My next “long-distance” hike is the 71-mile Massanutten Trail, located in the George Washington National Forest in Virginia, about half an hour drive west of Shenandoah National Park.
Introducing the Massanutten Trail
In 2020, I hiked a small portion of the Massanutten Trail when I hiked the Tuscarora Trail, originally constructed as an alternate route of the Appalachian Trail and since became a trail in its own right. On Tuscarora’s way from Shenandoah National Park to the Great North Mountain to the west, it passes through the Massanutten Range, joining the Massanutten Trail for a short while.
Parts of the northeastern portion of the trail have a long history. From a sign on the Tuscarora’s approach to the eastern ridge:
“Preparing for a possible “last stand” for his beleaguered men in the Revolutionary War, George Washington directed General Daniel Morgan to build a military road to Fort Valley, a natural fortress in these Massanutten Mountains. Traces of Morgan’s Road can be seen here. Fortunately, it was not needed by Washington and his troops.”
Ever since hiking the Tuscaora, the Massanutten Trail has been on my list of trails to hike. At 71 miles, the trail is short enough to easily be completed in a week. As a loop with several trailheads, it’s easy to pick a starting place on the trail and go until you return to your car. Its only downside is that, largely being on the ridge, there is limited water and camping opportunity, particularly on the western ridge. But those problems are easily solved with a little planning and a few caches planted.
With a modest pace, the Massanutten Trail is about six days long, which fits neatly into a pre-Thanksgiving time window my partner, CareFree, and I had. After Thanksgiving, the weather might get too cold. And it’s only about a two and a half hour drive from my home. We did have some other ideas in mind also, but they were either further north (and colder), or even further away and also impacted by damage from Hurricane Helene. So Massanutten fit right in, will check off a trail that’s been on my list for four years, and give CareFree more exposure to trails in the Appalachians.
Hike Planning
As we’re getting close to winter, we have just under ten hours of daylight each day. That should be enough for us to complete our goals, but it runs the risk of being fairly tight. Practically, we’d expect to only have about eight hours each day, assuming losing an hour in the morning to take camp down, and an hour in the evening to get set up and start cooking dinner before sunset. Factor in breaks, and assuming a 2 mph pace (which might be a stretch given the trail is likely to be quite rugged), even a “modest” 15 mile day doesn’t have much margin.
Colder weather is a consideration, and we’re bringing sufficient clothing (and gloves, and hats, and hand warmers) to deal with that. But it’s still early enough in the year that we’re not expecting winter weather.
But the most important consideration for the Massanutten Trail is water. As a ridge trail, water is not available for long stretches, nor is camping always readily available on the rocky ridge, so our plan had to account for that. Given a late-fall hike, we decided it would be safer to assume that that even where the trail dips into the valleys, it would be dry and water also wouldn’t be readily available. But, the trail crosses roads nearly a dozen times, so leaving ourselves water caches was both easy and essential.
We decided to start at the Signal Knob Trailhead and head clockwise, seemingly the traditional starting point and direction. With water caches, an itinerary quickly fell out from there:
- Day 1: Signal Knob Trailhead → Little Crease Shelter (8 miles)
- Day 2: Kennedy Peak (12 miles)
- Day 3: Crisman Hollow Road (12 miles)
- Day 4: Short Mountain Ridge (12 miles)
- Day 5: Mudhole Gap Campground (15 miles)
- Day 6: Signal Knob Trailhead (8 miles)
Both Little Crease Shelter and Mudhole Gap have easy access to water (via creeks, and also a piped spring near Mudhole Gap). For the rest, we settled on four locations for caches:
- Stephens Trail parking lot (start of Day 3): one gallon of water
- Crisman Hollow Road (end of Day 3): one gallon of water and three days of food (so we wouldn’t have to carry six days right from the start)
- Moreland Gap Road (middle of Day 4): two gallon water cache
- Edinburg Gap (early Day 5): one gallon water cache
Because the trail on day 3 passes several creeks, those water caches are probably not necessary. But, out of an abundance of caution, we’re still leaving those caches. And since we’re leaving a food cache for the end of day 3, it does’t cost us anything to leave a water cache also.
This is the first time either of us have ever cached water or food for a hike, so we opted to take a shovel along with us to bury our water and food caches. This did feel a bit unnecessary, and I don’t know that we’ll actually need it, but better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
So with the planning all done, tomorrow, we’ll be off to the trail!