This
is a short and pleasant hike, and has
some of the best vistas in the Shenandoah National Park. Little Stony Man, just below the main peak, has a popular rock wall with local climbers. Make
sure to pick a haze free day, because you don't want
to miss all the views along the the ridge!
Start the hike on the left of the parking area at the trail junction. Turn right on the on the yellow blazed Stony Man Trail for 0.5 miles to the intersection of the Horse Trail.
Turn left uphill on the Horse Trail for 0.5 miles and come to the first of the
Shenandoah Valley overlooks. Continue up the trail for another 50
yards to the junction of the the
blue blazed trail, and horse rail. Turn left, and in 80 yards arrive at the main Stony Man Mountain overlook.
Return back, passing the trail you turned off in 80 yards, where the blue blazed trail splits. Stay left, and in 0.4 miles the trails rejoin. Continue downhill for another 0.1 miles to the the four way intersection of the white blazed Appalachian Trail.
Turn left on the white blazed trail for
0.7 miles to the Little Stony Man overlook. As you continue
downward make several switchbacks before reaching the left turn for the blue blazed Passamaquoddy Trail. The Passamaquoddy Trail turnoff is easy to miss. Look for a concrete post marker and a double white blazed tree marking the junction.
The Passamaquoddy Trail will pass a lower vista at the base of the Little Stony Man Mountain cliff face. Continue around the mountain for 1.0 miles to the junction
of Furnace Spring Road. Turn left uphill for 20 yards, then make a sharp turn to the left again onto the yellow blazed trail. Follow the yellow blazed trail as it winds uphill, arriving back at the Stony Man Mountain parking area in 0.5 miles.
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Reviews For The Stony Man Mountain Hike (5 Most Recent)
Overall, very nice hike. As other reviewers have said it is quite quick with beautiful views, we finished the loop in about 2.25 hours. I will caution, currently the entire trail is packed snow, which makes for a great calf workout on the uphill portions and a bit of a slide on the way down. Hi-top hiking boots and/or trekking poles would have proved useful. Sections of the Passamaquoddy Trail are especially treacherous the snow is so deep in some places that each step left 6-18 inch indents in the snow for about a half mile. We also saw what looked like very fresh bear tracks and droppings. The Passamaquoddy Trail did offer awesome icicle waterfalls from the snow runoff freezing over the rocks. Great hike on a spring-like winter day.
By:
Nala
Rating:
Date of Hike: Sunday, November 13, 2011
A short hike with many beautiful vistas. There were a lot of people on the hike, however, even in mid-November.
By:
Rating:
Date of Hike: Sunday, October 09, 2011
We had a friend from Russia visiting and I wanted to show her the beauty of the mountains here and decided on that easy hike. Views were great! If you want to convince someone to start hiking that's the trip to do it.
Re the previous review it shouldn't be surprising that a gorgeous 4mi hike that close to the Skyline Drive is overcrowded. Besides getting into many National Parks in this country costs something, and it's not something new for the SNP check their website )
By:
Rating:
Date of Hike: Saturday, October 01, 2011
We did this hike on a cold and windy first day of October. We got a late start and didn't get to the trail head until noon. The parking lot was packed, almost no parking spaces. There were so many people there I thought we were in the wrong place. The hike itself is not bad, as some steep inclines in the beginning but mostly downhill and even travels after the first vista. We had lunch at Stony Man rocks, where you could barely get to the edge or sit down anywhere because of all the people. After the first vista, however, the people lessened and the hike became much nicer. i highly recommend doing the whole hike as described on HU, the lower portion was awesome!
Did this hike in 4 hours. At the end, where the yellow picks up from the blue trail, is a bit confusing. Make sure to turn left up the hill and not a right where it says "1.1 miles to Skyland Parking" this will take you a much longer way.
If this hike was not so crowded, it would have been amazing, but all the people really made it hard to pee in the woods ......
And I must mention the fact that we had to pay $15 to get onto skyline drive, wish we would have known this before we went.
By:
Rating:
Date of Hike: Saturday, August 13, 2011
Third time for me doing this hike. I do it in reverse, starting on upper Little Stony Man, then Appalachian Trail to Stony Man, then horse trail to Passamaquoddy trial and then back to lower Little Stony Man. There is a small parking area on the Little Stony Man end that will accommodate 10-12 cars. We got started around 9:30am and finished around noon. Stony Man and Little Stony Man are extremely popular and easy for casual hikers to access, so don't expect any solitude at the vistas. There were no less than 20 people all trying to lunch on top of Stony Man. The best part of the hike for solitude is the horse trail, the AT, and the Passamaquoddy trail. Most casual hikers only go to the summits and back, they don't do the loop. It started raining when we were on the horse trail, but ended by the time we got to Passamaquoddy. The Passamaquoddy trail can be very slick with wet rocks. Be cautious with your footing!
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