Adventuring With Katie at Shenandoah National Park at Skyland and Old Rag Mountain

In April, I was lucky enough to take a hiking vacation with Liz, one of my younger sisters.

The way I happened upon this grand adventure is that early last winter, Liz called and asked me if I would like to climb Old Rag Mountain with her.

Old Rag Mountain is a major hiking destination in Shenandoah National Park. In fact, it is in the conversation for most scenic hikes in the eastern United States.

“Old Rag, I said. Isn’t that the mountain Tina Fey said that she climbed at night in flip flops in her hit book Bossy Pants?”

“The very same”, she replied.

Count me in, I thought to myself that day. In general love a ‘gramable activities. My philosophy is that It doesn’t count if you don’t post about it.

“Hot damn! If Tina Fey can do it at night and in flip flops then I am game. Let’s do it,” I said.

Liz knew that she had me at Tina Fey did it.

Well, maybe that is not how the conversation actually went down, but the facts remain the same. I was indeed familiar with Old Rag Mountain and I was very interested in climbing it. I also read Bossy Pants and watched 30 Rock on repeat while loading the dishwasher and adored Tina Fey. We both did. It was a major selling point for us.

Meet Liz:

Well, first thing, more information about me. I am the second oldest sister out of five daughters. Liz is the fourth. We are seven years apart in age. Liz and I share a love of many of the same things including: dogs, children, books, pop culture and talking. She is a middle school English teacher who enjoys editing. I am a former children’s librarian who enjoys writing. As you can see, we compliment each other well. We also like to take a girl’s trip together every few years.

For the past several years Liz has been a resident of Virginia. In fact, she previously had lived in the Front Royal area, near mile number 0 of the 105 mile long Skyline Drive. For the uninitiated, Skyline Drive is a 105 mile long road that winds through the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia. It is also a major attraction of Shenandoah National Park.

In 2018, Liz and I took my youngest son, who is now 3.5 on a winding trip along Skyline drive when he was just a tiny, 4 month old. But I hadn’t been back to Shenandoah since then.

(Read about our our trip with our sister Olivia to Thomas Jefferson’s home Monticello in 2017 here)

(Here is a post where our girl’s weekend trip to Berkeley Springs, WV is referenced).

Shenandoah National Park Is No Stranger to Me. It Is Like a Friend I Don’t Talk to That Often

I am familiar with Shenandoah National Park. We are like friends who see each other once and while but don’t talk on phone too often. We are like friends who might hug at a get together and chat like old times but I do not know the daily or monthly details of their life.

You see when I was an undergraduate at Shippensburg University, I was lucky enough to take a class called the Geology of National parks. My group was assigned Shenandoah National Park. My group floated the idea of taking a trip before writing our paper and creating our presentation to get some real first hand knowledge of the park and it’s attributes, but it never transpired. We group members were all strangers to each other. It could have been fun but probably it would have been at least somewhat awkward to take that trip. However, we did learn a good deal about Old Rag Mountain and how the Blue Ridge Mountains were formed and we got our A on the project. In my imagination, our project was a smash hit.

However, I guess I really haven’t been taking my daily does of fish oil lately because on the day of the hike, I plumb forgot everything that I may have ever learned about Shenandoah and Old Rag. Maybe I never really learned anyting i the first place. Maybe me and Shenandoah never really knew each other.

Luckily though, I did learn how to spell Shenandoah without looking it up in the years since I took that geology class.

I also got a little bit of a taste of Skyline Drive in 2018. But it is a it is a really big park after all. Did I mention Skyline Drive is 105 miles long?

The Details of Our Trip Such As Where Did We Stay?

We stayed at Skyland Lodge. Skyland Lodge is located at the highest elevation of Skyline Drive. Shenandoah has three lodges along Skyline Drive and Skyland is the northern most one. It is at mile 41.7.

Google tells me that Skyland is 27 minutes away from the Old Rag Mountain parking lot. As the crow flies, the distance is only 6 miles from the mountain to the lodge.

In reality, it felt like Skyland and the Old Rag Mountain parking lot were like 45 minutes away. To leave Skyland and drive to Old Rag, first you have to drive for a while on Skyline Drive. We left our room around 7:00 am in the morning and it was quite foggy in the area where Skyland is located. Also the speed limit on Skyline Drive in 35 miles and hour.

Once we got out of the national park, we took country roads, because that is what was available, to the parking lot. It is worth noting that we had very little cell phone reception for much of our hike and on our drive to the hike. I am very grateful that Liz printed off directions for how to get to the Old Rag parking lot because our navigation systems did not work due to the lack of reception.

Did I Like Skyland Lodge?

Yes, I did like it. Liz and I both saw it before when we went on our Shenandoah tour in 2018. That day we drank Chai Tea Latte’s while gazing out over the mountains at the patio in front of the lodge’s restaurants. We both eyed it up and were interested in staying there on this trip.

Before making my reservation at Skyland, I also investigated staying outside of the park and I found there were few lodging options outside of the park near Old Rag Mountain. This portion of Virginia is fairly rural. Skyland Lodge seemed like a good solid option.

We loved our room. It was rustic looking but very comfortable. It faced the mountains and we took lots of picture of sunsets and sunrises. The shower had a dispenser or soap, shampoo, conditioner, and lotion. One note is that the shower wasn’t always warm when you wanted it to be and it did not come with a coffee maker. Still, we very much enjoyed our stay there.

Also Skyland Lodge area boasts lots of sitting spaces for gazing out over the horizon and pondering. There were several great rocking chairs placed strategically for lounging and looking. It also has a taproom onsite that serves burgers and wings as well as a fancier dining area and a grab and go coffee shop counter. If you show your room key, and it is a real, actual key, you get a free cup of coffee in the morning at the grab and go counter.

I would stay there again if I were to visit Shenandoah because of its mountainy, hip, ambiance. It is convenient for people wanting to explore the park and its amenities. The views were also fantastic!

I registered for our stay online and got a AAA rate since I am a member.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the two knocks against Skyland:

The coffee counter does not open until 7:30 am. This was a difficulty for me because we left Skyland for our hike before 7:30 am because we wanted to get started in case the parking lot or mountain got crowded. We actually did not find another coffee stop on our drive to Old Rag. So I climbed Old Rag uncaffeinated. Boo! Of note: there is a café called Before & After, in Sperryville, VA on the drive to the trailhead but it does not open until 8am. It was kind of tease when we passed it and I got excited only to see it then disappointed that it didn’t open till 8.

My other complaint with Skyland could have derailed our trip, but it didn’t. Here is the story: When we first checked into our rooms at Skyland, I opened the door to our room and saw other guests things inside the room. It turns out that the front desk staff assigned someone to our room when there was a problem with their room. We went back to the check in desk to remedy the situation, the attendant gave us a new room but told us that we would have to check out of that room the next morning and wait until the afternoon to move into the room we were originally assigned. This situation did not jibe with our plan of waking up early and going on a 10 mile hike and hoping to come back to our room and shower and not check into a new room. We made a reservation and did not want to change rooms.

In the end, we decided to just stay in our room and not move our things and see what would happen. It ended up not being a problem. The front desk staff never said anything about it again, so it must have all worked out. In any case, I don’t think the attendant’s solution was good customer service but I also recognize that at the time of our room problem she was the only person working at the desk and the Skyland was at capacity and may not have had many options.

Still, even with that problem, I would still stay at Skyland Lodge again if I were on the Northern or Central portion of Skyline Drive. It was great.

The Experience of Hiking Old Rag Mountain

We left nice and early to avoid any potential crowds and to get an early start on the Old Rag Circuit hike. We saw plenty hikers that day, but since we hiked on a Friday in early April, we probably did not experience the crowds of peak season. We took the blue blazed Ridge Trail and the yellow Weakley Hollow Fire Road down the mountain. Our hike is listed on the Shenandoah website as being 9.4 miles long and very strenuous.

Elevation of the summit of Old Rag is 3,291 feet. Liz and I grew up near the highest point in Pennsylvania, Mt. Davis. It’s elevation is 3,212 feet. So we climbed higher than Pennsylvania’s highest point.

The highest mountain I have ever summited is Slide Mountain, the highest point in the Catskills which is 4,190 feet.

Still, climbing Old Rag was probably harder than climbing Slide Mountain. Old Rag was technical. There was a fair amount of rock scrambling. There are portions where we had to shimmy between rocks and I was glad that my pack was fairy small. There were portions where we had to climb up onto rocks and shimmy between them. It steep and it was a foggy day. I tried to be careful with my footing especially when I couldn’t see very far in front of me. We also thought that we summited it a few times before we actually did. Hikers will know that they are at the top because there are many signs and people hanging out at the top.

Here are some pictures from climbing to the top:

Then we got to the top

Hiking down the mountain on Weakely Hollow Fire Road

The hike down the mountain is scenic and easy compared to climbing up the mountain. Also after a while, you might think to yourself, “Are we there yet, is seems like we have been going down this mountain for a while?” After hiking downhill for several miles, I could really feel all the hiking in my feet.

It is very beautiful though. There is a lovely steam to look at for much of the walk and great looking trees. On our walk down the mountain, we encountered a man, walking with a teenaged girl who made us very uncomfortable. The teenage girl did not appear to say anything at all though the man talked to us a few times. We wondered if the girl might be his captive. At one point he waited around to see which way we might be going it appeared. Luckily, another party came along at that time and when we talked to them it seemed to encourage this man to move along.

We were pretty afraid that he would come and surprise us along the trail during the last mile of our hike. To me, this made me realize that I need to pack a whistle and pepper spray when I hike in the future. As I mentioned before, cell service was very spotty during the hike. I may need to brush up on how to stay safe in the woods.

Since our hike in April, I have tried to search online and see if any other hikers have encountered this man. I found him to be quite suspicious.

Still it was a great hike and I am glad that we were able to do it before peak season so we could really take in our surroudings.

What Else We Did on Our Trip Besides Hike Old Rag Mountain

After our hike we were very hungry. Old Rag Mountain is in a rural area but once we got back on the road we came from, we found a restaurant called Rappahannock Pizza Kitchen in Sperryville, VA. It serves gourmet pizzas and has beer and wine options. We sat outside on the deck and feasted hungrily.

At that point in the pandemic, I had not been to a restaurant in-person since the previous fall so it was exciting for me just to be out at a restaurant. Also the food was delicious. We got two pies and shared. We also each had at least one beer.

The day after our hike we sat on rocking chairs at Skyland and looked at the mountains while drinking coffee for some time. We visited the gift shop at Skyland and did some people watching. Then we packed up our room, got back into our car, and drove northward on Skyline Drive to Dickey Ridge.

Dickey Ridge is also in the park and has its own visitor’s center. We took some pictures from the Dickey Ridge overlook, shopped at it’s gift shop, and took a short one mile hike across the road from the Dickey Ridge visitor’s center.

Then we departed Shenandoah National Park and moved our girl’s weekend to Liz’s place further north in Virginia.

It was a great trip!

Have you ever visited Shenandoah National Park or climbed Old Rag Mountain?

I want to thank my husband especially for his support and understanding of my need to get away. I also want to thank my father for his support as well. Also I want to thank Liz for planning much of the trip and researching our hike.