That plaque tells you all you need to know about this hike’s difficulty.
A cub scout pack did this hike carrying two wooden benches. Or the parts thereof.
Mostly, this hike is just a walk in the woods, on a dirt/duff trail. About 1000′ of elevation gain over ~3 miles, but trail slopes are moderate.
This was a ~6-mile round-trip and about 3.5 hours of walking, but I spent some time exploring a few side-trails.
The hike
Flora. Fauna. Slope. Rocks. Water. Nothing you wouldn’t see in any other generic piece of Virginia woods and fields. Nothing spectacular. Nothing really noteworthy. Relatively little poison ivy, for what that’s worth, compared to sections of the trail just further north.
History Break 1: REMOUNT rOAD
But, the thousands of yards of big scary brand-new barb-wire-topped fencing, with the 30′ dirt strip cleared behind it, and the high-security-looking gates? Those stood out as being unique to this trip.
(Above: The quietly understated humor of AT blazes.)
Running up next to high-security areas is not unheard of for the AT in the DC area. Further north, the AT runs along the boundary of Camp David, next to some similarly-impressive-looking fencing. So it’s not unheard-of, but neither is it typical.
The back story for this high-security area can be read in Atlas Obscura. This was once a U.S. Army facility for raising and training horses, which explains why this section of US 522 is Remount Road, and why all this land is owned by the Federal government. Up close, as you walk past, you can see that these building are in fact barns – evidenced by having barn doors — with very nice new metal roofs.
There’s a Jurassic Park vibe now, as, on paper at least, this land is now all owned by the Smithsonian, something to do with rare animals. Whatever animals that fence is now meant to contain, I hope it does its job.
From overhead, this entire Federal complex looks like sort of rural Virginia Club Med. Just a whole bunch of matching red-roofed, tan-walled buildings spread across the countryside. Only the fencing gives it away as something else entirely.
History Break 2: Headwaters of the Rappahannock.
Like so many permanent camp and shelter sites on the AT, Mosby Campsite is there because water is available. There’s a trail to a spring just downhill from the campsite itself.
You can see the spring sign, above. But did you notice the remains of a springhouse? I completely missed that the first time I visited here. What at first glance is a pile of rocks, on the left, above, turns out to be the foundation of what must have once been a springhouse, complete with a passage through the foundation for the water to flow through. Construction reminds me of the civil-war-era stone buildings of this area (e.g., Harper’s Ferry). It’s fieldstone, roughly dressed, with thick mortar joints.
This ancient springhouse is dry.
The active spring on the site is about maybe 30 yards downhill from that old stone foundation where the spring trail starts.
Based on the map, and by several internet write-ups, this is the headwaters of the Rappahannock River, which Google maps shows as beginning just below the location of that spring.
Conclusion
This was a relatively short, relatively easy mountain day hike.
If I had it to do all over again, I think I’d start my hiking season with this one. And move on to something more difficult once I was in better shape.
In any case, I deeply appreciated having a place to sit, at Mosby Campsite. Near as I can tell, Virginia Cub Scout Pack 112, Front Royal, was active as of 2018, but it is no longer listed among active Cub Scout packs in Virginia, per this reference.
