The Path (Much) Less Traveled

I have a tough hike in the White Mountains coming up starting this week, and wanted to do one last "training" hike, so I crammed all kinds of junk in my pack to get the weight to 30+ pounds, and hit the trail.  I picked an out and back trail, 3.7 miles each way, called One Mile Run Trail.  I'd never hiked it before, and can now check it off my Shenandoah National Park 500 list.

I have mixed feelings about the trail.  It is rarely traveled, I would guess, and not well maintained.  One Mile Run is a pretty stream.  There are 14 stream crossings, 28 on the round trip, and some of them are tough.  In one spot, there were three tough stream crossings in about 100 yards.  Glad I brought my river shoes this time.  I didn't see a soul the whole hike, and this was on a very nice Saturday when the park would be pretty popular (plus, there was no fee that day).  I did encounter a bear, hearing him crashing through the brush and trees.

My inReach has a failure, so I didn't capture the track.  The trail is in the northern part of the southern section of SNP, and runs from the Skyline Drive to the park boundary.  The map shows my starting point (red circle), the trail (red arrow pointing to the dashed line), and turn around point at the park boundary (red star.)

Since it doesn't connect to anything else, it gets very little use.  Parts of it are high grass or thick brush, and there are lots of dead trees across the trail.  On my hike, I was surrounded by small biting flies and mosquitoes for much of the hike, which was annoying.  So while I am glad I did the hike, and can cross it off the list, it's not likely that I will hike this one again.  The pretty stream was its main asset.

Here are some photos, starting with a view of where I would hike into from the Skyline Drive:

Yep, the trail wades right though this tall grass.  It does not get a lot of maintenance, probably based on its low use.

After 1.3 miles of steep hiking, I got to lovely One Mile Run.  You cross this stream 14 times in each direction.

Some of the deadfall is easy to get past, like this tree across the trail.  Others, not so much.

Yes indeed, you have to wade through waist high shrubs at this point.

For most of the hike, I had the melody of the brook playing in my head (along with the whining of mosquitoes and biting flies.)

This was one big block of stone.

I used my new Katadyn Be Free water filter for the first time, and love it.  It is so much easier than my old one, and only weighs about 3 ounces.

I'm not sure what this bird was, but it clearly met its fate right here, likely from a sharp-shinned hawk that struck out of the blue.

When I was in Pennsylvania last month, the wildflowers were magnificent - see here.  On this hike, there were some flowers to enjoy but nothing like the Laurel Highlands.

At the very end of the hike, there were two beautiful butterflies on this flower.

My goals for this hike were some more fitness training for New Hampshire, try to break in my new boots, and check off one more SNP 500 trail.  I accomplished all of these, but was much more tired than I expected at the end.  Still, if you want to hike in a lovely place and want some solitude, this is the hike for you!