HIKING VIRGINIA

The 12.5-mile Stone Mountain Trail begins with the long climb from Cave Springs. The tall cliffs and boulders that crop out from the mountain slope make for a dramatic introduction to the ridge, and soon give way to whopping views off Stone Mountain’s ridgetop. From the last of these overlooks, High Butte, it’s possible to see the bumpy profile of Kentucky’s Black Mountains to the west, while eastward run Virginia’s narrow ridges and valleys. The final leg of the Stone Mountain Trail down Roaring Run is tailor-made for people who save the best for last. The stream cascades through small gorges beneath hemlock and rhododendron.

THE RUNDOWN

Start: Cave Springs Recreation Area

Distance: 12.5 miles point to point, with a 14.5-mile overnight option via detour trail to Lake Keokee

Hiking time: About 7 hours

Difficulty: Moderate to difficult with steep climbs up Stone Mountain

Trail surface: Dirt footpaths and dirt forest roads lead to exposed cliff lines, stream gorges, old-growth hemlocks, and expansive views.

Land status: National forest

Nearest town: Big Stone Gap, VA

Other trail users: Mountain bikes, horses, and hunters (in season)

Accessibility: None

Canine compatibility: Dogs permitted

Trail contact: Clinch Ranger District, Norton, (276) 679-8370, www.fs.usda.gov/gwj

Schedule: Open year-round. Hunting is permitted on national forestland. Deer-hunting season in Wise and Lee Counties runs Oct through Jan.

Fees/permits: Cave Springs day use and camping fee. Open mid-May through mid-Sept.

Facilities/features: Cave Springs Campground has restrooms; Lake Keokee has pit toilets, no water other than the lake (must filter).

NatGeo TOPO! map: Keokee, Big Stone Gap, Appalachia

NatGeo Trails Illustrated map: Clinch Ranger District

For start point at Cave Springs: From Big Stone Gap, take Alt US 58 south for 7.1 miles and turn right on VA 982 (Seminary Lane). Go 0.7 mile and turn left on VA 621 (Cave Springs Road). In 1.3 miles the road becomes VA 622 but is still Cave Springs Road (just go straight). In 0.6 mile the road becomes VA 621 again. In 1 mile, cross a railroad track. Go 3 miles and turn right into Cave Springs Recreation Area (VA 845). Trail parking is at the swimming area parking lot. In the off-season, there is a gate across the road. Park on the road shoulder, but do not block the gate, and walk in. GPS: N36 48.118’ / W82 55.284’. DeLorme: Virginia Atlas & Gazetteer: Page 19, B7

Shuttle point at Roaring Branch: From Big Stone Gap, go north on US 23 toward Appalachia. In 2.0 miles turn left into the Powell River Trail parking area marked by a trail sign and a large red railway caboose. From here, hikers can walk south a half-mile along the US 23 road shoulder to the Roaring Branch trailhead. Or, hike the Powell River Trail (multiuse rail-to-trail) south and cross downhill to US 23, crossing the highway to access the Roaring Branch trailhead. If leaving a car overnight, please alert the Town of Appalachia of your plans at (276) 565-3900. GPS: N36 53.015’ / W82 47.276’. DeLorme: Virginia Atlas & Gazetteer: Page 20, A1.

A view off High Butte spans the Powell Valley and reaches into folds and contours on Wallen Ridge. These shady nooks are the “dark hollows” made famous in stories such as John Fox Jr.’s Trail of the Lonesome Pine. Fox’s heroine, a mountain girl named June Tolliver, left a closely guarded mountain home and close-knit family for schooling in Big Stone Gap. In the hills, her family grappled with changes brought by discovery of coal and the clash of mountain culture with the law and order of civil society.

Hiking Stone Mountain Trail, it’s difficult to separate characters, real and imagined, from the natural wonders. The model for Fox’s June Tolliver, a woman named Elizabeth Morris, hailed from Keokee. At Olinger Gap, the Olinger Gap Trail descends to Lake Keokee, a remote, man-made lake stocked with bass and muskie. Fox based other characters on colorful real-life personalities such as “Devil John” Wright, a desperado, and “Red Fox,” a preacher, herb doctor, and moonshiner. Both were publicly hanged in 1893 for killing three members of the Mullins family in an ambush on Pine Mountain.

Recent history takes the form of carved stone steps alongside Roaring Branch. Local masons, out of work and destitute from the boom-bust cycle of the coal industry, carved the steps while working for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). (In the 1960s, the Forest Service completed similar stonework at Cave Springs Recreation Area, where this hike begins.) The beauty of the moss-covered steps and shady hemlocks makes the Roaring Run stretch of Stone Mountain Trail a memorable ending to a tough hike.

Roaring Run gurgles and tumbles into the Powell River, which flows to nearby Big Stone Gap. The Gap was built by eastern industrialists who made—and lost—fortunes on coal. Stone Mountain, centrally located in a region known for coal production, never yielded the deposits that made nearby Dickenson, Wise, and Buchanan Counties famous. Stone Mountain did, however, supply lumber by the railroad-car full. Chestnut and oak came off the dry ridgetops. From the slopes, lumbermen took oak, poplar, ash, and beech. Out of the coves came thick-trunked hemlocks. Today, every species has returned in quantity, if not size, among the present-day forests of Stone Mountain—except the chestnut tree, which suffered a debilitating blight in the early 20th century.

The mountain itself originated from a cycle of oceanic, sedimentary, and mountain-building events, repeated several times. Walking the high, exposed cliff lines to High Butte, it defies rational thought to imagine that, hundreds of millions of years ago, this land appeared as shoals and beaches of the prehistoric Iapitus Ocean. Two and a half miles up the Stone Mountain Trail, an up-close inspection of massive rock cliffs shows a pebbly conglomerate. The rocks are the size of loose change—dimes, nickels, and quarters—melded together in a stucco-like consistency. Streaks of colors indicate the layering that built this rock over millions of years. Here and there, red streaks mark hematite, an iron oxide.

This rock outcrop punctuates a steep climb out of Cave Springs. Along twenty-five switchbacks, the trail traces Stone Mountain’s contours, running from moist drainages to dry, exposed slopes. As it climbs, the trail takes an increasingly narrow, precipitous route. Green spleenwort fern adds color to the orange and brown carpet of leaves in moist areas. In fall, acorns litter the trail. Large, isolated boulders appear amid the trees; these blocks of rock were split from formations higher upslope by a process of freezing and thawing that expanded cracks until large chunks fell away and tumbled downhill.

Departing from the old Olinger fire tower (only four concrete corner post bases remain, resting in the overgrowth off the left side of the trail), the wide, undulating road serves as nice relief from the first 4 miles of the hike—though you still have a steep climb in and out of Low Gap. Past Low Gap, the trail follows a cliff line with overlooks onto the Powell River Valley. The Powell River, along with the Clinch, runs a southwest course between Stone Mountain and Wallen Ridge. The river is home to the odd-looking species known as the paddlefish. Scaleless, with a large head and a body measuring up to 64 inches, the paddlefish is currently threatened nationwide, a result of overfishing by the caviar industry. In Virginia, the fish suffers from high levels of sediment in the Powell River, a problem that has placed a number of fish, mussels, snails, and mollusks that inhabit the river on the threatened and endangered list.

The Powell name extends beyond the river to one of the region’s prominent land-forms, Powell Mountain. In Virginia, a unique mountain culture thrived here and radiated into surrounding hills, including Stone Mountain. The Melungeon, a mixed-race group of mountain inhabitants, were once thought to be part Portuguese and part Cherokee. Today, tracing their race and ethnicity is a cottage industry. Melungeon gatherings celebrate the heritage of a people long discriminated against because of their dark complexion. Genetic and language analyses explore links between the Melungeons and Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and Central Asian immigrants. These were not, however, your Ellis Island–variety newcomers. A theory currently in vogue traces their arrival to Sir Francis Drake, an English privateer who deposited several hundred Turkish and Moorish sailors onto Roanoke Island, on the coast of North Carolina, in 1586. When Drake returned to resupply, there were no signs of the sailors. Survivors, it’s assumed, mixed with the Native American population. How their ancestors reached the hidden coves and folds of Appalachia makes for dandy daydreaming as you stare off the high outcrops of Stone Mountain.

MILES AND DIRECTIONS

0.0Start at the Cave Springs Overlook trailhead between campsites 24 and 21. The dirt footpath is flanked by rhododendron, and within a few feet of starting, veers right and uphill where an unmarked trail branches left. In 0.1 mile, there is a spur trail on the left leading a few feet to the Cave Springs.

0.2Reach a four-way junction and turn right on the yellow-blazed Stone Mountain Trail. Option: Turn left at this junction to visit Cave Springs Overlook, a round, elevated earthen dais with, unfortunately, poor summertime views of Powell Valley. From here, the Stone Mountain Trail climbs via twenty-five switchbacks through a hardwood forest to reach the crest of Stone Mountain.

1.9Pass by the first of several imposing rock outcrops and tall cliffs. Red streaks in this rock indicate the presence of iron ore. Close inspection reveals the rock’s composite of dime- and quarter-size pebbles melded together.

2.3The trail turns left, and the forest understory grows denser with rhodo dendron, sassafras, and mountain maple. The trail will achieve the top of Stone Mountain in 0.1 mile and bear right to follow the ridgeline in a north-northeast direction.

3.0The trail arcs left around a small knob and, after 0.1 mile, pops over an earthen embankment onto a wide dirt forest road. Follow the road right and uphill. At the top, in woods off the left side of the trail, are remnants of the old Olinger lookout tower.

4.7A long descent off the ridgeline marks the approach to Low Gap. In the gap, a dirt road continues downhill to the left, while the blazed Stone Mountain Trail goes straight uphill through a tunnel of mountain laurel. For the next 0.3 mile, Stone Mountain Trail is steep and poorly blazed and requires you scale several tall rock ledges. The road downhill to the left is a longer work-around to this difficult stretch of trail.

6.0Excellent views open up from a cliff on the right side of the trail.

6.6A clearing on the right shows signs of heavy campsite use. A road exits the right side of the trail, leading to the ruins of a cabin with a sheet-metal roof 100 feet or so downslope.

7.1Trail enters Olinger Gap and a four-way junction. Continue straight through the gap on the yellow-blazed Stone Mountain Trail heading uphill. Option: Turn left on blue-blazed Olinger Gap Trail, which descends to Lake Keokee in 1 mile. This is a popular local fishing spot, accessible by road, so there may be other people here. There are pit toilets. There is no drinking water, but you can filter water from the lake. Primitive camping is allowed outside the day-use area. A right onto a dirt road takes you 0.5 mile to parking at the end of VA 622.

7.4Finish the climb out of Olinger Gap and begin walking along a narrow open rock face with steep dropoffs on either side. Views to the right span Powell Valley.

7.8The trail drops off the ridgeline to the left as it passes by several large rock outcrops.

8.0Begin a short, steep descent into a saddleback.

8.2Finish a climb out of the saddleback to an open rock face with soaring views east over Powell Valley.

8.9After a series of small dips and ever-steeper climbs, the trail opens onto High Butte (3,050 feet), the highest point on the hike, with views east across Powell Valley and west to the Black Mountain range.

9.6Reach the summit of Stonega. The Stone Mountain Trail enters a young, mixed hardwood forest of chestnut oak and maple, leaving behind the exposed ridgetop vegetation of berries, shrubs, and scrub oak. The 3-mile descent to US 23 passes through three distinct Appalachian forest types: the heaths, oaks, and hickories on the ridge; mixed hardwoods of tulip poplars, maples, and buckeyes midway down the slope; and finally eastern hemlock and mountain laurel in the moist soil along Roaring Branch.

10.9Complete your descent into the Roaring Branch valley by crossing the stream to the right bank. In the next 0.5 mile, the Appalachian hardwood forest gives way to towering hemlocks.

11.9Climb up and over three spur ridges. As you top out on the third, the rushing waters of Roaring Branch are audible. The forest has a primeval feel, with tall hemlocks blocking sunlight and large rocks coated in lush green moss. The forest floor is carpeted with ferns and rotted leaves. Roaring Branch descends over a series of picturesque waterfalls.

12.4Begin descending on stone steps. Note: Steps are slick and mossy.

12.5Hike ends at US 23.

Trail of the Lonesome Pine Outdoor Drama, Thurs—Sat, late June through mid-Aug, 518 Clinton Ave. East, Big Stone Gap; (800) 362-0149; www.trailofthelonesomepine.com. Virginia’s official state outdoor theater is a retelling of John Fox Jr.’s novel about mountain folk.

Southwest Virginia Museum Historical State Park, Big Stone Gap, (276) 523-1322, www.swvamuseum.org. Majestic stone home that chronicles the boom and bust of Big Stone Gap.

Cave Springs Recreation Area, Wise, (540) 328-2931. Campground open May 15–Sept 15.

Big Stone Gap, a trilogy of novels by Adriana Trigiani, was made into a major Hollywood film featuring Ashley Judd and Whoopi Goldberg in 2014.

37. STONE MOUNTAIN TRAIL