Recently, during a staycation without the kids, Mr. Family Trip and I decided to hike Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park. It boasts splitter cracks, dihedrals, and crystal pinching slabs. Living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia is wonderful. It means more adventure for my Enneagram 7 soul. There are so many beautiful hikes in this area that don’t get the foot traffic this one does (try out, This hike is not cheap! And thanks for following The Trip! These things fill me up. The rock scramble was somewhat challenging but so worth it! On a peak weekend day in October, officials said, as many as 900 people can be found comin' round the mountain. We are pretty fit, experienced hikers. more, Top Selling Tours & Activities in and around Shenandoah National Park, Popular Shenandoah National Park Categories, Commonly searched for in Shenandoah National Park. You can, I’d think hard about taking the kids. This is a difficult loop trail to Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park. About 100,000 of those visitors hike Old Rag. Are those reasons enough to push yourself to do it? From the Old Rag parking area, take the blue-blazed Ridge Trail. Read more about us and our philosophy here. Old Rag, the entire circuit, was over 10 miles for us. Old Rag Mountain is underlain by Old Rag Granite, named for its ubiquitous exposure on the mountain, formed during the Grenville Orogeny about a billion years ago. The crowds were considerably less and, unlike other visitor experiences we’ve seen on social media, we didn’t have to wait in lines to scale the rock formations. I’ll wager it’s more than that now. If you want to do the whole thing, be prepared for 10 miles. A part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the peak is located within Shenandoah National Park and is the most popular hiking destination within the park.[3]. The 9 – mile hike starts at the base of the mountain, at the Ridge Trail Trailhead and then takes you to the summit via the Ridge Trail. As most of the reviews mentioned, this hike is not at all easy. Required fields are marked *. Make sure to pay your entrance fee ($25/vehicle; pass is good for a whole week). The Old Rag hike is strenuous, with lots of switchback trails and rock scrambling. Living locally, we had the ability to go mid-week. (That honor belongs to Mt Mitchell.). Shenandoah National Park has over 200,000 acres of land to explore. Is this a must-do if you are traveling with a, Would you recommend this place or activity to a friend looking for an, Are the prices for this place or activity, Is this a romantic place or activity that you would suggest for, So you want to hike to the top of Old Rag? Because it’s there, because it is a challenge, because we overcame it, and because it feels like such a personal feat to have made it. An “I actually did that?” feeling of internal high-fiving happens. But when we got home that evening, we were weary in the best way possible. But as an avid hiker and someone who lives in the shadow of the Shenandoah National Park, there are some other tips and thoughts I’d add when hiking Old Rag Mountain: In the end, I think I figured out why people do this: it’s got to be similar to why folks push themselves physically to conquer a mountain. The shorter, most common way is from a parking area in Nethers near the end of Madison County's SR 601, off Virginia State Route 231, at the base of the mountain. Old Rag is a unique destination for rock climbing in the mid-Atlantic region. How Kids + Traditional Life = Travel + Adventure + Fun. But now, I understand it. While the first part of the hike – scaling and climbing and bouldering – is a lot of fun, it is fairly early in the hike. It also means that this is not the hike to take if you are searching for a solitary escape to nature. You walk about a mile to the trailhead and it took just over two hours to the summit . So please ignore any other websites saying it is 8 or under 8. Weekends have a lot of crowd and it took me around 45, We headed out at 8am got back to parking at 1230pm. Sorry, there are no tours or activities available to book online for the date(s) you selected. This is more like “bouldering” followed by a hike. You will have a blast, but it's not for everyone. Hiking Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park, Family Visit to Assateague National Seashore. The trail will take you to the summit of the mountain up one way but then you’ll descend via a different route. Because you did it. The Washington Post estimated way back in 1995 that 100,000 people hike Old Rag Mountain each year, with some fall weekend days seeing 900 hikers. And Old Rag Mountain, at 3,284 ft, isn’t even the highest point in the Blue Ridge. So what in the world brings hundreds of thousands to hike this trail each year? Sure, at the beach we’d sit in the sand and watch the waves. But that, perhaps, is because of what draws our family outside. I was able to test this theory. This hike is both famous and infamous. Parking is now limited to the lower field parking area, adding a 0.9-mile (1.4 km) walk on asphalt. The Fire Road then descends 2.5 miles (4.0 km) to the Old Rag parking area. (The Park just created a new parking lot and new paths through the woods that circumvent walking on the road. The trail then turns into a rock scramble, which can be strenuous for inexperienced hikers, for 1.1 miles (1.8 km) to the summit and intersection with the Saddle Trail which descends 1.9 miles (3.1 km) down the saddle of the ridge past Byrds Nest #1 shelter and Old Rag shelter to the junction with Weakley Hollow Fire Road. Do NOT take a large backpack (you have to squeeze through some tight rocks), Make sure you travel the circuit the proper way (scale the steep stuff first, not last), Plan for this to last all day (you don’t want to rush and you also want plenty of time to enjoy the view from the top). So what in the world brings hundreds of thousands to hike this trail each year?
Interesting Historical Figures, Virginia Facts, The Ten Commandments 1956 Full Movie - Youtube, Aham Sharma, Emmett Till Movie 2019, Song For My Father Sarah Mclachlan, Come Back Home Lyrics Seo Taiji,