Find the top rated birding trails in Harrisonburg, whether you're looking for an easy short birding trail or a long birding trail, you'll find what you're looking for. Click on a birding trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
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The longest non-road paved section is at Riverview park at 2.1 miles. It is level. Beyond that you will need mountain bike or go on streets.
Nice wide paved trail but short with too many traffic lights. At least 5 lights. Entrance is not well marked. We parked in the McIntire park, close to the YMCA, which had a very hidden path entrance behind the picnic pavilion across from the sports field, which actually led us to the high school. Then we rode down the hill on the sidewalk which finally landed us on the trail. A better place to park might be at the north end, at the Covenant Church of God, 1025 Rio Rd E, Charlottesville, VA 22901 which is near and Exxon if you need drinks or snacks. Runkeeper said it’s 2 miles from end to end, starting at Covenant Church to the end at someone’s driveway along Rt 250, across from the Memorial on the corner.
I hiked this trail with my pup today (October 2). The trees are beginning to turn and the river is lively. A really pretty walk, all in all. I did have to cross the stream 3 times, and honestly could not find my way around this, although the trail notes say to stick to the east side of the stream. The bank was just too steep.
I was glad a I had on long pants, as the nettles are still green and stingy on parts of the trail.
Keep your wits about you. Rocky, steep and various terrains along this trail that never ends. Hiked it and survived, only to fall immediately asleep when getting in the car!
Not scenic in a landscape sense, but a steady, flat walk for at least 3 miles in. Occasionally muddy and rocky; you do see bits of "lumberjack history" along the trail.
This is four miles of slippery rock damp hiking..shared the trail with several horses..not a fun hike.
The trail seemed to be rarely used and neglected. Five solid miles of spider webs. The only good view was from the trail parking lot overlooking the vineyard. Absolutely the worst hike of 2015.
There is a trail named the Flatrock Run Trail and a mountain named Porte Crayon. That's the only truthful things about this writeup. Where did the information come from? If you follow this, you will be hopelessly lost in very rugged, dangerous wilderness.
The Flatrock Run Trail runs from Forest Road 19 to the Roaring Plains Trail. It does not go to the summit of Mount Porte Crayon. The summit of Mount Porte Crayon is reached by leaving the Flatrock Run Trail at it's intersection with the Roaring Plains Trail and bushwhacking over a mile to the summit. The final quarter mile is through extremely dense red cedar trees that are spaced at about two foot intervals. My wife and I went to the summit last year and it took us over an hour to traverse this last quarter mile to the summit. There are no views at the summit, none. The summit is completely covered with red spruce trees. There are no views. There is no reason to go to the summit, unless you want to log the geocache hidden there or photograph the USGS benchmark disk at the top.
If you want to see what the summit of Mount Porte Crayon is like, you can see a description and photos of it on my website at:
http://www.wehikedit.com/62511-mount-porte-crayon-summit-roaring-plains-mnf-wv.html
There is no Bears Nest Trail. There is a Boars Nest Trial in the Roaring Plains Wilderness, but it is several miles from the Flatrock Run trail and the two do not intersect, they run parallel to each other roughly North-South.
The South Prong Trail does not intersect the Flatrock Run Trail. The South Prong Trail also runs north-south and is even farther from the Flatrock Run trial than the Boars Nest Trail is. The Boars Nest Trail ends at Forest Road 70 in the south, as does the South Prong Trail. They do not intersect each other, and do not intersect the Flatrock Run Trail.
I highly recommend that you remove the Flatrock Run Trail from this website until you get an accurate description of it. You are going to get people lost and injurred or killed by sending them into the Roaring Plains Wilderness with such grossly incorrect information.
We just did a 3-day bike tour loop incorporating this trail (along with great fire roads and the awesome West Fork Rail Trail), but this East Fork Trail was a disaster--took us 7 hours (including breaks) to push our loaded mountain bikes the 8-mile length of this narrow, challenging HIKING trail--if you were an accomplished single-track mountain biker carrying NO camping gear, you could ride much--maybe most--of the trail but not all of it. BEWARE! Rails-to-Trails categorizes this as a "rail trail" and lists "mountain bike" as a use and together these are highly misleading. Add to this the trail description that talks about it being "a treat at any time of year" and mentions "a gradual uphill climb" at the northern end and you can understand why I and my two companions were pretty upset--no mention by RTC of the many steep narrow uphill sections (the trail constantly goes up and down the mountainside) and much unrideable boggy stuff... I have to wonder if they hiked the ENTIRE trail? Curiously, the signage at the north end identifies the trail as a hiking trail only; the signage at the southern terminus has a bicycle symbol (i.e. mountain bike) as well as a hiking symbol while also identifying it as "more difficult"--one has to wonder why at one end of this 8-mile trail it is strictly considered a hiking trail and at the other a hiking/mountain bike trail... A further complication here is that Google Maps, since appropriating RTC's data for its new bicycle-directions function, shows this trail as part of a bike route if you ask for bicycling directions through this area. So I'll be writing to them too--again, beware! All that said, this would be a lovely hike--very pretty, and enough up-and-down to give you a workout.
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