Hiking Virginia: Heart of Appalachia

Pine Mountain Trail. More photos

We just spent 10 days in  far southwest Virginia, near the Kentucky border, also known as the “Heart of Appalachia.” We're re-hiking the trails in our first book, “Hiking Virginia” (2001) for a new edition.

This is quite possibly the most rugged hiking in the book, and perhaps all of Virginia. The climbs are steep, the ridges relentless, but the rewards are many. Autumn rains mean the streams are flowing through deep hollers to cascade over waterfalls, and the leaves are at their peak.

The great little town of Big Stone Gap has been our basecamp, specifically Jessie Lea RV Park, where we’ve parked the Vanagon (aka Virginia Creeper), to rest, refuel and do laundry between hikes. This is a beautiful spot, a little slice of heaven along the Powell River. 

Big Stone Gap is home of the “Trail of the Lonesome Pine Outdoor Drama,” Mutual Drug where you can get great home-cooking, several good museums, and Adrianna Trigianni, author of the best-selling “Big Stone Gap” novels.

The soundtrack to our trip has been the traditional and mountain music of the region. The 40th Annual Home Craft Days were taking place at Mountain Empire Community College and we attended the Friday night concert, and purchased the CD to accompany us on the rest of our journey.

Here’s the hiking re-cap of Southwest VA:

1. Stone Mountain overnight: 14 miles from Gap Springs, camping at Lake Keokee, ending at Roaring Branch.

2. Chief Benges Scout Trail overnight: 14 miles from High Knob, camping at Bark Camp Lake, pass the Falls of Little Stony and end at Hanging Rock.

3. Devil’s Fork day hike: 7 mile loop, featuring numerous stream crossings in a lush gorge

4. Pine Mountain Trail, Highlands Section: 14- mile overnight (probably more like 15). From Pounda Gap, Virginia, to Route 119 outside Whitesburg, Kentucky. A spectacular hike along the razor’s edge of the VA-KY border. In places you are literally walking atop the ridge where the Virginia plate is pushing up over the Kentucky plate.

Thus closes the chapter on Southwest VA, at least for now. Next: Mount Rogers, highest point in Virginia!

Hike VA: St. Mary's Wilderness

St. Mary’s Wilderness
Distance: 10.2 miles
Start: Mine Bank Trailhead, Milpost 23 on the Blue Ridge Parkway
Difficulty: Strenuous
Campsite: Sherando Lake National Recreation Area

On this the first day of fall, we did our longest and most strenuous hike in quite awhile, with a 1,000-foot ascent to 3518 feet, quite a lung-buster for us sea-level dwellers!

Despite summertime temps in the low 90s, the leaves are really changing up here, beautiful hues of red, yellow and orange mixing with the green. Once in awhile a cool fall-ish breeze would come through and cause a flurry of yellow hickory leaves to gently fall to the ground.

From our campsite at Sherando Lake, we had a nearly full moon every night, bright enough to light our way on a nighttime hike up to the lake. Fall is a beautiful time in the Blue Ridge and the parkway is celebrating its 75th anniversary.

James River State Park

Distance: 7.5 miles

Start: Parking area just before the Park Office/Nature Center

Difficulty: Moderate

Admission: $2 day use

Pets: Allowed on a leash

Accessibility: The .37 mile Green Hill Pond Loop is a paved trail with boardwalks over a scenic fishing pond.

Camping: Large, level, full-service sites as well as primitive camping (fee charged)

Link to Park Website

Highlights: This new-ish state park opened in 1999. Scenic river views and flat trails contrast with some pretty rugged up-and-down wooded trails. A state-of-the-art nature center is nearly done and slated to open soon. Widely used by equestrians, there’s even a horse camp.

Our day hike combined several trails to make a big loop around the entire park. Varied eco-systems, remnants of an historic farm, and a canoe livery where you can rent a canoe or tube for a leisurely 2-mile flat on the James River make this a great weekend destination for the family.

James River State Park will be a new chapter in the 3rd update of our book, Hiking Virginia, coming out in spring 2012.

Hiking Virginia: Newport News Park

Distance: 5 miles
Start: Discovery Center
Difficulty: Easy
Admission: Free
Pets: Allowed on a leash
Accessibility:
Camping: 188 large, shady sites (fee charged)
Link to Park Website

Highlights: Reservoir, boardwalk overlooks, wildlife, Civil War earthenworks, varied habitats

As Hurricane Earl is doing a cat-and-mouse with the Atlantic Coast, we headed to the Virginia Peninsula for a night of camping and hiking in Newport News Park.

The nation’s largest municipal park—8,000 acres—is a gem of woods, marsh and lake habitats and more than 30 miles of hiking and biking trails just off busy Interstate 64.

If you ever find yourself backed up in traffic getting to Hampton Roads, consider hopping off at the Ft. Eustis exit to do a leg-stretcher, ranging from the .4-mile nature trail, to five miles connecting the White Oak, Wynn’s Mill, Twin Forts and a couple of other connectors. We did the later and so much wildife: ducks, swans, turtles, egrets and great blue heron on the reservoir; several deer and even an owl in the woods.

Got your bike along? The 5.3-mile Bikeway is a winner and connects to adjacent Yorktown Battlefield. The park also rents bikes at the Campground office.

Newport News Park will be a new chapter in the update of our book, Hiking Virginia, a National Outdoor Book Award winner in 2000. Between now and next spring, we’ll be rehiking, re-photographing and GPS-ing many of the hikes in the book, plus adding some new ones. Follow the progress here!

Hiking Virginia Book Update

When we’re not paddling this fall, we’ll be hitting the trail, quite literally, for the 3rd edition of our first book, Hiking Virginia. It’s been 10 years since we did the initial research, so we are going to re-hike many of them, add new chapters (like James River State Park, which wasn’t even open back then!), and add GPS coordinates and color photos to every chapter. 

We’re excited to make this book we love even better: a National Outdoor Book Award Honorable Mention, it has sold more than 20,000 copies. 

We’ll be posting trail reports here weekly, from easy walks near cities, like Newport News Park, to the lung-busting 100-plus-mile Pine Mountain Trail that follows the high ridge between Virginia and Kentucky.  The first post will be up soon!

Wintergreen Resort: Virignia's mountaintop playground

Last week Bill and I traveled on a writing assignment to Wintergreen resort, just south of Charlottesville, VA, and on the edge of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We left our home at sea level and within hours were hiking (actually huffing and puffing) on some of the resort’s 30 miles of trails, with GPS in hand for a geo-caching scavenger hunt.

The ridge-top resort has condos and homes for rent, 4 or 5 really great restaurants, tennis, golf, a spa, nature center, and an adventure center with climbing tower, bungee trampoline and indoor arcade. Not to mention skiing in the winter! It’s truly a paradise for active families.

Our piece on this 11,000 acre playground will appear the September issue of the Washingtonian. We’ll let you know when it comes out!

In the meantime, read our article on enjoying the spa after a rigorous backpacking trip.