Little North Mountain Hike

Little North Mountain - Woodstock, Virginia


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Length	Difficulty	Streams	Views	Solitude	Camping
8.5 mls
Hiking Time: Elev. Gain: Links: Resources:	4.5 hours plus a half hour for lunch 1,260 ft George Washington National Forest Printable Topo Hike Map (PDF) Woodstock Weather Forecast Graphic Precip/Temp Forecast Current Weather Radar Loop (Java) Garmin (GDB), GPS eXchange (GPX) (What's this?) 3D View of Route!
From:	e.g.. 12000 Government Center Parkway 22035 or Fairfax VA The parking area is a turn out with a Smoky The Bear sign.

The hike along Little North Mountain loop requires you to bushwhack for about 0.3 miles and the trail is hard to spot in places. This hike should only be done by/with experienced hikers. A map, compass and GPS are highly recommended.

The first half of the hike along the un-maintained, un-blazed forestry service road and the bushwhack to meet the unofficial, un-blazed Spur Trail is the most challenging portion of the route. About halfway up the FS road the blow-downs increase substantially and the road becomes hard to follow in places. Once the FS road disappears completely you need to bushwhack to the Spur Trail where the underbrush is heavily thorned, long pants are highly recommended. The reward for this heartache? Complete solitude on the Little North Mountain ridge with vista after vista that rivals Big Schloss.

From the parking area start up the Tea Mountain Hollow dirt forestry road with Cove Run coming in on your right in 150 yards. The FS road is un-maintained and un-blazed (marked here as red) and becomes more and more obstructed by blow downs and is heavily rutted.

Continue up the FS road passing several side tracks that climb the mountain on your left. In 2.0 miles from the start of the hike the Tea Mountain Hollow FS road will end. From this spot the bushwhacking portion of the hike starts, marked here as red-dashed.

Continue up the hollow keeping Cove Run on your right, but still visible. The run will disappear under rock screes in places. If you follow the run you will find a small spring. After bushwhacking for about 0.3 miles try to locate the un-blazed Spur Trail that runs in the center of the hollow. Follow the spur trail for 0.4 miles where it intersects with the blue blazed Tuscarora Trail. If you were unable to find the Spur Trail and have remained on the left of Cove Run you will eventually run into the blue blazed Tuscarora Trail that runs along the crest of the Hollow between Tea and Little North Mountains.

Turn left on the blue blazed Tuscarora Trail as it climbs Little North Mountain arriving at the ridge in 0.3 miles. For the first mile on the ridge you will have several great vista points, one with a 270° panorama and from another you can look west to White Rocks (White Rocks Hike). Follow the blue blazed trail before it drops just below the ridge on the left/west side on the mountain then ascends again before reaching a gravel road. Veer left following the blue blazed gravel road for 100 yards where it intersects VA600.

Turn left on VA600 (which you drove down earlier) for 1.0 miles and return to the parking area.

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Hiker Reviews For The Little North Mountain Hike (5 Most Recent)

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By: Brian	Rating:	Date of Hike: Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Not a hike worth choosing considering the amount of other great hikes around. The first few miles had too many blowdowns and we spent the majority of the time avoiding fallen trees rather than focusing on the nature around us. Not a difficult hike but beginning section desperately needs someone to walk through with a chainsaw. The summitt was ok but too many blowdowns to recommend.

By: Brandon	Rating:	Date of Hike: Sunday, February 22, 2009
After successfully parking at the correct spot, the adventure was on. Cove Run was a higher-quality stream than expected. More water than I would've thought, and just enough waterworks to make it pleasantly audible most of the time. The blowdowns don't really start till you get a mile in, then the next mile is finding your way around obstructions and finding your way back to the old road/trail. It's interesting to see the old fallen logs that were cleared out of the way long ago. I wonder when it stopped being maintained. After successfully hiking close to the run after the trail ended - finding faint trails, losing them, finding some campsite someone had used not too long ago, finding another faint trail, I reached a very scenic point where the run ran underground. I believe I found the spur trail from there, and repeatedly lost it, and rediscovered it again, over and over. Thankfully, given the topography of the area, getting lost was never a concern. And just when I came across a clear space that might suffice as a campsite and seeing no trail out of it, 10 feet later I finally saw Tuscarora Blue. The ridge walk wasn't AS nice as I would've hoped, but I think today's problem was weather-related. It's still relatively outstanding.

By:	Rating:	Date of Hike: Saturday, January 13, 2007
Hiked this trail with Snappers & Steve. I must say that if you want to take this trail on you must be ready for a lot of climbing and dunking over and under some large trees and rocks that are in the path. The trail head is a little hard to find at first because the forestry sign is no longer visible from the road for it is laying in the bushes by the trail head. But, just follow the directions above and you should have no problem getting there. The first mile and a half is an easy stroll along a mountain stream up the fire road. After that the fun begins because your fire road ends and you must bushwhack over large trees and some dense vegetation to find the trail. LONG PANTS are a must. After about a mile of hiking when the fire road ended we decided to just head up LNM which is on your left. The mountain is steep in some places but doable as long as you are careful. We arrived at the ridge in about 2 1/2 hours and found the blue trail that runs along the top of the ridge line which you take to the left back to the parking area. The views from the ridge line are very similar to those of Big Schloss. You run the ridge line for about 3 miles which is packed with great views that make all the hard work to get there worth wild. You run the blue trail back to the main road you came in on and then turn left for 1 mile back to the parking area. I would recommend this hike if you are an experienced hiker and in decent shape but would definitely not recommend it for small children or inexperienced hikers for it is easy to become lost or disoriented. All and all a great hike and took a total of 6 hours to complete.

By: M.R.Hyker	Rating:	Date of Hike: Monday, February 21, 2005
This has to be one of the best kept little secrets in the entire GWNF. I'm introducing it to a PATC Trail Overseer who is in charge of Mill Mt. There is a slight chance that he might get the forest to open Up Tea Mountain Hollow Rd and make it an official trail. Light weight Nylon pants with zip-off legs is highly recommended when hiking this one in the summer. One note: After the road is no longer discernable and the brush gets thick its OK to drift to the left (east) side of the hollow a bit to avoid some of the briers and brambles. Just maintain a sense for where the stream/rock scree is. We stayed just in the shadow of the hill to our left (east) which rises up to become LNM as we continued to walk up the hollow to the draw. You should still be able to find the spring photographed here. There is one more spring to the left just before you get to the spur trail.

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