EarthNsky
New member
With my friend Matt (trailname: Bison) I dayhiked the Brown Mtn/Rocky Mtn Run loop in Shenandoah today.
It was an awesome hike and seeing the bear was the icing on the top of the icing on the cake. The weather was great, another beautiful sunny day and the Autumn colors were more prevelant than the week before. Two great weekends in a row hiking in Shenandoah. Alot of trees had a brilliant red color. It looked awesome next to the mostly green landscape. There were some yellows sprinkled in there too.
Parked at Brown Mtn Overlook on Skyline Drive. Nice view from the overlook. Took the Brown Mtn. Trail which dropped nearly 500 feet in a half mile to the saddle where the Rocky Mtn Run Trail jct was. This is where we would return from our loop. We continued on the Brown Mtn trail, climbed a pretty steep and rocky hill to the top of Brown Mtn, stopped at all of the overlooks. The views were awesome, especially of Rocky Top Mountain. Off in the distance you could see the south end of Massenutten Mountain and the Shenandoah Valley between.
The Brown Mtn Trail was quite rocky. More so than most trails I have hiked in Shenandoah. We then dropped down off of Brown Mtn and down into the Valley Between Brown and Rockytop.
I forget the name of the trail we took, Bison will know. It followed an awesome creek and we had numerous fords to negotiate and on the last one we both fell in. Bison tried to ford at one point across a small cascade with a deep pool below. That could have been interesting. He turned back though for a safer crossing point down stream.
We then got on the Rocky Mtn Run trail and started back up towards Brown Mtn. It starts out as a mostly level trail. Appeared to be an old road or railroad grade. I could tell I was in bear country.
This was a pretty remote area of Shenandoah and you could tell the trails weren't heavily traveled.
We were seeing Bear Scat all day. I knew this was the day I was going to see a bear.
Finally I was ahead of Bison and heard him call me and then he was yelling, "bear! Bear! Bear!." I ran back to him and scanned the woods and then heard rocks moving and looked down at the run and saw it cross the creek and then run into the woods and up the hill. It got up that hill in a hurry too. He wanted nothing to do with us. We watched him climb the steep slope and then continued on our way. Soon after that the trail got much steeper and gained elevation pretty quickly. Finally we were back at the jct. with the Brown Mtn Trail and it was only .7 miles back to where we parked. That was a pretty good hill. but we still had another 500 feet to climb. We took a break and then continued back to Bison's Blazer.
The whole hike was about 9.8 miles and 2200 feet of elevation gain. The climbs were good ones though. A good chunk of the hike was a ridge walk and the other following a creek in the valley. Absolutely beautiful and highly recommended. Fairly strenuous and rocky but a great hike no less. Great views, even from down in the valley.
Good chance you'll see a bear, very remote section of the park.
I ate a lot of spider webs as did Bison.
I'll post my pics as soon as they're up. I got some good'uns. None of the bear though.
Photos from the trip - Brown Mtn/Rocky Mtn Run loop Shenandoah Dayhike
It was an awesome hike and seeing the bear was the icing on the top of the icing on the cake. The weather was great, another beautiful sunny day and the Autumn colors were more prevelant than the week before. Two great weekends in a row hiking in Shenandoah. Alot of trees had a brilliant red color. It looked awesome next to the mostly green landscape. There were some yellows sprinkled in there too.
Parked at Brown Mtn Overlook on Skyline Drive. Nice view from the overlook. Took the Brown Mtn. Trail which dropped nearly 500 feet in a half mile to the saddle where the Rocky Mtn Run Trail jct was. This is where we would return from our loop. We continued on the Brown Mtn trail, climbed a pretty steep and rocky hill to the top of Brown Mtn, stopped at all of the overlooks. The views were awesome, especially of Rocky Top Mountain. Off in the distance you could see the south end of Massenutten Mountain and the Shenandoah Valley between.
The Brown Mtn Trail was quite rocky. More so than most trails I have hiked in Shenandoah. We then dropped down off of Brown Mtn and down into the Valley Between Brown and Rockytop.
I forget the name of the trail we took, Bison will know. It followed an awesome creek and we had numerous fords to negotiate and on the last one we both fell in. Bison tried to ford at one point across a small cascade with a deep pool below. That could have been interesting. He turned back though for a safer crossing point down stream.
We then got on the Rocky Mtn Run trail and started back up towards Brown Mtn. It starts out as a mostly level trail. Appeared to be an old road or railroad grade. I could tell I was in bear country.
This was a pretty remote area of Shenandoah and you could tell the trails weren't heavily traveled.
We were seeing Bear Scat all day. I knew this was the day I was going to see a bear.
Finally I was ahead of Bison and heard him call me and then he was yelling, "bear! Bear! Bear!." I ran back to him and scanned the woods and then heard rocks moving and looked down at the run and saw it cross the creek and then run into the woods and up the hill. It got up that hill in a hurry too. He wanted nothing to do with us. We watched him climb the steep slope and then continued on our way. Soon after that the trail got much steeper and gained elevation pretty quickly. Finally we were back at the jct. with the Brown Mtn Trail and it was only .7 miles back to where we parked. That was a pretty good hill. but we still had another 500 feet to climb. We took a break and then continued back to Bison's Blazer.
The whole hike was about 9.8 miles and 2200 feet of elevation gain. The climbs were good ones though. A good chunk of the hike was a ridge walk and the other following a creek in the valley. Absolutely beautiful and highly recommended. Fairly strenuous and rocky but a great hike no less. Great views, even from down in the valley.
Good chance you'll see a bear, very remote section of the park.
I ate a lot of spider webs as did Bison.
I'll post my pics as soon as they're up. I got some good'uns. None of the bear though.
Photos from the trip - Brown Mtn/Rocky Mtn Run loop Shenandoah Dayhike
