Shenandoah National Park
We travelled to Baltimore for the weekend, so when we left to Shenandoah on Sunday morning, it was only about a 2+ hour drive. We left around 6:30 AM, right after Adam finished eating his “middle of the night” (i.e., 5:45 am) meal.
Adam always goes back to sleep after this feeding, so we put him straight into the car seat while we prepared to leave, and he slept almost the entire drive there.
Unfortunately, when we got to Shenandoah there was a crazy amount of fog and a slight drizzle. After speaking to some park rangers who conveniently set up a little information desk near the bathrooms just south of the Thornton Gap Entrance, we had to scrap all of our original hiking trail plans. They warned us against doing any sort of rock scramble with a baby especially after rain, so that took Old Rag (which we hadn’t really planned on doing) and Bearfence (which we had planned) off the table. As well, due to the fog, mountain climbing hikes would not give us any views, so that meant that the hike to Mary’s Rock we had planned wouldn’t make sense to do. We decided to drive to the visitor centre, which was about 20 miles south (and took about 45 minutes to get there) to buy our souvenir magnet, fill up at the gas station (quick tip – fill up before going in the park as the gas inside is a lot more expensive), and hope the time would allow for some of the fog to clear and rain to stop. While we were there, we spoke to another park ranger who recommended we do a waterfall hike called Rose River Falls Loop.
This was a 4-mile trail with quite a bit of elevation. It was a moderately strenuous hike with some elevation change. The trail begins at the Fisher’s Gap Overlook, and we travelled clockwise, following the markers for the Rose River Trail. The trail was perfect for the foggy day. The terrain was beautiful, lots of greenery and had cascading waterfalls along the way, along with the two “larger” waterfalls.
After about 45 minutes, we got to the first water fall (Rose River Falls). We could easily climb down to the bottom of the waterfall – had it been warm, it would have been tempting to swim in the pool under the falls. It was pretty deep and looked crystal clear.
We then continued on our way, hiking back up hill until we reached Dark Hollow Falls.
There is a quick detour to hike to the top, but we saw the fog was beginning to clear, so we decided to head quickly back so we could do a second trail. The way back was along a pretty easy fire route that made the second half of the hike much easier than the first.
This trail took us about 2 hours, but we did it relatively quickly as Adam only needed us to stop to feed him once. We were pretty tired after this trail and it was a real workout. We started off the trail freezing, but once we started it, we had worked up quite a sweat. We ate lunch, fed and changed Adam, then drove to the Pinnacle Picnic Area to park our car and begin our hike to Mary’s Rock. By that time the rain had stopped and some of the fog had cleared, so we thought we would go for it.
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​This trail (Mary’s Rock via the Pinnacles Picnic Area) is the longest of the three trails to get to Mary’s Rock (about 7 miles), but the least steep (it still has about 1400 ft in elevation change). The hike is part of the Appalachian Trail and is marked by white trail blazes. After the first 0.3 miles, you reach a beautiful look out point called Jewell Hollow Overlook. There was still a bit of fog, but we could still see the beautiful Shenandoah landscape.
We also saw a baby bear just a few metres away from us during this first part of the trail. The baby bear was cute, but it also meant the mama bear was nearby and we did not want to bump into her. (Below is a photo @Mark_wolsky_photography captured the exact same day in Shenandoah).
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We then continued on the trail for what felt like forever. There were lots of hills and valleys, but it was a fun trail – just maybe not after a strenuous 4-mile hike. Being higher up, the fog really obstructed most of the views, but along the way at certain times there were some nice lookout points that on a clear day would’ve been even better. We followed the trail until a left-hand turn off towards Mary’s Rock. We then followed the blue trail blazes for the relatively short trek to Mary’s Rock.
Mary’s Rock was really cool. There were lots of places to climb and, again, had it not been for the fog, it would have been an incredible view.
We rested up here for about 15 minutes, fed Adam, realized we probably hiked too far for one day, but got up and headed back 3.5 miles to the car. While we were completely exhausted, and along the way, Adam decided he didn’t want to be in his carrier anymore – 11 miles was too much for him and he wasn’t up for one more step – so we had to take turns carrying him in our arms and singing to him until he fell asleep. Since the fog was shifting with each passing hour, we stopped at the Jewell Hollow Overlook again to get a slightly improved view of Shenandoah’s hills.
There were very few people on the trail to Mary’s Rock. It could have been the weather, but it seems like it’s much less popular than something like Old Rag. That’s a good thing if you like a bit of seclusion on your hikes. Once the trail met up with the other trails that also bring you to Mary’s Rock (as well as at Mary’s Rock itself), it became lot more populated. We would definitely recommend this hike if you want a longer hike that’s easier with a baby (Old Rag seems pretty much impossible) and want to avoid the crowds. Just don’t do a 4-mile strenuous hike right before!
Exhausted we stumbled back to our car and drove 2.5 hours back to Baltimore. Adam had a very long day so he was pretty cranky during the drive back, so one of us sat in the backseat distracting him the whole way. We ended up being quiet sick the next day; we think we got a bit dehydrated. We guess the cooler weather tricked us into not drinking sufficiently – so don’t let the fog and/or cooler temperatures fool you and drink plenty of water!