Shenandoah National Park – Jones Run Falls and Doyle’s River Falls Loop
I purchased a hiking book called: A Falcons Guide: Hiking Waterfalls in Virginia: A Guide to the State’s Best Waterfall Hikes. This books contains 48 of the best waterfalls in Virginia. Blake and I made a goal to hike all of them. A few of the waterfalls are located just off the roadway. We decided to take an overnight trip to the mountains and picked out Jones Run Falls and Doyle’s River Falls because the are part of the same loop trail. Being in the Shenandoah National Park, there is an entrance fee of $30 unless you have a National Park pass. We purchased the National Park Pass.
We parked in the Jones Run Parking area at mile post 84.1 off Skyline Drive. To get to the falls, cross the AT (Appalachian Trail) and follow the blue blazes to Jones Run Falls. The falls are 42 feet fall.
In the picture you can see a couple to the left, this provides scale of the size of the falls. We took a bunch of pictures of the falls and sat down to enjoy some fruit before continuing our hike to Doyle’s falls.
We continued our hike from Jones Run Falls to the Lower Doyle’s River Falls. We encountered interesting insects and a large tree.
We passed a small waterfall on our way. It had a large tree blocking some of the view.
We continued our hike upwards, the trail was rocky and steep.
We made it to the base of the lower falls. The lower falls are approximately 63 feet. The falls are harder to see because of the brush covering them but nonetheless, still beautiful.
We finally reached the base of the Upper Falls. A hand full of other people also enjoyed the falls with us.
After the ascent to the hike we were hot and decided to cool off in the waterfall. We both took turns putting our heads in the waterfall.
When we were finished cooling off we looked up and saw a snake on the rock next to the falls.
We continued our hike until we got back to the parking area at Mile Post 81. We sat on the brick railing overlooking the mountains and valley. This is also the parking lot you would park in if you wanted to do the hike the opposite way of where we started or just an out and back to Doyle’s River Falls. Once we finished lunch we began the hike back to the car which was about 3 miles from where we were. We did these 3 miles on the AT (Appalachian Trail).
Blake and I always pose for pictures by the AT blazes (white blazes), we have a goal of section hiking the AT in Virginia while the kids are still young and eventually hiking the entire AT from Maine to Georgia.
We also encountered another critter on our hike. I will admit I was in my own world looking ahead while I was hiking and not looking down and next thing I know, Blake is yelling for me to stop. I am glad I listened.
I almost stepped on a 6 foot long Black Snake that was out enjoying the trail. It took a few minutes for the snake to move off of the trail as we just let be. We didn’t want to mess with it, plus we had our dog with use and we didn’t want anyone to get bit.
We made it back to our car and continued on our way out of Shenandoah National Park and stopped at 2 overlooks to get pictures of the mountains.3
Trail Details
Distance: 7.7 Miles
Start Time: 11:40 AM; End Time: 5:15 PM
Elevation Gain: 1800 feet
When we are able to get away, we try to get away to the mountains or somewhere other than home. We always take a travel bag with us in case we decide last minute to stay somewhere overnight. We decided to stay the night in the mountains and visit some wineries the next day. We stopped into Pro Re Nata Brewery while I looked for a hotel. It was also the running of the Kentucky Derby and the Brewery had a friendly competition gone on for some free merchandise. We decided to have fun with it and placed our predictions. Neither one of us won anything, which was fine because it was free and we had fun doing it. We left the Brewery, grabbed a bite to eat and headed to our hotel for the night.
We stayed at the Best Western in Lexington.
Hotel in Lexington VA Near I-81 – Best Western Lexington Inn
The next morning, we enjoyed beautiful mountain views from the hotel balcony.
With no real plans for the day we decided to drive around where Blake has been camping since he was 13 years old. It is a place called Piney River. On the way to Piney, we came across an Old Logging Railroad. The Old Logging Railroad is located off of the Blue Ridge Parkway at Milepost 34.4 and is found on the Yankee Horse Ridge Trail.
Just a short walk down the old logging railroad, visitors will come across Wigwam Falls. We were not looking for falls, we were just driving around when we stumbled across this place. The funny part was Blake drove by it and I happened to see the sign and I had him circle back around. We took a few pictures of the falls and continued on our way.
Driving along we come across BIG FOOT!!! Yes BIG FOOT…….Okay well maybe just a cut out of big foot but still it was pretty cool and you really have to be looking to catch the glimpse of it. The neat part is, if you go on Google Maps, it shows Big Foot as a landmark.
Wanting to check off a few of the Virginia Wineries, we stop at Ankida Ridge, Rebec and Lazy Days and did a wine tasting at each of the vineyards.
A local notification came up on our phone with an event nearby that had a presentation on Hurricane Camille that came through Nelson County in 1969. Loving history, we decided to stop by and see what it was about. The presentation lasted about an hour and was very information. We took a couple of pictures of the signs they had on display before heading home
Nic of Time - Travel 