Hiking to the Tasting Room

From the National Park to the Winery: Creating Great Memories by Linking Two of Virginia’s Pastimes

With hundreds of miles of hiking trails and almost 200 wineries, Virginia offers a cornucopia of options for spending a day on the trail then rewarding yourself with a glass of wine.

*Post contributed by guest blogger John Hagarty. See his wine blog at Hagarty On Wine.*

This year Shenandoah National Park, SNP, celebrates its 75th anniversary.  On July 3, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the park, creating one of our more scenic national treasures.  In the early years, the park was very popular, drawing large number of visitors, but attendance has dropped.

While each year over a million visitors still enjoy the park’s beauty, there’s been a decline in tourist traffic of over twenty-five percent in the last decade.  Some posit the internet might be partially to blame.  It’s conjectured the park could be having a hard time competing with videos games and social media that seem to generate more excitement among our younger citizens than the out-of-doors.

That’s a pity, if true.  Not only are great memories being forfeited but that much needed commodity—exercise—is not being provided to a generation of Americans sorely in need of it.

Old Rag

The good news?  Over 500 hundred miles of lightly travelled park trails await wine lovers out to enjoy another healthy habit in addition to drinking wine.  While hikes such as Old Rag Mountain (visit HikingUpward.com for ratings and reviews) and White Oak Canyon (HikingUpward.com) are still on everybody’s favorite list, dozens of other hikes are pathways to a peaceful walk in the woods.

The Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, PATC, and the SNP are rich sources of information on what to do and where to go in the park.  PATC’s web page identifies numerous hikes and sells a comprehensive set of maps and guidebooks to get you safely in and out of the mountains.  But the club’s portfolio is not limited to park hiking.  It also lists numerous hikes available throughout the state, many in flatlander country for those more eager to get to the tasting room than climbing a mountain.

If you choose to head to the high country, finding your way around SNP is simple.  Its trail obelisks and blazed trees easily guide a hiker from trailhead to trail’s end.  There are basically three color-coded trail blazes: white identifies the historic Appalachian Trail which runs 101 miles through the park; blue pinpoints side trails for hikers only; and yellow welcomes both hikers and horses.  The park boundary is identified by red markers.

Since SNP encompasses a section of the Blue Ridge Mountains and runs north to south, starting at Front Royal and ending near Waynesboro, it acts as a backdrop to most of the wineries in Virginia.  If hikers hit the trail by 10am and are back in their vino vans by mid-afternoon, visiting a couple of wineries on the way home is a snap, especially with most of the state’s wine cellars opened till 6pm on Saturdays and 5pm on Sundays. For other attractions around the Blue Ridge, take a look at the Blue Ridge Wine and Whiskey Loop.

The web site Virginia Wine provides information on every winery in the Old Dominion and enables ramblers to plan their visits.  The site also features an events link listing numerous activities such as wine & food pairings, live music performances, barrel tastings and more.

So is it legal to pack so much fun into a single day?  No convictions have been recorded.  With the return of our glorious spring weather time’s a wasting.  Head to the hills and recap the day’s events in your favorite tasting room.

John Hagarty, Hagarty On Wine

This post was contributed by John Hagarty. He is a regular blogger, and his writings have appeared in Culpeper Times, Fauquier-Times Democrat, Virginia Wine Gazette and other Virginia publications. He is also the off-site events manager for Rappahannock Cellars. More about John Hagarty can be found at his website and blog, Hagarty On Wine

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