Bear Church Rock Hike - April 7, 2018

From the Graves Mill Trail to intersection at the Staunton River Trail

Atop Bear Church Rock for lunch

 With a forecast of winter mix and cold temperatures, hike leader, Marit Anderson, decided not to cancel the hike set for Saturday, April 7, but instead have interested hikers reach her by phone, which allowed us to arrive at AHS ready to hike with the option to change the hike.  Five hikers decided collectively to forego the scheduled Corbin Mountain 11 mile hike for a shorter hike a little closer to home in case bad weather developed.  Iva Gillet and Remi the hiker dog, John Brandt, Mark Perschel, Nancy Handley, and Marit carpooled up to the Graves Mill parking area on VA662 to do the Bear Church Rock circuit in the Shenandoah National Park. We began on the Graves Mill trail along the Rapidan River and split off at the Staunton River Trail taking the steeper Jones Mountain Trail all the way up to Bear Church Rock through a canopy of Mountain Laurel.  We enjoyed the beautiful view and ate a quick lunch and dark chocolate, as the day was quite brisk.  Snow and hail spat at us as we descended and took the detour to see the Jones Mountain Cabin, a quaint cabin which might be fun to backpack to for an overnight someday.  We split off to take the less steep descent on the McDaniel Hollow Trail and rejoined the Staunton River and Graves Mill trails to return to our cars.  The mileage for the day was 8.5 miles with 2,210 ft of elevation gain.  We also did some trail maintenance - sawing and removing a tree on the trail. Everyone seemed happy to get a good hike in on a day we thought would be snowed out. Remi seemed the happiest of all!

Jones Mountain Cabin

Canopy of Mountain Laurel

Trail maintenance time

Hail on Remi

Bloodroot in bloom

**The Corbin Mountain Hike will be rescheduled for June.  Check the schedule because it is quite a nice hike on the Hughes River along the Nicholson Hollow Trail up to the Corbin Cabin and following the Corbin Mountain and Corbin Hollow Trails- starting at the Old Rag parking area.

submitted by Marit Anderson