This hike is an out-and-back trip of roughly nine miles, most of which is on the Appalachian Trail in northern Virginia. It took me about five hours of walking, or six hours car-door-to-car-door, including breaks.
The end points — Thompson Lake and Whitehouse Overlook — are lovely. That’s the lake, above, and the overlook, below.
Source: Top photo, Thompson Lake, in the Thompson Wildlife Management Area. Bottom photo, Ambassador Whitehouse overlook, near Sky Meadows State Park.
The trails connecting the two? Not so much. Take a map, and be mindful of the poison ivy.
The Hike
For me, this starts with a roughly 50 mile drive west on Interstate 66 to the Markham exit, then north for four miles on lovely Leeds Manor road, to the totally unmarked entrance to the Thompson Lake parking lot.
This hike starts in the Thompson Wildlife Management Area (WMA). These are public hunting lands, and you either need to buy a Virginia hunting or fishing license, or an access permit ($4/day, $23/year) to use the parking and the trails, any of which Virginia DWR is happy to sell you on-line. Buy and print your permit and you’re good to go.
I doubt there’s any enforcement on weekdays outside of hunting season, but I bought an access pass. That turned out to be a surprisingly intrusive process, I guess because you need to prove residency to get a hunting license, and that carried over to the use permits. At any rate, the purchase process was very “in-your-face” for a Commonwealth of Virginia entity. For example, DWR literally refuses to sell you the access permit, unless you definitively turn down the option to get a hunting license. (That, because if I’d been willing to lie, and claim that I was going to access these lands for hunting, DWR would suck down some sort of Federal grant money, or something. Basically, the government of Virginia strongly encourages you to lie, so that they can rip off the Federal government. I was kind of shocked to see that.
The idea is that you’re going to hike through the Thompson WMA up to the crest of the Blue Ridge. Like so:
Then turn right to follow the Appalachian Trail north toward Sky Meadows State Park.
This is my first modern-era hike along the AT where Google Maps was not a sufficient tool for planning the hike route. Google Maps doesn’t know about the trails through the Thompson WMA. If you ask it to get you from Thompson Lake, to the Whiskey Hollow shelter along the AT, it tells you to hike up the road to Sky Meadows state park, and climb to the ridge from there.
Instead, you have to rely on a map from Virginia DWR. The map is so old it predates the construction of the Whiskey Hollow shelter, and it’s not a map for hikers, so it doesn’t mark the Appalachian Trail. You just have to compare this map, to what shows on Google or elsewhere, to be able to connect the dots and realize there is a trail, from that parking area, to the AT.
All told, this ends up being a hike where you need to bring a map and keep your wits about you. There is a fine, perfectly hikeable trail all the way up to the ridge. You just have to figure out where it is. None of the Thompson WMA trails is marked in any way.
You just have to know what is the trail, and what is not, as you ascend the mountain. When in doubt, take the right fork. That worked for me. And take pictures so that you’ll recognize the turnoffs on the way back. (Above, that’s from ABOVE where you turn off the AT and start hiking back down the mountain, through the Thompson WMA).
Below, this is the only turn in the trail that I found tricky. Ascending, at this fork in the trail, turn right and step over the log, and go into the woods. There’s a nice trail back there, a little further on.
Mind the little green fellow in the foreground, above. You’ll see him everywhere on this hike.
The trail itself ranges from wide open, as you cross the dam holding back Thompson Lake, to quite overgrown. Poison ivy is widespread here.
Once you get up to the ridge, turn right (north) on the Appalachian Trail. Walk three miles north, then follow the signs to Whitehouse Overlook.
The Hiker
For me, this fills in the last section of the AT, between Interstate 66 (Linden, VA) and the West Virginia line, that I had not hiked yet this year. (And, since I’m doing this in out-and-back day hikes, I’ve now hiked that section twice this year.)
Google tells me that’s a whopping 52 miles of hiking, total, this year. It felt like a lot more than that.
Otherwise, this hike wasn’t quite enough exercise. Once you climb to the ridge, via the Thompson WMA, it’s mostly level trail, with only mild uphills and downhills. This wasn’t nearly as difficult as hikes further north on the “roller coaster” section of the Appalachian Trail.
For me, this makes it a relatively inefficient hike, because as far as I can tell, the wear-and-tear on my joints is a function of mileage, and little else. This hike has a lot of miles (like, 9 or so), but imposed insufficient cardiovascular stress. It’s a bit too level for my current level of fitness. (How’s that for a snobby thing to say.) Restated, it’s not difficult enough to be an efficient day-hike for me, now. There’s too much walking on flat and near-flat ground.
And that’s because the joint wear-and-tear, the footsore-ness, and so on — those a seem to be almost purely a function of mileage. As in, if I were to go on a 10-mile hike here on the sidewalks of Vienna, VA, I bet I’d end up just as sore, or nearly.
And so, to end a hike with both my muscles and my joints worn out, I need hikes that require more muscle, to complete, than mere walking-on-the-level can provide.
QED.
Ideally, I want my muscles to pack it in before or as my joints do. Seems like the joint wear-and-tear factor is almost straight-up mileage. But muscle stress rises with slope. So I need routes with sufficient up-and-down in order to wear out my muscles, with the hike, before my joints get too sore, for the day.
Finally, eating an ounce-a-day of collagen (in the form of hydrolyzed collagen peptides) unambiguously and dramatically helps my leg joints recover from hiking. Except for a little residual foot-soreness, I wouldn’t know I’d hiked nine miles yesterday. That’s as good as it gets for a 66-year-old guy.
