Rose River Falls, an Easy Shenandoah National Park Day Hike

With best intentions I headed up to Shenandoah National Park on Saturday. At first, I had hoped to do the “Three Falls” hike, a 10+ mile loop that passes Lewis Falls, Dark Hollow Falls, and Rose River Falls, and is described in detail on the Hiking Upward site. But I got a late start from Alexandria, and arrived at the Park too late for such an aggressive plan…so I decided to do the Rose River portion, which is a four-mile trek, described in the Heatwole guide.


The Park was jammed over the weekend, with overflow parking at every trailhead I passed. I was lucky and found a good space – on the lot, rather than on the shoulder – and I could see a couple of concrete markers just in the woods. So I quickly headed out after checking my map.

I found myself on a moderate descent on a rocky trail, just beginning to be covered with leaf litter. Everything seemed right, but I couldn’t reconcile where I was to the map…and a half mile in I realized I’d left my headlamp and first aid kit in the car. I like to keep these items in my pack nowadays, they give me a little more security when I am out on the trails alone – I don’t take a lot of risks, but these items help me feel prepared for the worst, like getting caught on the trail after dark.

The trail continued to descend, and the twists and turns looked like the Rose River Trail when I checked the map. But I was never sure, and decided I wouldn’t press my luck bushwhacking if I had to make a decision about where to go up ahead – instead, I’d simply call it a day and head back the way I came.

It is fall, and the flows are low in many of the streams in the Park. There was water in the canyon I was following, and at times I could hear gentle trickles moving unseen behind rocks, collecting in crystal clear pools where there might be cascades during wetter seasons. At the places where I found solitude, I did take a few quiet minutes to meditate to the sounds.

After about a mile and a quarter, and about 800 feet of descent, I stopped. Sitting on a rock near the stream bed, I couldn’t get the worries out of my head about the forgotten gear, and the possibility that I had misidentified the trail head. So I decided to head back to the car. I figure I was out on the trail for 2.5 hours, did about 800 feet in elevation change and around 2.5 miles total distance.

For scenery, this little hike was pleasant. It was steep, similar to the Dark Hollow Falls route, and the trail was narrow and rocky, so it was more difficult than that one.

On the climb, I passed a small party on the trail – with the leader of the group wearing bells, and before that, another group was talking about bears. Sometimes this means that a bear has been seen nearby. Sure enough, I saw a yearling running in the woods ahead of me near the top of the trail. He was in full gallop, probably having seen enough of all the human activity.