There are some nice views on both sides of Great North Mountain from the ridge just before arriving at Gerhard Shelter. The views of the valley from Vance's Cove can be wonderful on a clear day as well, but the main attraction is the solitude. We have never seen other hikers on this route.
Begin by turning left uphill on the blue blazed Tuscarora Trail passing a closed gate. At this point the trail is a closed forestry road (FS) that slowly climbs the side of the mountain for 0.8 miles before the blue blazed Tuscarora Trail makes a sharp right, and the FS road continues straight. Turn right on the blue blazed trail. If you start going downward on the FS road you missed the right turn.
The blue blazed trail climbs the side of Great North Mountain steeply and makes several switchbacks before reaching the ridge line in another 3.0 miles. Follow the ridge for 1.0 miles and arrive at Gerhard Shelter. The shelter is generally used by through hikers.
Turn right downhill on the white blazed Gerhard Shelter Trail that very steeply descends Great North Mountain. The footing is precarious with loose stone for the majority of the descent. In 0.5 miles pass a side trail on the left that takes you to a spring, and in another 0.2 miles emerge onto a FS road.
Turn right on the unblazed forestry road. The forestry road is normally closed to motorized traffic, unless your hiking during hunting season (bad idea!). At the end of the FS road in 0.8 miles, just past a burn, the unmarked Vance's Cove connector trail will bear right. Follow the trail for 0.5 miles where it merges with the yellow blazed Vance's Cove Trail.
Interactive Hike Map BelowPrintable
Topo Hike Map (PDF) Hike route in Drag the map with your mouse using the icon Zoom with the controls on the left Mouse-over the icons in the map below for location shots
Calculate roughly how many calories you could burn on the Gerhard Shelter hike:
=
Hiker
Reviews For The Gerhard Shelter Hike (5 Most Recent)
I'm amazed more haven't been on this wonderful hike. The first 1.5 hours are a delightful challenge to a spectacular ridge with breath taking views. And then onto Paul Gerhard (not Gerhar"t") Memorial Shelter where we stopped for a snack. I sure wouldn't walk down that slippery spring slope .2 miles to get water to bring back up to the shelter though. This was the best part of the hike by the way. The rest was mostly forest service roads although they were not as bad as some. 14 of us had time for nice conversations on that portion and finished the entire hike in 4 hours 15 minutes. Could have easily cut off a half hour or so if we hadn't stopped as often. There are campsites in a number of places and I suspect we'll come back to camp & perhaps find ourselves back on that ridge for a meteor shower or sun rise. Pictures should be posted on one or both of these sights.
By:
Rating:
Date of Hike: Sunday, December 21, 2008
I was dumb. On a cold, drizzly December Saturday before Christmas, after a week of rain and wintry mix, I got a late start and left my rain and head gear at home -- what was I thinking? The trail head was a little tricky to find, but once I found it and parked, I wondered how I could have missed it. The ascent up to ridge was as described, and a very good workout. Lots of rock covered with wet leaves -- hmmmm. The trail is generally very well marked and easy to follow, but the leaf covering made some of the switchbacks hard to discern in a number of places. At the ridge, the trail flattens out somewhat to a much more gradual ascent and is an outstanding walk. But it was getting late, had started to drizzle, and fog was settling in as the ridge walk started to climb more severely. I never made it to the Shelter and decided to turn back -- I was probably within a half mile. But with the temperature dropping, the hour getting later and the fog severely limiting visibility, I chickened out and retraced my steps back down to the forest service road and the warmth of my car's heater. Lesson learned. I will go back and start earlier on a better day - the trail was worth it.
By:
Rating:
Date of Hike: Saturday, August 13, 2005
I did this loop this past weekend as a sleepover hike using the PATC circuit hikes book as a guide. I took my girlfriend (who has never camped out before) and we had a great time. I hadn't gone on a hike in a few years and was looking for something that would be heavy on the solitude and not too challenging. The only other people we saw on our trek were two mountain bikers who came up behind us on FDR371 the second day. The hike itself was great, save for the heat and the masses of bugs (cant say ive ever seen a horsefly the size of a city cockrach before this :D ) Probably better to do it in the cooler months for sure. The peak offerred spectacular views, but the trail surrounding it seemed to be at risk of becoming overgrown. Lots of fallen trees to hop over as well. The spring mentioned in the PATC guidebook was completely stagnant; we had to wait till PaddyRun to refill our water supply (we camped out at the site right there). Lots of butterflies, some brilliantly colored fungi, bear doo, and a big ol' box turtle added to our experience. All in all a good time; I look forward to exploring more of the GWNF in the near future. :-)
By:
Rating:
Date of Hike: Monday, May 30, 1910
We combined this hike with the Sugar Knob/Racer Camp trails to make a 19 mile circuit, 2 night backpack. I reviewed the earlier part of the circuit on the Sugar Knob trail link. After hiking across the valley via the red blazed Racer Camp fire road, we met up with the Wilson and Vance's Cove trails at the WV/VA border. Since we had stocked up on water on the Racer Camp hollow stream, we needed to restock and opted to continue down Vance's Cove trail to the Paddie Run crossing about 0.5 miles northeast of the Gerhard Shelter trail trail head. The first half of Vance's Cove is open with some muddy areas and is a pleasant hike, but then it becomes very overgrown and you have to almost hack your way through lots of mountain laurel (it was in bloom so as least it was pretty). It started to get a bit frustrating where the trail was at, but thanks to some mountain bikers that had recently gone through you could follow the tracks. Eventually you meet the FS road and Paddie Run, which turned out to be a great spot to refill our bladders some, soak our feet, and wipe off all the spider webs and debris from all the mountain laurel we walked through. The hike up the FS road to the Gerhard trail was pleasant (we weren't hacking our way through bushes and we did see a turtle). The beginning of the Gerhard trail to the spring wasn't too bad elevation-wise and we easily located the spring. The biggest problem came when we went to get water. It seemed to be that water was plentiful elsewhere throughout the valley EXCEPT for the spring, where it was trickling along. We were not happy. We had to dunk my Nalgene bottle into one of the many small pools and pump out of the bottle, and then refill the bottle when the pool filled back up and repeat the process. It was rather time consuming but there was no way we were going all the way back down to Paddie Run to get water. I would not count on that spring for water, even if it has rained recently. We grabbed around 4 liters and for the two of us, and then began our hike up to the shelter. That hike was brutal and was by far the steepest hike I have ever done, which was made more difficult with packs on. Despite the difficulty, we made it to the top after many small breaks. We were very glad we had not done the circuit in reverse because we would have slid down that trail and my knee would have been shot and we'd have likely had to call off the rest of the trip. The shelter is very nice and we set up the tent inside the shelter and used it as a bug net. We were treated with a beautiful sunset through the trees and a nearly full moon looking out the shelter. The shelter was a bit too warm for sleeping and we wished we had slept outside where it was nice and breezy. The shelter does appear to be a sleeping spot for two birds as well as stopping point for a whipporwill, who decided to visit and sing his song from the shelter ledge at 5:30am! Thankfully we were not greeted bothered by any other visitors through the night. The hike out was beautiful with views of the valleys on both side of the ridge. There were some big blowdowns and some overgrowth but otherwise it was a rocky but nice descent back to the car at Waites Run.
We checked out the shelter log and the shelter overseer from the PATC indicated they are looking to move the trail to the spring by the end of the summer, which according to the overseer is "long overdue". He indicated it will be longer but it will beat the 517ft drop in 0.3 miles one has to contend with now. Overall, a scenic hike along the ridge, down the Tuscarora and Vance's Cove Trails and a pleasant stroll along the red blazed Racer Camp FS road as part of our larger circuit.
icon 
