50 Hikes in Northern Virginia: Walks, Hikes, and Backpacks from the Alleghany Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay, Second Edition [Paperback]

Leonard M. Adkins (Author), Leonard Adkins (Author)

Book Description

Series: 50 Hikes in Louisiana: Walks, Hikes, & Backpacks in the Bayou State | Publication Date: June 1, 2000

From the rugged summits of the Allegheny Mountains to the gentle shores of the Chesapeake Bay, the portion of Virginia that falls north of US 60 has some of the most varied biking terrain in the middle Atlantic states. Leonard Adkins, an experienced hiker and outdoor educator, has walked more than 360 miles of the region's most popular trails for this updated second edition. There is a hike here for everyone, regardless of experience or interest. ranging from pleasant strolls over the coastal plain to challenging, multi-day mountain backpacking trips, these trails pass overgrown breastworks from the Civil war, meander through grassy meadows, and traverse ridgelines of the Blue Ridge and Massanutten mountains. An overview chart at the beginning of the book provides information on the 50 hikes at a glance. Each hike description includes directions to the trailhead, a detailed account of the route, a topographic map, and entertaining asides on historical and natural points of interest.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Newcomers to hiking this state will find . . . good introductions to the classic hikes, and everyone will benefit from the book's detailed directions and interesting natural details. -- Outdoor Traveler

About the Author

Leonard Adkins is a freelance writer and lecturer on long-distance hiking. His over 14,000 miles of long-distance hiking include treks on the Appalachian, Allegheny, and Long Trails. He is the author of several other books on hiking and outdoor recreation, including The Appalachian Trail: A Visitor's Companion, and Walking the Blue Ridge: A Guide to the Trails of the Blue Ridge Parkway. He lives in Catawba, Virginia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Countryman Press; 2 edition (June 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881504440
• ISBN-13: 978-0881504446
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,754,432 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Leonard M. Adkins, profiled by Backpacker magazine, and referred to as "The Habitual Hiker," has hiked more than 19,000 miles exploring the backcountry areas of the U.S., Canada, Europe, and the Caribbean. Almost every hiking season finds him on some new and exciting adventure. He has thru-hiked the full length of the Appalachian Trail five times (and lacks less than 700 miles of finishing for a sixth), traversed the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico, followed the Pacific Northwest Trail through Montana, Idaho, and Washington, and walked Canada's Great Divide Trail. Other long-distance journeys include Vermont's Long Trail, West Virginia's Allegheny Trail, and the Ozark Highlands Trail in Arkansas. His adventures in Europe include a trek of the Pyrenees High Route from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean along the border of France and Spain and an exploration of Iceland's interior.

The off-season is spent writing books and articles. Leonard's words and photographs have appeared in Islands, Caribbean Travel and Life, Blue Ridge Outdoors, Backpacker, Colorado Daily, Mid-Atlantic Country, Charleston Gazette, and other newspapers, magazines, and websites. He is currently the hiking columnist for Blue Ridge Country, writes the outdoors column for the bi-monthly Roanoker magazine, and blogs about hiking trails at www.blueridgeoutdoors.com.

Leonard is the author of more than a dozen books on the outdoors, nature, and travel, and his Wildflowers of the Appalachian Trail (photographers Joe and Monica Cook) received the National Outdoor Book Award, ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Award, and a Virginia Literary Award nomination. The Appalachian Trail: A Visitor's Companion was honored by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation with a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award.

Leonard is not just a writer; he takes an active part in all of the books he produces. He walked all of the trails he writes about in his hiking guides with a surveyor's measuring wheel to insure accurate mileage and descriptions. For his travel books Maryland: An Explorer's Guide, West Virginia: An Explorer's Guide, and Adventure Guide to Virginia, he visited all of the places he describes: bed & breakfasts, restaurants, historic sites, museums, golf courses, bookstores, antique shops, amusement parks, beaches, hiking, biking, canoeing, kayaking, rafting, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The only one you'll need for this area, May 16, 2007

By 

Mark J. Macedon (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 50 Hikes in Northern Virginia: Walks, Hikes, and Backpacks from the Alleghany Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay, Second Edition (Paperback)

I own the second edition of this book, so I don't know how it differs from the third. This is a great book, and I couldn't recommend it strongly enough. As a former DC-area resident who still returns frequently, I find this book indispensible for planning nearby hikes.

Yes, he does have a somewhat expansive view of what constitutes Northern Virginia (is Newport News considered northern Virginia?). He explains that he had originally planned a 50-hikes in Virginia format, but found too many good hikes to narrow the list down to one book, hence the division into Northern Virginia hikes and Southern Virginia hikes. If your definition of "Northern Virginia" is confined to the DC metro, then "60 hikes with 60 miles, Washington DC" by Paul Elliot is the book for you. For those who like to escape the beltway exhaust, this is the book for you.

As other reviewers have noted, the book contains both well-known hikes as well as some hidden gems in areas you might not have thought of before. As might be expected, the majority of the hikes cluster in the Blue Ridge mountains/Masanutten mountain/West Virgina border area, but there are still a surprising number listed for the Piedmont and Tidewater zones. Each hike comes with a topo map and descriptions brimming with notes about the local flora, fauna, and historical tidbits. There are also several black-and-white photos of the areas you'll visit to tantalize you with the views you will see.

There is a very helpful table in the front of the book that list each hike by distance and features (Waterfall present?, Camping possible? Good for Kids?), to easily enable you to pick a hike that fits your agenda. While most hikes can be done as dayhikes, there are a few overnighters thrown in for balance.

What this book is not:
1)It is not a comprehensive overview of hiking northern Virginia. This is more like a "Highlights book". There will be no duds in here. For those wanting a comprehensive book (though not as user friendly),get Allen de Hart's Trails of Virginia: Hiking the Old Dominion instead. I find I like this book much better the de Hart's offering.
2)It does not contain in general any trails that are involve DC or Maryland. The C&O towpath will not be found here, except as a brief portion of a trail in the Harper's Ferry area
3)It is not a guidebook for the Appalachian Trail. The AT is featured prominently in several of the hikes. For those looking to hike the AT specifically, there are better resources out there.

Overall, this book is the best balance between readability, map detail, selectivity, and variety that I have encountered for hiking the northern Virginia area. I consider it vastly superior to other books I have owned in the 50 Hikes series as well.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great book!!!!!!!!!, March 11, 2003

By 

jin (Northern Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 50 Hikes in Northern Virginia: Walks, Hikes, and Backpacks from the Alleghany Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay, Second Edition (Paperback)

I live close to many of these hikes, but never knew about them. Yes, there are some that just about everybody knows, but this book also takes you to places that are really overlooked. I like many things about the book: the chart in the front that lets you know about the hikes at a glance, how it is organized by region, and how the author tells little stories about the history, plants, and animals of the area you are going to visit. I own five other hiking guides to hikes in and around the area, and this one is, by far, the best of the lot.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Early review of 50 Hikes..., May 7, 2000

By 

Karin C. Doggett "kardog" (Virginia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 50 Hikes in Northern Virginia: Walks, Hikes, and Backpacks from the Allegheny Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay (Paperback)

We've only hiked twice using information from this book, and it's been good. The only complaint I have is that we have not been fully informed about all of the good camping sites, which we are pencilling in. Also, being new at backpacking (after 20 years at least), the moderate rating is more like strenuous to me, carrying 30 extra pounds of weight. Nevertheless, this book has given us more detail than the information from the PATC books and we're grateful for that. Perhaps there will be a more current version in the future.