HIKING VIRGINIA

In German, schloss means “castle.” In Virginia, schloss can only refer to one geologic wonder, a towering outcrop of sandstone on Mill Mountain. Big Schloss is a popular day trip from Wolf Gap Recreation Area, a primitive camping site 2 miles south. A more strenuous trip begins far to the north, in a quiet river valley better known by hunters than hikers. The hike begins at Wilson Cove Wildlife Management Area, a 5,200-acre piece of the national forest designated for muzzle-loader buck hunting only, in late November and early December. Along Pond Run, old-growth hemlocks stand out from the smaller trees growing thick along this stream. Rock slides, steep inclines, overlooks, and quiet views off Mill Mountain follow in succession.

THE RUNDOWN

Start: Bridge over Waites Run on Waites Run Road (WV 5/WV 1).

Distance: 19.5-mile lollipop

Hiking time: About 12 hours

Difficulty: Moderate due to length, sections of rocky and uneven trail, and steep climbs

Trail surface: Dirt forest paths and old logging roads lead through rock formations and cove forests along Pond Run and Little Stony Creek.

Land status: National forest

Nearest town: Wardensville, WV

Other trail users: Mountain bikers, cross-country skiers, and hunters (in season)

Accessibility: None

Canine compatibility: Dogs permitted

Trail contact: Lee Ranger District, Edinburg; (540) 984-4101; www.fs.usda.gov/gwj

Schedule: Open year-round. Hunting is permitted in national forests. Wilson Cove Wildlife Management Area hosts a special muzzle-loading season in Dec. Deer season lasts from Nov to early Jan.

Fees/permits: None

Facilities/features: No facilities. There are primitive campsites along the trail and camping facilities at nearby Wolf Gap Recreation Area.

NatGeo TOPO! map: Wardensville, Woodstock, Wolf Gap

NatGeo Trails Illustrated map: Massanutten and Great North Mountains

From Strasburg, follow VA 55 (also called Wardensville Pike) west for 20 miles, crossing into West Virginia en route. In Wardensville, bear left at the WV 55/ WV 259 junction. In 0.5 mile, turn left onto Carpenters Avenue, at the 7-Eleven store. In 0.8 mile, turn right onto Waites Run Road (WV 5/WV 1). Pass a community park on the left. Enter George Washington National Forest in 1.3 miles. In 5.3 miles, reach a concrete bridge spanning Waites Run. Across the bridge a sign indicates the boundary of Wilson Cove Wildlife Management Area (WMA). There are pull-offs for cars on either side of the stream and campsites for late-day arrivals. GPS: N39 00.951’ / W78 36.324’. DeLorme: Virginia Atlas & Gazetteer: Page 73, A6.

The Native American phrase for Appalachia translates roughly as “endless mountain.” That seems an apt description standing atop one of Mill Mountain’s many outcrops. The view west is of one mountain rippling onto another and another, each one dissected by a narrow, wooded valley. Trees drape the entire landscape—a rare scene in these otherwise well-developed hills.

Mill Mountain attracts hikers just for these kinds of panoramas. The trail is well marked and the views easy to find. It’s hard to imagine that this same trip, if undertaken 300 years ago, would be considered folly. On the whole, early settlers avoided steep uphill routes across mountains. Huge oaks and chestnut trees made passage difficult; a frustrating undergrowth of laurel, creeper, and shrubs reduced their pace to a crawl. Instead, settlers stuck to roads through the valleys, routes first blazed by Native Americans. The most famous, the Great Warriors Path, became the Great Wagon Road as settlers replaced indigenous populations. So numerous were the Scots-Irish, German, and English migrants moving south on the Great Wagon Road from Pennsylvania, it has been said travelers numbered in the tens of thousands up to the Revolutionary War.

Before settlers, Iroquois Indians had used the north—south route for hundreds of years. Virginia governor Alexander Spotswood and his companion explorers found the route when they reached the shores of the Shenandoah River. Marked by hatchet notches in trees, the Great Warriors Path aided Iroquois travel from Canada into southern regions for war and trade. It was on one such trip that a band of Iroquois stayed south and settled in villages on the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers in northeastern North Carolina, which is where European traders and explorers encountered these “mild” and “gentle” people. Their name, from the Iroquoian word for “hemp gatherers,” was Tuscarora.

Whatever the English’s first impression, relations between the Tuscaroras and settlers turned ugly. Broken treaties and a rash of kidnappings of Indian children contributed to a Tuscarora-led massacre in 1711, at New Bern in North Carolina. (English settlers had built New Bern on the site of a Native American town, Chattoka.) The killings were unusually brutal. Women were pinned to the floor and staked through, children killed, and homes burned. A 2-year war ensued. By 1713 the Tuscaroras were defeated. Chieftains sent word north along the Great Warrior Path to the League of Five Nations, in upstate New York, asking for help. In 1714 the Tuscaroras began migrating up the Appalachians into Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and, finally, New York. A Virginian settler in the 1750s and 1760s might see groups of these Indians, their worldly possessions piled on horseback, traveling in small bands, sometimes settling in an area for years, then moving north again. Officially, the Tuscaroras were accepted into the League of Five Nations (now Six Nations) in 1722. Their migration lasted at least another half-century beyond this date. Today their tribe numbers 600 people on reservation land near Niagara Falls.

In name and spirit, the Tuscaroras remain in Virginia to this day. At Waites Run, a hiker who steps onto Tuscarora Trail enters a forest world of mountain streams and hemlock groves. The wide-trunked evergreens show black, gnarled roots, some reaching into Pond Run, soaking in the water. Along this stream, Tuscarora Trail shares the path with Pond Run Trail. In a gap between Half Moon and Mill Mountains, Tuscarora Trail branches east. Uphill from a good spring at the headwaters of Half Moon Run, the blue-blazed route plunges left into heavy woods. The grade steepens. Boulders and small rocks make walking difficult. The fractured gray rock underfoot shows a quartz-pebble conglomerate. In these stones, the Tuscarora name crops up again as Tuscarora sandstone, a type found at the core of mountains from Virginia to Pennsylvania. (Admittedly, the term sandstone gives reason to pause. This is, after all, one of the most erosion-resistant rocks in the Appalachians, a fact at odds with the idea of sand, which is easily eroded. The key here is metamorphism—a change in which a rock, subjected to intense, volcano-like heat and pressure, changes and becomes a new rock. So the chief ingredient of sandstone is recrystallized sand—sand subjected to so much heat and pressure it turned to quartzite, which is one of the most resistant rocks around.)

The hiker and Tuscarora Trail part on Mill Mountain, where the latter turns east and heads for the Shenandoah National Park while the Mill Mountain Trail follows the ridgeline south. From Waites Run, the trail has climbed 1,500 feet; the next 4 miles undulate more gently on a slope leading south to Big Schloss. It’s a dry hike. Except for water at Sandstone Spring, there are no reliable sources on the ridge. There are, however, views. Short branch trails end at rough-textured rocks that will skin knees and elbows if you scramble up for a view. Finally, there is Big Schloss (German for “castle”) visible above tree line, accessible by boardwalks over crevices and steep rock faces. Free-fall views surround the high point on this rock formation—there’s nothing but blue sky east-west-north-south and straight up.

From the high-and-dry altitude of Mill Mountain, Big Schloss Cut-off Trail descends through a sea of mountain laurel (peak blooms in June) to reach Little Stony Creek. Where the trail on Mill Mountain is bedded with sand and stone flints, the route up Stony Creek Trail is muddy, lined with ferns, and full of chirping birds. There are redeyed vireos, Acadian flycatchers, and ovenbirds rustling about the brush. Scarlet tanagers roost on treetops, then swoop in a flash of red to feed on insects in the brush. Also present are warblers, although hardly in numbers they once were. This songbird’s decline in the Southern Appalachians is an alarm for naturalists. The decline rate varies by species, but as a whole, nearly three-quarters of the fifty warbler species known to inhabit the southern forests are in decline. For an explanation, look no further than the burned and clear-cut forest along Little Stony Creek below FR 92. Habitat loss and fragmentation, whether caused by logging, development, or natural events, has impacted warblers to a degree that has made it an issue of study by the Forest Service.

Past Sugar Knob Cabin, Stony Creek Trail intersects the Tuscarora Trail and the return to Waites Run begins. Just when it feels the hike won’t end, reach the gap between Half Moon and Mill Mountains. The route downhill along Pond Run leads to the trailhead, but consider shedding the pack here for one final viewpoint. Follow white blazes out of the campground to a rock outcrop on the edge of the mountain. The view from here is endless. The Indians had an apt description for this kind of view: Appalachian.

MILES AND DIRECTIONS

0.0Start from a signboard for the Pond Run Trail (also known as the Tuscarora Trail). Standing on the concrete bridge spanning Waites Run, looking upstream, the signboard is on the right stream bank. From it, a blue-blazed dirt footpath climbs over a small hill and drops back to water and follows Waites Run upstream.

0.4Veer right to follow the trail up Pond Run. Prior to this, there are campsites on your left. Note: Green paint slashes on trees alongside the trail designate the wildlife management area, not the trail.

0.5Make the first of eight stream crossings on Pond Run.

1.4After crossing Pond Run once again, the trail climbs a rocky route up the right hillside. Berry bushes crop up in the understory, signaling passage from the moist environment of the stream to drier slope environs.

2.4Reach a grassy junction. Turn left and immediately pass a campsite on the right. An unmarked footpath descends from this campsite to a rock outcrop with a beautiful view of unspoiled forestland. Note: One-tenth of a mile past the campsite is a spring, the last reliable water source for 3 miles.

2.7Bear left onto a narrow, rocky, blue-blazed footpath. Avoid the old road that climbs the hill to the right. The footpath is a leg of the Tuscarora Trail and covers some rugged ground as it bends around Mill Mountain to a bluff overlooking Wilson Cove and Paddy Mountain, before cutting southeast to meet Mill Mountain Trail.

3.9Tuscarora Trail empties into a grassy clearing. Walk straight through the clearing and onto Mill Mountain Trail, a dirt road overgrown with grass. Note: A left turn is the return trail from Sugar Knob Cabin.

4.3A trail branches off to the right to a now-destroyed airway beacon site (The trail to the old airway beacon is crowded with huckleberry, which bloom in early June.) Past this junction, the trail threads a set of concrete posts and reverts to a singletrack woods path.

5.4After a steep, rocky decline, reach Sandstone Spring. This is a good water source and campsite.

6.0An unmarked trail to the right reaches an overlook west to Long Mountain. From here, you also get a nice view south along the spine of Great North Mountain, a range once called Devil’s Backbone.

6.7Reach the Big Schloss Connector Trail branching left off Mill Mountain Trail. From here, the Big Schloss rock formation is 1.2 miles straight ahead on Mill Mountain Trail. Continue straight.

7.9Reach Big Schloss. Views span 360 degrees east across the Great Valley and west into West Virginia. To continue this loop hike, return to Mill Mountain Trail and the Big Schloss Cut-off.

9.1Back at the junction of Mill Mountain Trail and Big Schloss Cut-off Trail, descend the east slope of Mill Mountain on the Cut-off Trail on steep switchbacks amid slicks of mountain laurel.

10.8The trail drops to FR 92. Turn left and follow the gravel road downhill.

11.1An unmarked logging road drops off the right side of FR 92. This marks a bushwhack to Little Stony Creek that takes you through landscape scarred by clear-cutting and fire. After descending on the logging road and passing through a clearing, find any one of a number of animal paths through the entanglement of vines and briars. Past this thick undergrowth is a dirt logging road. At this point, Little Stony Creek is audible, but obscured by a fringe of woods. Turn left and follow the logging road. This logging road remains the main trail to FR 92.

11.5Pass a dirt road leading to campsites on Little Stony Creek. Two more roads leading to Little Stony and good campsites follow in quick succession.

11.7Reach FR 92. Cross the gravel road and reenter the woods. Little Stony Creek Trail is a narrow yellow-blazed path that follows the stream, crosses several times, then climbs with alternating steep pitches and level stretches.

15.2Reach Sugar Knob Cabin, a PATC-sponsored hut. There is a spring in the vicinity and several fire rings. Note: The PATC cabin is locked and for use through reservation only. Call (703) 242-0693.

15.3Turn left onto the Tuscarora Trail, a wide road overgrown with grass.

15.9Turn right at the junction with Mill Mountain Trail. This spot completes the Mill Mountain/Little Stony Creek loop.

17.1Turn right onto Pond Run Trail and head down the mountain stream valley. Take time as you descend to notice how different the trees and terrain seem. You climbed this trail at the start of the hike, but it seems a different trail altogether as you descend.

19.5Arrive back at Waites Run Road.

Lost River Brewing Company, Wardensville, WV, www.lostriverbrewing.com, (304) 874-4455. Open Thurs—Sun.

Route 11 Chips, Mount Jackson, (800) 294-7783, www.rt11.com. Watch Virginia’s own potato chips being made.

North Mountain Vineyard & Winery, Maurentown, (540) 436-9463, www.northmountainvineyard.com. Secluded winery with a pet-friendly touch.

Hawk National Recreation Area, a no-fee National Forest campground near Wardens-ville, WV Lee Ranger District, (540) 984-4101.

Kac-Ka-Pon Restaurant, Wardensville, WV, (304) 874-3232. Country home cooking open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Closed on Mon.

Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC), Vienna, (703) 242-0315, www.patc.net. The PATC’s Stonewall Brigade oversees trail maintenance along Great North Mountain.

22. BIG SCHLOSS