Little Devils Stairs
Today we ventured out to tackle our first hike on our path toward the Shenandoah 500. The 500 is a club of people who have hiked all 511 miles of trails in the Shenandoah National Park.
We were looking for a loop and Little Devils Stairs (LDS) was the hike we selected after sorting through the sometimes conflicting information online. The length of the hike was variously reported as lengths of around 2, 5, 6 and the closest was NPS at 7.4 miles. According to our Apple Watches, ours ended at almost exactly 8 miles.
We were sort of clueless but decided just to make a start anyway and we would learn along the way. We realized we had only two bottles of water and no food once we hit the Park entrance gate and still had a 19 miles drive before the hike even started! Definitely ours is not an example to follow but we loved the hike anyway. We were looking for a loop and this was
We had along our trusty three Cairn Terriers who could not have been happier scrambling up the rocks of the ravine.
We did smartly take the advice of others and hiked the LDS counter-clockwise. Looking back after completing it, that was definitely the best way to go. The trail starts at the Keyser Run Parking lot just past mile 19 on Skyline Drive and begins with a 4.5 mile mostly downward stroll along an easy fire road. One thing we learned was that the Little Devils Stair trail has an entrance off to the left at about the 1 mile mark. It would be accurate to call this the "end" of that trail so skip this left and continue on down the fire road for the next 3.5 miles or so following the National Park Service (NPS) map.
The Park Service has these excellent little maps available so be sure to ask for them at the entrance because they probably won't offer them. In our case, it was three maps to get to the 19 mile mark and it was great to have them so we could study a little on the drive down.
Here is the NPS map for the LDS hike:
We were all a little unsure as we continued to walk down the fire road but that was balanced by our elation as we finished the climb up the valley. The LDS trail itself began for us after the fire road and starts off slowly going up but then rapidly becomes this incredible rock scramble up the center of a ravine with lots of creek crossings and amazing vistas looking back down at what you have already climbed.
Toward the top, the rocks get bigger just when it seems you begin to slow down after about 5.5 miles but the payoff is awesome once you top out on the fire road again for the mile or so back up the fire road to the car.
We all felt great that we finished in about 4 hours.
Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
We were looking for a loop and Little Devils Stairs (LDS) was the hike we selected after sorting through the sometimes conflicting information online. The length of the hike was variously reported as lengths of around 2, 5, 6 and the closest was NPS at 7.4 miles. According to our Apple Watches, ours ended at almost exactly 8 miles.
We were sort of clueless but decided just to make a start anyway and we would learn along the way. We realized we had only two bottles of water and no food once we hit the Park entrance gate and still had a 19 miles drive before the hike even started! Definitely ours is not an example to follow but we loved the hike anyway. We were looking for a loop and this was
We had along our trusty three Cairn Terriers who could not have been happier scrambling up the rocks of the ravine.
We did smartly take the advice of others and hiked the LDS counter-clockwise. Looking back after completing it, that was definitely the best way to go. The trail starts at the Keyser Run Parking lot just past mile 19 on Skyline Drive and begins with a 4.5 mile mostly downward stroll along an easy fire road. One thing we learned was that the Little Devils Stair trail has an entrance off to the left at about the 1 mile mark. It would be accurate to call this the "end" of that trail so skip this left and continue on down the fire road for the next 3.5 miles or so following the National Park Service (NPS) map.
The Park Service has these excellent little maps available so be sure to ask for them at the entrance because they probably won't offer them. In our case, it was three maps to get to the 19 mile mark and it was great to have them so we could study a little on the drive down.
Here is the NPS map for the LDS hike:
We were all a little unsure as we continued to walk down the fire road but that was balanced by our elation as we finished the climb up the valley. The LDS trail itself began for us after the fire road and starts off slowly going up but then rapidly becomes this incredible rock scramble up the center of a ravine with lots of creek crossings and amazing vistas looking back down at what you have already climbed.
Toward the top, the rocks get bigger just when it seems you begin to slow down after about 5.5 miles but the payoff is awesome once you top out on the fire road again for the mile or so back up the fire road to the car.
We all felt great that we finished in about 4 hours.
Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
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