Top Trails: Shenandoah National Park. Johnny Molloy

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target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#fb3_img_img_b43c818c-3d29-5290-b967-afad667715fb.jpg"/>1 Interestingly, the visitor center was originally a dining hall for a set of now-demolished rental cabins, built in the early days of Shenandoah National Park. Cross Skyline Drive. Easterly views open beyond the grassy hill in front of you. You can purchase an interpretive pamphlet here. Turn left at an informational sign, walk a short distance, and then join the Dickey Ridge Trail, entering woodland. The hardwood forest here is covered in vines. At 0.3 mile, turn right on the Fox Hollow Trail. 2 As you descend into Fox Hollow, you see walls of rock, relics of the farms that were here before the brushy woods came to occupy the site. Look at the large stone edifice, placed there by generations of Foxes toiling the terrain, clearing the land to increase fertility and yield. More rock walls stand down the trail.

       OPTION

      For a short historical stroll, walk the Dickey Ridge and Fox Hollow Loop, returning to the Dickey Ridge Visitor Center after 1.3 miles, with an elevation change of only 250 feet.

       Historical Interest

      Explore Shenandoah’s past on this great family hike.

At 0.5 mile, come to the Fox family cemetery. 3 Bordered by fieldstones and cloaked in periwinkle, the graveyard is a somber reminder that this land was many things to many people before it became a national park. (The name Dickey Ridge, in fact, appears in records dating back to before the United States was established.) Soon pass a spring enclosed in concrete. This spring, once used by Foxes, was encased in concrete only after the national park drew water for the dining hall–turned–visitor center. Ahead, embedded in the ground, lies a decorative millstone, once made to grind corn elsewhere, but used as a decorative step by the Foxes. The trail bisects the spring outflow and then switches back, passing a rusty wire fence.

It then picks up an old road connecting Dickey Ridge to Front Royal at 0.7 mile. The loop turns south and scrambles uphill in brushy woods before rejoining the Dickey Ridge Trail at 1.3 miles. 4 The visitor center stands just above you.

       Ridgeline

To continue the longer double loop, stay with the gentle Dickey Ridge Trail. It cruises through more vine-covered woods. Watch for a rock fence that runs along a steep slope left of the trail. There weren’t many out-of-shape farmers in these Potomac Highlands. At 1.9 miles, reach the junction with Snead Farm Road. Turn left here, joining a blue-blazed gravel track. 5 Then come to three signed road forks. At the first fork, take the road to the left—the road right leads to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) flight-tracking station. At the second fork, take the road to the right—the left fork goes to the water station for Dickey Ridge Visitor Center and its picnic area. Just ahead, look for an old bricked-in spring to the right of the roadbed. At the third fork, take the road to the left. Stay under a transmission line.

At 2.4 miles, come to a clearing with the white Snead Barn and the concrete-and-stone foundation of a house. 6 Ol’ Snead was a relative newcomer to what became the park. The former judge owned the place only a few years before the park bought him out. The function of the cellar behind the barn has been lost to time. Explore to find the spring.

At the edge of the clearing, turn left on the Snead Farm Loop Trail. This path runs level a short distance and then makes an irregular climb in rocky hardwoods before meeting the Dickey Ridge Trail at 3.2 miles. 7 Turn right on the Dickey Ridge Trail, topping out in 0.3 mile. Stay left here as a trail leads right to the top of a knob and the aforementioned FAA airplane-tracking station. The trail descends. At 3.6 miles, come to a cleared overlook of the Shenandoah Valley, South Fork Shenandoah River, and Massanutten Mountain. 8

      Primitive stone walls border the cemetery at Fox Farm.

       Autumn Colors

       Great Views

The trail rises briefly once again before making a prolonged descent through a very pleasant forest of oak, hickory, maple, basswood, and other trees. Reach Snead Farm Road and the Dickey Ridge Trail at 4.3 miles. 9 From here, it’s about a half-mile meander back through the grass and trees of the Dickey Ridge Picnic Ground. This mileage is not included in the overall hike, as there are multiple routes through the picnic ground.

       MILESTONES

1	0.0	Dickey Ridge Visitor Center at milepost 4.6
2	0.3	Right on Fox Hollow Trail
3	0.5	Fox Cemetery
4	1.3	Complete Fox Hollow Loop, and go straight on Dickey Ridge Trail
5	1.9	Left on Snead Farm Road
6	2.4	Snead Barn and homesite
7	3.2	Right on Dickey Ridge Trail
8	3.6	Vista
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