Hike Recap - July 5, Rapidan Camp in SNP

On July 5, we realized that we hadn’t been on a hike for a few weeks, so we consulted our easy day hikes book for a referral. We’ve done a number of the hikes there already, but there are plenty to go…and for reference, while it is entitled easy day hikes, some are rigorous – the title refers to the time frame of the hikes, meaning these do not require an overnight backpacking trek.

We chose the Rapidan Camp hike as our destination for the day. It has an interesting historical objective among its features: the hike descends along a stream to the summer White House used by Herbert Hoover. Tomorrow’s post will discuss this objective.

We parked at Milam Gap, just a few miles south of Big Meadows in the SNP, and found the trailhead across Skyline Drive. Some readers may not be familiar with hiking in the SNP – frequently, and especially with these easy day hikes – the trip either immediately descends down the mountains, with the return consisting of a climb back up (sometimes it’s steep as in Dark Hollow Falls); or you begin with a climb and the return is downhill (as with Hawksbill Summit). It isn’t always this way, but it frequently is.

As we got underway, among the first sites was this fern glade. We have been talking about naturalizing the cabin’s front lawn…when I think of that, the picture that comes to mind is like this one. Although I may be wrong, my recollection is that this sort of environment is only encountered on the east side slopes of the Park, probably has something to do with the leeward direction and the rainfall in the woods.

A feature of this hike is the fact that it follows Laurel Prong – a small stream that is highlighted as a trout fishing destination (catch and release only!). Laurel Prong joins Mill Prong (interesting they are prongs here, not forks) and at the confluence becomes the Rapidan River – and that is where the little camp was sited for Hoover.

Here are a couple of the stream crossings on the hike – the route we chose featured three crossings such as these.

Finally, at the bottom of the route, and 500 yards or so from the camp, there is Big Rock Falls, shown in the photo at the top of this entry. This is a small waterfall compared to others nearby in this section of the Park, but it is among the most scenic.

Tomorrow’s post will go into some detail about the camp itself. It was a very interesting destination for us. And this is a hike we will take again – there is opportunity for extending it over some varied scenery and crossing other streams in a longer circuit hike, as opposed to the out-and-back we did.