HIKING VIRGINIA

Roughly 100 miles inland from Virginia’s coast, a geologic boundary called the fall line marks a change in the landscape. Here the sandy soil of Virginia’s coastal plain segues into the bedrock underlying the Piedmont. The effect is pronounced on rivers, where waterfalls and rapids form. Historically, these acted as barriers to ocean-faring vessels. Towns formed up and down the fall line to handle commerce between inland farmers and coastal traders. Prince William Forest Park, a small national park straddling the fall line in Prince William County, is tied to this history through the tobacco farmers and miners who used the nearby port town of Dumfries to ship their goods. Today the park still receives heavy use, but now hikers, cyclists, and nature lovers are drawn by the cascades, wildlife, rare plants, and historic ruins.

THE RUNDOWN

Start: Laurel Loop Trail map board behind Pine Grove picnic pavilion

Distance: 14.6-mile loop

Hiking time: About 5 hours

Difficulty: Moderate due to length, well-graded and clearly marked trails, and elevation change

Trail surface: A combination of dirt forest paths, dirt roads, and paved roads lead through hardwood forests and along streams to small cascades, rock outcrops, and waterfalls.

Land status: National park

Nearest town: Dumfries, VA

Other trail users: Joggers, crosscountry skiers, and mountain bikers

Accessibility: The 0.2-mile Piedmont Forest Trail is a paved loop with footbridges, boardwalks, and benches. A section of Scenic Drive between Parking Area D and Oak Ridge Camp is one way, with one paved lane suitable for wheelchairs.

Canine compatibility: Dogs permitted

Trail contact: Prince William Forest Park, 18100 Park Headquarters Rd., Triangle; (703) 221-7181; www.nps.gov/prwi

Schedule: Park open daily, sunrise to sunset, year-round

Fees/permits: Entrance fee and camping fee; permit required for free backcountry camping

Facilities/features: Visitor center, historic cabins, and seasonal 100-site campground for tents and RVs (no hookups). Campground reservations: www.recreation.gov. Cabins must be reserved through the park at www.nps.gov/prwi. Chopawamsic Backcountry Area is a 1,500-acre area with eight primitive campsites accessible from the 2-mile loop trail. There is no fee, but campers must obtain a permit at the park visitor center.

NatGeo TOPO! map: Quantico, Joplin

From I-95, take exit 150B and turn west onto VA 619/Joplin Road. Drive 1.7 miles and turn right into Prince William Forest Park. In 0.5 mile, turn left at a sign for Pine Grove Picnic Area. Immediately turn right into the long-term parking area. Walk up the small knoll and locate the Laurel Loop Trail map board at the edge of the woods between the Pine Grove Picnic Area and the visitor center GPS: N38 33.644′ /W77 20.943′. DeLorme: Virginia Atlas & Gazetteer: Page 76, D3.

There is plenty of rough, broken-up terrain along the Quantico Creek and South Fork Quantico Creek stream valleys. Mountain-laurel slicks coat steep hillsides. Stream water flows over bedrock slate, which, where exposed, creates small rapids and riffles. Quantico slate is super-resistant—water simply bounces over it and flows on its merry way. Here in Prince William Forest Park, it’s a last hurrah of sorts. Within a mile or so, the small streams of Prince William Forest Park empty into Quantico Creek. The descent over Virginia’s fall line is complete.

The fall line—a geologic formation that defines the bedrock boundary between the Piedmont and Coastal Plain regions—is one defining natural feature of this national park. Old fields that have reverted to meadows, young forest, beaver ponds and associated wetlands, and the 37 miles of hiking trail that span all of these are others. Climbing out of the South Fork stream valley, young trees of a third- and fourth-generation forest fall away, replaced by meadow. Tobacco was the cash crop of choice throughout colonial Virginia, and the men who tilled land along Quantico Creek were no different. These farmers had the added benefit of being close to Dumfries, Virginia’s oldest continually chartered municipality, established in 1749. Town fathers drew up the boundaries and voted the town into creation a mere 3 hours before Alexandria, a few miles north. Unlike Alexandria, however, Dumfries’s usefulness as a port declined soon after the Revolutionary War. Relentless tilling on land surrounding the town, including Prince William Forest Park, caused massive soil runoff. Dumfries’s harbor filled with silt, and ocean ships could not sail into port.

The Taylor family was the last to farm inside the park proper. High Meadows Trail passes through their old lands between the South Valley Trail and Turkey Run Ridge. An off-trail detour leads to two tombstones in the family plot, surrounded by sun-dappled woodland. There are no marked trails, only vague animal paths. Dry leaves crackle underfoot. Hidden amid the leaf debris are small green stems. Somewhere, behind a shrub or camouflaged by other spring flowers, might grow a small whorled pogonia, an endangered species.

Since it’s the commonwealth’s most urban region, northern Virginia seems the last place to look for a rare plant. Loudon, Fairfax, and Fauquier Counties, however, are among the fastest growing in the country. Development, then, is the biggest single threat to the small whorled pogonia. The US Fish & Wildlife Service lists it as threatened; Virginia ranks it as endangered.

This woodland orchid’s bloom lasts a preciously short time. Within 2 weeks of the first yellow-green sepals, an entire colony will flower and lose its bloom. Following this, the flower reverts to a modest green-stemmed plant, with five or six slender leaves arranged in a whorl midway up the stem. There’s a perplexing aspect to all this. The flower, when it reproduces, stores upwards of 1,000 seeds in a small capsule. Despite the potential, it’s rare for a community to number more than twenty-five plants. Scientists can’t say why.

Prince William Forest Park shelters not only the rare, but the common as well. A logbook at the visitor center lists sightings of deer, raccoon, turkey, and falcons, a diversity of wildlife that stands in sharp contrast from when the federal government took over the area. After the last farmer pulled up stakes here, and after a pyrite mine closed in the 1920s amid labor strife and strikes, the federal government took over as protector of the waters that flow into Quantico Creek. The area was first used as a demonstration site for land reclamation methods such as tree planting and erosion control. Gradually the emphasis shifted to recreation and protecting the Quantico Creek watershed.

The process of recovery is ongoing. The boundaries of old tobacco fields are still visible. Thistle and milkweed grow in them now. Ecologically, these weeds prove a better return for wildlife than tobacco ever did for humans. A threatened butterfly, the regal fritillary, prefers the thistle for food. Like the small whorled pogonia, this is a minor threatened species whose plight rarely receives notice. In Virginia, where it is considered critically imperiled, sightings have been recorded from Prince William Forest Park to mountainous regions of far southwest Virginia. There are, however, five or fewer confirmed population clusters of the regal fritillary in Virginia; biologists have had more success reintroducing this insect in Midwest states, where the tallgrass prairies make an ideal habitat. Pennsylvania is believed to have the only viable population of these orange and black butterflies in the East.

From a distance, the butterfly looks like a monarch. A female is distinguishable by the off-white circles on its rear, or hind, wings. A better way of identifying one is to watch mating rituals. A female regal fritillary signals her displeasure with a male suitor by flying straight up, as much as 100 feet, then entering a nosedive that scares away the unlucky male.

With such varied terrain and so much room to explore, it’s easy to imagine seeing a regal fritillary, or a small whorled pogonia, as you hike about Prince William Forest Park. Finding either would be considered an accomplishment—they aren’t imperiled or threatened because they’re plentiful. But half the fun is knowing they’re there, somewhere. That, and appreciating the sanctuary that can harbor them.

MILES AND DIRECTIONS

0.0Start from the Laurel Loop Trail map board behind the Pine Grove picnic pavilion. Do not enter the woods here, but rather turn left (north) and follow a narrow well-worn dirt path through a grassy area. You’ll pass a playground and then enter a field at the far end of a paved parking lot. Walk down the right edge of the field, keeping the woods hard to your right. In the far northeast corner of the field, locate the yellow blazes for the alternate Laurel Loop trailhead, marked by a yellow blaze on a tulip poplar and a concrete trail post with a metal band that gives the trail’s name and mileage to the next junction.

0.5Turn left (west) and cross the South Fork Quantico Creek on a cable-supported bridge. On the opposite side, turn left (west) on a dirt road that is the combined South Valley Trail and North Orenda Road. Bailout: Don’t cross the bridge; instead, bear right and follow a combination of Laurel Loop and Birch Bluff Trail to return to the Pine Grove picnic area for a quick 2-mile loop.

0.7Turn left (south) on South Valley Trail as it splits off North Orenda Road.

1.4Stay straight at a T junction with Turkey Run Ridge Trail. Ahead, South Valley Trail winds through bottomland forest formed by a bend in the stream and then turns north. Note: It is 1.4 miles on Turkey Run Trail to the Turkey Run Education Center, which has bathrooms and nature exhibits.

1.5Bear left on South Valley Trail. Note: The trail straight becomes Turkey Run Ridge Trail where the cutoff from 1.4 miles merges on the right.

1.6Cross over Scenic Drive.

2.1Cross a footbridge over a small stream. Ahead, South Valley Trail climbs a hillside on switchbacks.

2.6Cross beneath Scenic Drive via a boardwalk that hugs the concrete bridge abutment.

2.8Stay straight on South Valley Trail at a junction with Taylor Farm Road on the right.

2.9Cross over Scenic Drive and continue west on the South Valley Trail.

4.4Turn left (west) and follow South Valley Trail downhill at this junction with High Meadows Trail, which continues straight uphill. Bailout: For a shorter 10.3-mile loop, hike uphill on High Meadows Trail and return to Pine Grove Picnic Area via High Meadows, Mary Bird Branch, Quantico Falls, North Valley, South Valley, and Laurel Loop Trails.

5.2Pass a dam across the South Fork. Above this, the creek spreads out to form a long, narrow lake.

6.0Cross over gravel Mawavi Road and walk north on South Valley Trail up the stream valley.

6.4Enter wetlands where, for the next 0.7 mile, the trail skirts an area of heavy beaver activity. This wet, wide-open ecosystem attracts waterfowl, songbirds, deer, raccoons, and foxes.

7.1Begin a climb from the stream valley into dry upland forest of chestnut oak, yellow (tulip) poplar, and white oak that is in recovery from a 2006 wildfire that consumed 316 acres.

8.0Turn right (east) on the yellow-blazed Oak Ridge Trail.

8.5Cross straight over Scenic Drive.

9.2After a level stretch of hiking through a young upland forest, descend into a small stream valley with a moist forest understory of fern and skunk cabbage.

9.5Oak Ridge Trail ends at a T junction with Old Black Top Road. Turn right (south) and walk along the gravel road.

10.4At a four-way junction with Taylor Farm Road, continue straight on Old Black Top Road.

10.9Turn left (north) onto Mary Bird Branch Trail. There is a concrete trail post and a triple red blaze on a tree. Ahead, descend and cross Mary Bird Branch, a stream.

11.3Cross straight over Scenic Drive and pass through the parking and Picnic Area E. Locate a white signboard for Quantico Falls Trail. Enter the woods on a footpath, following yellow blazes. Note: You’ll periodically see brown trail blazes and trailside signs for the Geology Trail, which shares the trail from here to Quantico Creek.

11.4Turn left onto a dirt road. Stay alert when, in less than 0.1 mile, Quantico Falls Trail branches right off the dirt road. Turn right here and follow the yellow-blazed trail through an upland deciduous forest of oak and hickory with an understory of beech, maple, and elm.

11.8Cross over the North Valley Trail at a four-way trail junction.

12.0A sharp descent ends at the edge of Quantico Creek. Turn right (south) and follow the stream valley. There are a scenic set of waterfalls off to the left.

12.2Cross a footbridge over a small tributary and merge with the blue-blazed North Valley Trail. Veer left (south) and walk downstream. In summer and fall, the trail south of this junction offers good opportunities to rest and relax on exposed rock shelves in the river.

12.9Pass interpretive signs for the Cabin Branch pyrite mine, which operated on Quantico Creek in the early 1900s.

13.0Cross Quantico Creek on a bridge. On the opposite side, turn right to follow a footpath through river-bottom forest. Side trip: Before crossing the creek, walk straight ahead to another section of the pyrite mine in less than 0.1 mile.

13.2A long boardwalk carries the trail over a wetland. Ahead, look for an overlook on the right that gives you a vantage point of the Cabin Branch mine across the stream.

13.5After walking a short stretch on gravel road, turn right (west) and cross Quantico Creek on a bridge. On the opposite side, turn left (west) onto South Valley Trail.

14.1Turn left (south) and cross South Fork Quantico Creek on a cable-supported bridge. After crossing, turn right onto red-blazed Laurel Loop Trail and ascend.

14.6Arrive back at the Pine Grove picnic area.

Prince William County Tourism, 14420 Bristow Rd., Manassas; (703) 792-7060; www.discoverpwm.com

The Prince William Forest Park Heritage Festival takes place in mid-Sept in the park.

Tim’s Rivershore, 1510 Cherry Hill Rd., Dumfries; (703) 441-1375; www.timsrivershore.com. Seafood on the shores of the Potomac.

7. PRINCE WILLIAM FOREST PARK