Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2013 - 14

H Humpback Rocks: Short, Sweet
Text and photos by leonard adkins

The hike

The popular walk near The norThern end of The blue ridge
parkway can be modified To avoid The crowds.
another hIke?

Also at BRP Milepoint 6, the 3.1-mile Albright
Loop Trail encircles, but never quite reaches the
summit of Dobie Mountain. Although it lacks
far-reaching vistas, the route can be a peaceful
alternative to the throngs of people at
Humpback Rocks during nice weekends.

Humpback Rocks’ views and closeness to the parkway make it a popular hike.

It was a perfect Saturday morning
with a deep blue sky dotted by little
white puffy clouds that were being
pushed along by a slight springtime
breeze that enticed Laurie and me to
take a hike to Humpback Rocks near
the northern end of the Blue Ridge
Parkway. When we arrived, we found
we were not the only ones lured by
the weather. If the cars parked there
had been from several decades ago,
the sight would have been a copy of
those vintage photographs from the
mid-1900s you have seen that show
scores of automobiles lined up at a
particular spot along the scenic
roadway.
So many cars, in fact, that we had
to park at the Humpback Rocks
Visitor Center a short distance away.
Actually, this was a good thing, as
it enabled us to include the quartermile Mountain Farm Trail in our day’s
outing.
That route is an easy, self-guiding
14 | BlueRidgeCountry.com

(and handicapped accessible) gravel
pathway whose collection of buildings relocated from farther south
along the parkway portrays some of
the more colorful aspects of life on a
mountain farm in the late 1800s.
Signposts along the way explain the
various structures and farm tools,
such as maul and frow, beatlin block
(you’ll have to walk the trail to find
out what this is) and ash hopper.
Although it was too early in the year
for us to experience, a garden is
planted for the growing season, and
live demonstrations are presented
during late spring and summer.
We crossed the parkway where an
open meadow let us gaze upon the

twin spires of Humpback Rocks, dotted by dozens of people who had
already made the climb. The field
below the summit, now kept open by
mowing, was once known as Coiner’s
Deadening. When settlers first moved
into the mountains, they had to plant
crops as quickly as possible, so they
would girdle the bark of trees,
thereby killing (deadening) the trees
and permitting sunlight to reach the
garden area.
It was a steep and rocky pathway
that ascended steadily for almost a
mile to the rocks where we encountered the multitude of families with
little children, dozens of college students on spring break and several
handholding couples. The crowds
may have been a bit distracting, but
they certainly didn’t detract from the
far-ranging view of the Shenandoah
Valley as it stretches north and south
and west. From here it’s obvious why
the wide, rolling expanse of the valley,
bordered on the east by the Blue
Ridge Mountains and on the west by
the Allegheny Mountains, was the
natural conduit for early settlers as
they made their way to southern
Virginia and points westward from
Pennsylvania, Maryland and northeastern Virginia.

The rocks we were standing upon are close
to 600 million years old, having once been
lava f lows...
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Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2013

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