What is Virginia Trail Guide?
We started this site in 2009 to share our love of the outdoors. Virginia Trail Guide is intended to be a personal* collection of photos and stories from the trails we hike. We’ll tell you about the unique things we see along the way and anything interesting we happen to learn about an area. If we think a hike is especially amazing – we’ll be sure you know it (likewise, if a hike is disappointing, we’ll be honest about that, too).
Most of the hikes we go on are in Virginia, but we’ll blog about hikes on our travels, too. On each entry, we’ll both share a personal take on the trail. Most of the hikes we cover are day hikes, but from time to time, we’ll cover overnight backpacking trips.
We welcome any tips for hikes that we should try. We are always trying to discover new places and would love your ideas for places we should visit in Virginia. Feel free to leave comments on your experiences with each hike. Hope to see you on the trails!
We are a non-commercial site. We do not accept advertisers or financial contributions. *
About the Writers
Adam and Christine live just west of Shenandoah National Park. On any nice weekend, there is a good chance you’ll find us somewhere in the mountains. Both Adam and Christine are lifelong Virginia residents and have been hiking since childhood.
Adam grew up in Lynchburg, Virginia. While his family was not into hiking, he really discovered his love of the outdoors and blazing trails with friends from high school.
Christine grew up in Woodbridge, Virginia with a family that often escaped the hustle and bustle of Northern Virginia to spend time hiking and camping all over the East coast.
How Trails are Rated
We decided to develop a rating system for the hikes based on the following categories. Every trail is rated from 0-5. Here is a short explanation of each area:
- Difficulty – A rating of 1 designates an easy stroll through the woods, while a 5 means you’ll likely be huffing and puffing up a steep mountainside.
- Trail Conditions – Higher numbers indicate nice, smooth, well-graded trail conditions. Lower numbers, you may want to think about bringing sturdier/more weatherproof footwear and watching carefully where you step.
- Views –The higher the number the better views.
- Waterfalls/streams – We added these ratings for waterfall hunters, people who like swimming holes, and photographers who dig long-exposure water shots. The higher the number, the more impressed we were with the water features.
- Wildlife – Ratings indicate your chances of seeing wildlife and usually some information on what you can expect. Expect these numbers to typically be on the low side.
- Ease to Navigate – If the trail is well marked, with few turns, it will get a high score.
- Solitude – For the hermit in each of us, we’ll let you know how much human traffic you can expect to see along the trail.
Virginia Trail Guide 