being thigh or even hip deep, but I was able to rock-hop with some care, and stayed dry.

I'm not sure why it took me so long to get into this part of the park, but I am glad I did.  I had a great time hiking and exploring, and the weather was nearly perfect.  I'll be back!

More Road Scholar Hikes

The first full week of October was spent in the central portion of Shenandoah National Park leading the Road Scholar group on hikes every day for four days.  It was a great group, and was a little older than the prior two groups: of the 23 people, at least seven were 80 or older, and 4 of them were 86 or older!  So the shorter hikes tended to be much more popular, with only a few people going on the longer hikes.  But everyone did well, finished the hikes, and had fun, and unlike the last two groups, no one needed medical attention.

The hikes were all around the Big Meadows area, and were about 30 miles on the trail: Dark Hollows Falls, the AT over Bearfence Mountain, the AT from Hawksbill Gap to Stony Man, and Camp Rapidan.  Here are some photos from my four days there.  You can see that the trees are barely changing, although the weather took a turn to the very fall-like during the week.

Dark Hollow Falls is running more slowly, but is still pretty.

Low mist with blue skies.

Blue Ridge views from Stony Man.

Little Stony Man from Stony Man.

Big Meadows.

Bumblebee on a thistle flower - unlike the June and July hikes here with the same group, we saw few insects, flowers, or birds.

Red-backed salamander.

Milkweed releasing it's seeds for the next generation.

Monarch caterpillar on a milkweed plant.

Milkweed beetles.

Chicken mushroom.

White-tailed deer.

I thought that the cavity on this hollow tree resembled a planter.

This little caterpillar has four eggs from a parasitic wasp, which will grow into larvae that will eat it alive - not a good fate for this guy, but that is nature - pretty ruthless.

Several kinds of lichens on a boulder.

An American chestnut nut - I don't think that I ever saw one before and found it encouraging.

This yellow birch started as a tiny seedling, and took root in a pocket of soil on this rock.  In time, its roots split the rock in two.

On Stony Man summit.

I find all the various kinds of lichens fascinating.

Spider web with morning dew.

At Big Rock Falls near Camp Rapidan.

Old fireplace at historic Camp Rapidan.

American chestnut sapling.

This maple leaf shows that fall is coming.

Once again, I had a great time leading the clients of Road Scholar on their hikes.  I hope that they enjoyed themselves and learned something our mountains and of nature.