Ramble On

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Hiking Prospects for the Winter

With all these posts on outside activities the last few days, readers may have wondered what I was coming around to...while nobody has told me they put more hiking down on their 2009 resolutions list, a couple of hiking compadres have mentioned they'd be interested in doing a few hikes this year.

So I've been thinking, and in my reading (Blue Ridge Outdoors magazine, specifically) I came across this two-day hike in the GW National Forest (excerpting from the description here):

The Massanutten Trail

Two-day hike: a 19-mile mini-loop that combines pieces of the Massanutten Trail with the Tuscarora Trail for a two-day highlight reel of the area.

Day One: Park at Signal Knob and head north on the orange-blazed trail, where you’ll climb to the Buzzard Rock overlook. After that, two miles of ridgeline hiking leads to views from Signal Knob, from which you can see Great North Mountain on the WV border. Signal Knob is 2,100 feet, the high point of this trek. Descent past the junction of the Tuscarora Trail into a small creek valley. For campers, look in the meadow near the creek. 8.5 miles.

Day Two: Follow the Massanutten Trail for a mile, intersecting again with the Tuscarora Trail. Take a right following blue blazes to the ridge to Three Top Mountain. Hiking 3.5 miles on the ridgeline via bolders and scrambles – with views of the Valley along the way. Continue following the blue blazes past another intersection, 5.5 miles to the day one parking area. 10 miles.

I'm going to check Hiking Upward and other resources on this route. We'll probably base out of the cabin for it, since we are so close to the route, and use car shuttling so we don't have to camp.

The route is outlined as a winter hike, but we are more likely to do this in March - may be slightly overlapping into the spring.

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