Customer Reviews

Hiking Virginia, 2nd: A Guide to Virginia's Greatest Hiking Adventures

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For anyone looking for great hikes in VA, this is a great place to start. The book contains detailed descriptions of 35 of the best hikes in VA and also list 64 honorable mention hikes. The length of the hikes vary from short day hikes, to 3 day backpacking trips.

What is nice about the book is that for the featured hikes, there is a brief description. Then a ton of information: difficulty rating, available maps, trail contacts, and fees or permits required, available camping etc etc. The book then goes on to describe in detail what you will see on each hike. Each hike contains not only a map, but an 'elavation profile' so you can gauge just how hard the hike will be.

I would recommend buying this book, and when you choose a hike, make a copy of the corresponding pages and laminate them. It will save wear and tear on your book as well as give you a water proof map.. Besides, it's also a lot lighter to carry 3 pages rather then a whole book!!!!

My favorite hikes in the book have been Mount Pleasant, 3 Ridges (a difficult hike) and the hikes around Mount Rogers and Grayson Highlands.

UPDATE: I recently did a few more of the hikes in this book(14, 18, 19). DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT follow the authors' advice for the Old Rag hike, #14. Instead of their route, either 1) Hike the fire road up and down (this is the easiest way) or take the rock scramble up and the fire road down. There are two problems with the route suggested by the authors. First, on crowded summer days you will have a hard time getting down as the trail is jammed with people going up. Second, I went during the week when it wasn't as packed and ran into a gentleman going up the scramble as I was going down. He told me that 90% of the people they carry off of the mountain with broken bones are trying to descend using the 'rock scramble' route. So if you are going to climb Old Rag (and YOU REALLY NEED TO, it is amazing) then PLEASE, use the routes I recommended above, and if it's a weekend during the summer, be prepared for a long climb up if you take the rock scramble, as people get jammed up in the narrow crevices.

Good hiking everyone!!!!!!

This book is your complete hiking guide to Virginia, whether you're a novice or a pro. There are maps, detailed descriptions of every step of the trails, elevation guides, and even colorful anecdotes from the authors that give each hike an emotional feel. We've brought their step-by-step guides to great fruition on several of the hikes, and hope to do more.

One word of caution: while crowded Northern Virginia is well represented, the best hikes fall along Virginia's spine, from the northernmost part of Shenandoah National Park, down the Appalachian trail, into Washington and Jefferson National Forests and then southwestern Virginia and Mt. Rogers. Residents of Front Royal, Harrisonburg, Staunton, Lexington, Roanoke and Blacksburg will be able to access the best hikes the easiest. As residents of a DC suburb, it's an hour to Shenandoah National Park, 2 hours to some of the great hikes further south, and 6 hours to Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area.

I have used this guide twice so far for short hikes. Directions to both the parking areas and on the trail were missing crucial details [e.g. I had problems with both for the Scott's Run Nature Preserve in the DC area]. Unless you have extra time and food and water, it is best to have a topo for even the shortest routes. This guide also lacks the grouping section that the VA Mtn Biking guide has [Best Short Hikes, Waterfalls, Views, Weekenders, Multi-day treks] and is grouped only by geography.

Whether you're a longtime resident of Virginia or just moving to the commonwealth, "Hiking Virginia" is an excellent overview of the opportunities the state offers for the intrepid. With little or no admission price, these hikes deliver experiences ranging from the subtle austerity of the York River in December to the grand vistas of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Bill and Mary Burnham divide the hikes by region -- Eastern Virginia, Northern Virginia, Central Virginia, Shenandoah National Park, Valley & Ridge, Southwest Highlands, Mount Rogers National Recreation Area and the Appalachian Trail through Virginia. It's great to find authors who don't limit themselves to the more summoning treks into the mountains. Even urban Northern Virginia has gems tucked into its geography for those willing to find them.

The authors write with the hiker in mind. Each section starts with an overview and includes information including directions to the trailhead, nearby lodging, history, and a convenient Miles and Directions listing with mile-by-mile pointers. Elevation profiles and route maps as well as `grades' for the hikes from easy to difficult aid in preparation. I usually scan and print sections rather than lugging the entire book along.

"Hiking Virginia" is a concise guide to the entire state. It includes everything you'll need to launch your own explorations. Don't forget the appeal of off-season hikes in the winter -- fewer people and the stark beauty of the landscape.

This is by no means a bad book. It's loaded with information. My two gripes are 1.) Too many of the hikes fall into the long category (by my definition that's 10+ miles). I'm much more of a 3-5 mile hiker and (other than the park hikes around DC) most of the hikes here are quite long. In fact, I've done 3-5 mile versions of 2 of the hikes in this book, which the authors fail to describe (Fridley's Gap has a real nice short hike that is also quite tough) and Big Schloss has a really nice 3 mile variant to a killer overlook that the authors vaguely mention but don't detail. From the maps provided, you could probably figure both of these short versions out for yourselves, but why not make the info. idiot proof? 2.) The authors put in tons of historical, cultural, geological, and other info. into their descriptions, which is interesting, but I would much prefer far less of this info. and more hikes. The hikes they do describe seem to be well described, but the book is pretty thin on the actual number of hikes one can walk.

This book covers a lot of ground, both figuratively and literally, and is a book I really wanted to like. It looks pleasing at first glance, with a lot of trails covered including maps and elevation profiles. I love elevation profiles! And looking through the Table of Contents indicates a ton of Virginia trails covered. But I think that this book falls short simply because it tries to cover too much. A closer look at the trails covered shows that many of the trails have only a paragraph description each (these are called "Honorable Mentions"). There is a large section of the book devoted to the Appalachian Trail, which is better covered in other guidebooks. And when I dug into the details, I found too many inaccuracies. For example, I hiked Ramsey's Draft a month ago, and then read the trail description. The following inaccuracies were found:
1. The Bridge Hollow Trail does not meet the Bald Ridge Trail "on top of the wooded summit of the Peak (sic)." The Bald Ridge Trail skirts around the summit of The Peak about a half mile after its intersection with the Bridge Hollow Trail, but does not reach the top.
2. The Bald Ridge Trail meets the Wild Oak Trail at a point where a wildlife pond is on the left, not the right.
3. The guide states that Camp Todd is "a national recreation area with picnic facilities." Camp Todd is a historic marker with parking, nothing more. There is a National Forest recreation area with picnic facilities called Todd Lake, but it is about five miles away from Camp Todd.
4. The map and the guide both claim that the Tearjacket Trail hiker will reach the Shenandoah Mountain Trail before reaching Hiner Spring and the Ramsey's Draft Trail. This is wrong and makes me wonder if the authors actually hiked Ramsey's Draft. I have never seen another Ramsey's Draft hiking map that claims this. The Tearjacket Trail meets the Ramsey's Draft Trail near Hiner Spring and about a mile before the Shenandoah Mountain Trail.
I will still use this guide to give me background information on Virginia hikes, but the number of errors I find on a hike I have taken leads me to believe that I cannot trust this guide on trails I've never taken. (And I agree with B&N Junkie - never hike the Old Rag loop counter-clockwise.) I hope a 3rd edition is in our future and the inaccuracies are eliminated.

This book is by far the best hiking guide you can buy for Virginia. This edition picks off from the original "Hike America Virginia"