The 75 @ 75 Project: An Update

It has been a while since I posted an update on my “75 @ 75” project, which is a series of hikes I’ll be taking this year in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the founding of Shenandoah National Park. Honestly, the reason for the lack of posts was the summer: it’s too hot to take on these hikes, which by design are moderately strenuous, since each hike on the list must be five miles or longer, with a net elevation change of at least 500 feet.

However, over the last three weeks or so, I have managed to get three new hikes in, and so I will review those over the next few posts. There are Google Earth images for each of these three hikes, which were:

Old Rag Google Earth Image

• Old Rag (we reached the summit off of the fire road and saddle trail) completed with hiking team mate Tom;

Doyles River/Jones Run Google Earth Image

• Doyles River/Jones Run, which I completed solo as a warm-up for the next one; and

Wildcat Ridge/RipRap Hollow Google Earth Image

• Wildcat Ridge/RipRap Hollow, completed with my neighbor Dan.

As shown in the table at the beginning of this post, with the completion of these three hikes, I have nearly reached 50 miles in the project, or two-thirds of the goal of 75 miles. From the project’s intro post, listed below are the hikes left on the candidate list that I hope to take on before the end of the season, which I count as Thanksgiving weekend, when the lodges in the Park are closed for the winter.

• Bluff Trail/AT, mile post 17.6, distance 12.8 miles, altitude change 2,400. Includes two summits and some views, and about 5 miles on the AT.
• Knob Mountain/Jeremy’s Run, mile post 24.1 (at the Elk Wallow Wayside), two versions either 11.7 or 14.0 miles, elevation from 2,600 to 2,800 feet. There’s a stream with cascades and a falls, and a summit.
• Hazel Mountain, mile post 33.5, distance 5.3 miles and elevation change 1,070 feet (the easiest on this list!). No summit here, but it is interesting for a combination of a falls, cascade, and a small cave. Depending on when we go, maybe no spelunking – the snake scene in True Grit still creeps me out.
• Pocosin Mission and South River Falls, mile post 59.5, distance 8.5 miles and elevation 1,800 feet. This combines the ruin of an old cabin and mission, and then takes in the South River Falls, which was one of Chris’s and my main training hikes for the Half Dome a few years ago.
• Black Rock/Trayfoot Mountain Loop, mile post 84.8 or 87.4, distance approximately 10.0 miles and unestimated altitude change. This trail is shown on one of the Park’s maps, which include distances but not altitudes, and I cannot find a review in any guide. This will take in the rock scramble at Black Rock, an old fire observation point at the summit of Trayfoot Mountain, and the hollow where the Black Rock Springs Hotel was located in the late 1800’s.

The trail review posts will begin tomorrow, starting with the Old Rag hike I did with Tom.