Mount St. Helens- Worm Flows Route

The crater of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, Spirit Lake, and Mount Rainier

11 miles round trip, 5600 feet elevation gain

Difficulty: Strenuous, due to extensive snow travel, extreme elevation gain, copious rock scrambling, and avalanche and cornice danger

Access: Paved road to trailhead; Northwest Forest Pass required in summer, Washington State Sno-Park Pass required Dec. 1 through April 30, Mt. St. Helens Institute climbing permit ($22/person) required April 1 through Oct. 31.

On the morning of May 18, 1980, the nearly symmetrical cone of Washington State's Mount St. Helens collapsed off the north flank of the mountain as the stratovolcano released the largest volcanic eruption in the contiguous United States during the 20th century. The collapse of the north side of St. Helens at the start of the eruption was the largest recorded landslide in history and left a gaping crater where the once conical summit had stood, chopping nearly 1300 feet off the height of the mountain. There are few sights that better convey the awesome power of the Earth's geological processes than the view from the rim of the crater of St. Helens and the smoldering lava dome that lies within.

Fit day hikers will be glad to know that these views can be accessed on a strenuous but nontechnical day hike. Most climbers come in the summer or spring and slog up the accumulated ash from the eruption to the summit; my friends and I chose to do this hike on a cold but beautiful Thanksgiving Day to gain some mountaineering experience. I would advise most hikers to do not as we did and instead come during the summer: climbing St. Helens in the winter presented a number of risk variables that are probably absent during the summer and required the use of crampons and an ice axe.

There are two routes for summiting Mount St. Helens. The summer route starts from Climbers Bivouac and ascends via Monitor Ridge; the winter route starts from the Marble Mountain Sno-Park and follows the Worm Flows, a set of ridges formed by lava flows, until meeting up with Monitor Ridge a few hundred vertical feet below the summit. The summer route is shorter and cuts about 1100 feet of elevation gain; however, the trailhead for the summer route is usually snow-covered and inaccessible by car from November to April or so. The Worm Flows Route, while longer, is accessible year-round. By the time of our hike, Monitor Ridge was inaccessible for the season, so we took the Worm Flows Route.

Aerial view of St. Helens and Mt. Adams

Although we completed the hike itself in a day, my two friends and I left Seattle a day early due to the length of the hike and the short winter daylight hours in the Northwest. Just after sunset on the day before Thanksgiving, we left the University of Washington campus, stopping by REI to pick up gear, eating dinner in the International District, and picking up groceries at QFC in Mount Baker before finally starting on the two-hour drive south along I-5 to Woodland. We checked in to a rather dingy room in the Motel 6 in Woodland and slept for five nervous hours.

The days before the hike had been spent worrying over the conditions which we'd find: November climbs seemed rare, or at least scarcely documented. Would there be avalanches? We read about hikers who had died when cornices at the summit had collapsed- news that was not at all reassuring. Still, it was hard to pass up on the climb idea that we had been tossing around for a while when we saw a cold but otherwise perfect forecast on Thanksgiving Day.

When our alarms started going off at 4:45 AM, we were all more than a little grouchy and still plenty tired. We climbed out of bed and began dressing for the day: two layers of pants, with the outer layer waterproof; plenty of upper body layers; waterproof gloves, waterproof boots; gaiters. Our packs were filled with hiking essentials as well as microspikes, crampons, and an ice axe. After a quick breakfast and defrosting the car, we were on the road by just after 5:30. From Woodland, we followed Highway 503 east through patches of fog and ice past Yale and Cougar to Forest Road 83, which led towards the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. We followed Forest Road 83 north past spur roads on the left that led to Ape Cave and Climbers' Bivouac; although paved, the road soon became quite difficult to drive due to the two inches of fresh snow covering all surfaces. About an hour after we left Woodland, we came to the trailhead at the Marble Mountain Sno-Park.

We filled out self-issue climbing permits at the trailhead before heading out. If you're planning on hiking from April through October, be aware that you'll need to obtain permits from the Mount St. Helens Institute prior to your hike. Self-issue permits in winter are free, but spring and summer climbing permits are $22/person; there is a limit of 500 permits per day issued in the spring and 100 permits per day during the summer, so be sure to plan well in advance.

We put on our microspikes before leaving the trailhead and followed the Swift Ski Trail north from parking lot through the snow. The first two miles of the hike had a fairly gentle incline, staying mainly on the Swift Ski Trail. About half a mile in, we passed a clearing on the right of the trail with a bit of a view of Mt. Adams. The trail was generally wide and well-marked and was covered with between two and five inches of snow.

Snow on the Swift Ski Trail

The first two miles of the hike stayed in the trees with no views. After steadily climbing for a while, the Swift Ski Trail all of a sudden broke out into a more sparsely forested area, where we caught our first view of Mount St. Helens. From this angle, the mountain looked quite large but also quite formless.

First view of St. Helens

Wooden posts marked the way through the snow-covered landscape. The footprints we followed were often not terribly accurate; at times we found ourselves clearly off the path and had to follow footprints through deep snow to bushwhack back to the actual trail. The route crossed Swift Creek just uphill of Chocolate Falls. The correct route was difficult to find here, so we ended up just dropping down into the gully and climbing out whatever way we could. There was no flow in Chocolate Falls: below freezing temperatures had not allowed for any meltwater that day.

After crossing Chocolate Falls, we began the steady ascent up the Worm Flows. It was easy to tell how the Flows had received their name: the a pair of thin ridges snaked down the side of mountain. We took the left worm. After a short period of steady but not-too-steep incline, the angle of the slope suddenly jumped up. We had to scramble during the next section up varying areas of rock and snow along the flow, with decent amounts of exposure at some points. After the wooden posts marking the way ended, there was no true trail: just the a bootpath through the snow along the ridge. After a substantial push up the steepening slope and through a small chute, we came to our first break spot, a seismograph perched atop a small flattened point in the ridge. From here, we gazed out at the already-incredible views: Mount Adams to the east, Mount Hood to the south, the Coast Mountains to the west.

Ever upwards

We couldn't stop for too long though- by that point, it was nearly 10 in the morning and the summit was still thousands of feet above us. We turned around and once again started tackling the huge snow slope ahead of us, taking the long slog a step at a time. A few hundred feet of elevation above the seismograph, we realized that the slopes were getting icy, so we stopped and switched out our microspikes for crampons and replaced our hiking poles with ice axes.

From here on, the mountain was a steady 25 degree or so uphill climb. We stuck mainly to the windward side of the ridge, where there was harder snow that was faster to hike on: softer and deeper snow had been deposited on the leeward side, which would have made our ascent substantially slower. However, as we ascended further, we found the windward slopes covered with recrystallized hard, clear ice. While our crampons handled the clear ice without too much issue, the terrifyingly slippery look of the slope kept our nerves unsettled. At times, the ice formations along the climb were incredible. Wind had sculpted hard ice into a bumpy, abnormally shaped surface.

After a good part of an hour's climbing from the seismograph, we reached a flat-ish basin area from which we could see the remainder of our climb: we still had a substantial push to complete along the ridgeline leading up from the Worm Flows before we could join up with Monitor Ridge and follow it to the summit. After a brief break, we pushed ever upwards along the slippery slope.

The climb was constant and neverending and was made worse by the absence of any flat spots along the trail at which we could rest. Whenever my legs could no longer give, I would dig the pick of my ice axe into the hard snow and lie down on the 25-degree angle of the slope.

Mount Adams and the incredible ice on the upper slopes of St. Helens

Noon came and went. We decided on a turnaround time of 1:30: the sun would set soon after 4 and we wanted to have enough time to return to Chocolate Falls by dusk. Our spirits received a boost when we ran into a party coming down from the summit, who assured us that we had less than a thousand feet of elevation gain left to the summit. Their unlikely hiking companion on the icy slopes was a husky, which, lacking traction, made its way up and down the ice with unbelievable ease.

They were right: soon after passing them, the ridge that we had followed all day finally met up with Monitor Ridge. From here, the crater rim was already visible a few hundred feet above us. We made a final break at the only flat spot in more than 2000 feet of climbing that was perhaps a few hundred feet of elevation shy of the crater before making the final push.

Mounts Hood and Jefferson and the Washington South Cascades

The top came very unexpectedly. We followed the slope uphill and uphill until all of a sudden, the mountain dropped off in front of us. Before us, the mountain opened into a gaping maw that spewed volcanic gases and steam out from a lava dome at its heart. This was the crater formed by the 1980 eruption: a cliff-lined hole that once held the innards of a mountain. Across the crater, we saw the intense blue of Spirit Lake set at the foot of the mountains whose slopes are even today still devestated from the catastrophic blast of hot air in 1980. Farther behind still rose the massif of Mount Rainier. Even farther to the north, almost entirely obscured by the light haze in the distance, we could see Mount Baker, just a few miles short of the Canadian border.

The crater

The Goat Rocks and Mount Adams were to the east. To the south, the gentler Cascades of Oregon were punctuated by the Jefferson and Hood, two great stratovolcanoes. Our eyes could just barely make out the sibling peaks of the Three Sisters, halfway down the state of Oregon. From this perch atop the most active of Cascade volcanoes, we could see six other Cascade stratovolcanoes.

The dome inside the crater was actually a fairly recent development: the most recent eruption of St. Helens' eruptions was in 2008, when the lava dome in the center of the crater grew in size. When we were at the summit, the steam rising from vents in the dome were clearly visible.

Steam rising from the lava dome

The very edge of the crater rim was formed by cornices, making it extremely unsafe. Although it was tempting to walk to the very edge of the rim and look down, we chose to stay a safe distance away, knowing that the edge was probably a snow overhang with no rock support underneath that could collapse at any time. Prior to starting our hike, we read about two cases in recent years in which persons at the rim had fallen into the crater when the cornices they were standing on collapsed.

The point where we stopped was a false summit rather than the true high point of St. Helens; that spot was about half a mile west along the rim from where we stood. However, since the day was getting late, the wind was howling at gale force, and we figured the views couldn't get any better, we decided to turn around at this point.

False summit of St. Helens

The descent was much quicker than coming up. Our crampons provided excellent traction while descending on the the slippery ice on the upper slopes. After following Monitor Ridge down for about six hundred vertical feet or so, we remembered to take the ridge leading left to head back towards the Worm Flows. Halfway down the Worm Flows, we finally found the surface soft enough for safe glissading. I switched my crampons for microspikes and began sliding on my butt down the mountain. This made for a quicker albeit riskier descent; I often hit patches of surface ice that caused me to speed up too much, which gave me many good opportunities for practicing self-arrest with my ice axe.

Descent

Although we tried to make quick time, we were ultimately only able to make it a little past the seismograph by sunset. However, by the time dusk had fully set in, we were past the rock scramble section of the Worm Flows, leaving the crossing at Chocolate Falls as the main nighttime challenge we had to face. That crossing ended up going more smoothly than expected so we soon found ourselves back on the Swift Ski Trail, making our way downhill at a decent clip. Almost twelve hours after we set out to tackle the mountain, we arrived back at the car utterly exhausted. Three hours of driving brought us back to Seattle, where we ate our Thanksgiving dinner at an open-late diner in Belltown.

Tom, Dick, and Harry Mountain

Mount Hood and Mirror Lake from Tom, Dick, and Harry Mountain

6 miles round trip, 1700 feet elevation gain
Difficulty: Easy-moderate
Access: $5 Northwest Forest Pass required in summer; $4 Oregon Sno-Park Permit required in winter

Tom, Dick, and Harry Mountain- or TDH for short- stands as one of the taller peaks to the south of Oregon's majestic Mount Hood. The rocky summit of TDH offers a fully enveloping panoramic view of the great Cascade volcanoes in Oregon and Washington and of the Willamette Valley. I did this hike as an overnight in late February during a mild winter, though this is an easily doable day hike that should only be hiked during the summer months in most years.

I drove down to Oregon from Seattle on a beautifully clear late February day, reaching Portland by noon in time for a lunch of Peruvian food. From Portland, I took US 26 east past Sandy and Rhododendron to the trailhead, which was on the right side of the road heading east just before the road reaches Government Camp. There was a large parking area for the Mirror Lake Trail on the right at the point where the road is making a wide turn to the left; I parked here and started my hike. Visitors who come in the winter may have to park at the Ski Bowl a little farther up the road as the trailhead lot is often used to hold shoveled snow in the winter; parking at the Ski Bowl in winter requires an Oregon Sno-Park Permit.

The trail started off on a bridge across a raging creek that ran alongside the highway. Once across, I entered the woods for a little while before soon reaching another bridge, this time across the creek flowing out from Mirror Lake. From here on the trail was fairly monotonous, making a steady climb through the forest with no views. After climbing up at steeper slope via a set of switchbacks, the trail arrived at the junction for the loop trail around Mirror Lake about a mile and a half from the trailhead. I headed right at the junction, soon coming to the lake itself. A few paths led down from the left side of the trail to the lakeshore; a few short spurs to the right of the trail led to campsites. I dropped my gear off at one of the campsites and set up camp before heading out to explore. The campsites are free and first-come first-served; while finding a spot wasn't a problem in the dead of winter (I was the only camper that night), visitors in the summer will want to come early and avoid weekends.

I headed out from my campsite and made a loop around the lake, enjoying the views of both TDH Mountain, which rose to the south, and Mount Hood, which rose to the north across the lake. The best views of Mount Hood were from areas near the boardwalk along the south side of the lake. The lake lived up to its name, providing pretty reflections of the snowcapped stratovolcano.

Mirror Lake

I made my way around the half-mile loop and collected water from the lake's outlet stream. After returning to the campsite to drop off water and pick up a headlamp, I started my way up Tom, Dick, and Harry Mountain. The fork for the trail up the mountain came at the west end of the lake. I took the right fork towards the mountain. The trail meandered through the woods a bit before starting to tackle the slopes of TDH at a steady incline. Before long, I entered the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness and soon after came to an open talus slope with a view of forested Zigzag Mountain across the valley and of Mount Hood to the northeast.

Mount Hood from Tom, Dick, and Harry Mountain Trail

After this point, I encountered snow on the trail. By the time I was three-quarters of a mile uphill from the campsite at a sharp switchback in the trail, the ground was fully covered in compact snow; I donned microspikes for the rest of the hike. The not-too-steep but constant incline continued all the way along the broad ridgeline of the mountain until I reached the base of the large talus slope that formed the summit. A final push brought me to the top, a pile of rocks with a 360-degree view.

Mount Hood dominated the view. From this angle, Hood was elegant, with a fairly conical form but enough asymmetry to make the mountain unique. The sun bathed the western face of the mountain in golden afternoon light, turning the snowcapped giant into a canvas for the many hues of late day rays. The Cascades themselves were here much tamer than in Washington state: most nearby ridges were forested and comparatively gentle. However, the lower relief of the surrounding peaks provided farther-reaching views and allowed me to see four other sleeping giants of the Cascade Volcanic Arc. To the north, the trinity of Washington's South Cascade peaks were all visible: St. Helens, Rainier, and Adams in a row.

Mount St. Helens

Mount Adams

Mount Jefferson rose to the south: from this angle, its summit pinnacle appeared remarkably dramatic. To the east, the town of Government Camp was nestled in a valley at the base of Hood. To the west, the ridges of the Cascades faded to the Willamette Valley, the Columbia River, and the distant ranges near the coast.

Tom, Dick, and Harry Mountain has three separate summits- the one that the trail leads to is not the highest, but appeared to be the only one that allowed for wraparound views. One of the other summits served as a filming location for the movie Wild as the spot where Reese Witherspoon throws her hiking boots off a cliff. It seemed like at least a slightly odd choice for filming, as TDH is well off the Pacific Crest Trail itself.

I spent over an hour at the summit gazing out at the forested ridges and snowcapped volcanoes. At times, the wind made the summit a bit cold, forcing me to hide behind a few windbreaking rock shelters. I stayed until sunset and watched the dying rays paint a crimson alpenglow on Mount Hood's white snow before the purples and grays of dusk set.

Sunset over the Willamette Valley from TDH

Mount Jefferson

After watching the sun drop below the Coast Mountains on the horizon, I headed down into the woods and back towards my campsite. By the time I reached the switchback, it was nearly fully dark; I returned to Mirror Lake and camp in total darkness with just the light of my headlamp. After boiling some water to rehydrate a bag of lyophilized mashed potatoes and quickly eating the hot mush to keep it from succumbing to the temperatures of the ever-colder night, I tucked in for an early night and so that I could escape the 20 degree temperatures in the warmth of my sleeping bag.

I awoke in the middle of the night and walked over to the shores of Mirror Lake. Starlight was enough to cast a faint glow on Mount Hood. Night skiers left light trails zigzagging down snow slopes. Above, faint stars were splayed across the cold, infinite night sky like the first flakes of a dusting of snow.

Starry night at Mirror Lake

I woke a half hour earlier than the sun did that morning. The ground had gained a crunchy feel underfoot overnight as needle ice had formed; in fact, the bits of gravel on the ground outside my campsite had all been raised two inches or more by the thin hairs of ice. I broke a path through the crunchy ground to the lakeside and watched sun illuminate Mount Hood. The morning was unfortunately too windy to allow for reflections in Mirror Lake.

Morning needle ice

The shores of the lake had begun to freeze overnight. The morning was still cold. I returned to my camp to heat water and food and to delve temporarily back into the comfort of my sleeping bag.

After breakfast, I packed up my gear and hiked back to the trailhead. Within an hour of returning to the car, I was in Portland; within two hours, I was enjoying Thai food at Pok Pok. I ended up touring the Columbia Gorge and Multnomah Falls with two friends later that day before returning to Seattle that night, making my first visit to Oregon a fairly memorable one.

Tom, Dick, and Harry Mountain and Mirror Lake

Even though I hiked TDH and Mirror Lake as an overnight trip, I would recommend that you do it instead as a day hike. The scenery is superb, but the campsites seem so excellent that I doubt you'd ever find them free in the summer. Either way, this is a superb hike for exploring the beautiful landscape around Oregon's Mount Hood and an easily doable day trip less than an hour out of Portland.

Mount Dickerman

Three Fingers, Whitehorse, and Baker from Mount Dickerman

8.6 miles round trip, 3950 feet elevation gain
Difficulty: Moderate-Strenuous with enough elevation gain to be strenuous by Virginia standards.
Access: Northwest Forest Pass ($5 daily, or $30 annual) required; paved road to trailhead. Hike best from July to October.

White Chuck, Pugh, Sloan, Three Fingers, Whitehorse- these peaks line Washington State's Mountain Loop Highway and are some of the most regal summits of the North Cascades. Mt. Dickerman, an impressive peak in its own right, offers an unparalleled view of these stately summits and of the more distant great volcanoes. The hike to the summit is tough, demanding an incredible investment of stamina for nearly 4000 feet of uphill climbing with over two-thirds of it through thick forest, but the final rewards more than compensate for the effort. Anyone capable of meeting this hike's physical demands should rise to the challenge: it is hard to imagine a more jaw-dropping view anywhere. This hike is generally recommended just during the summer, as deep snow coats the trail for much of the year. This hike description details a visit in February during a drought winter; you should not attempt to hike this trail in February or any month that isn't July through October.

I hiked this trail with three friends on a incredibly clear and reasonably warm February day during a rare Northwest winter when the count of sunny days far outnumbered the count of feet of snow that had fallen on the Cascades. Getting to the trailhead was fairly simple: from Seattle, we head out to Granite Falls via I-5, US 2, and State Route 204, 9, and 92; once we were in downtown Granite Falls, we turned left from State Route 92 onto the Mountain Loop Highway and followed it past Verlot and along the South Fork Stillaguimish to the Big Four Ice Caves. The trailhead for Mt. Dickerman was another mile further down on the left hand side of the road, but we decided to visit the ice caves before we headed up our destination peak for the day.

Our Big Four Ice Caves stop was fairly brief- we spent an hour walking the two-mile round trip path to the foot of the north face of Big Four Mountain. Here, we approached but did not enter a large cavern melted out into a pile of permanent snow created from avalanches that tumbled down the face of Big Four. The cave was large but the ice in the area seemed generally pretty melted out; it seemed that the extraordinarily mild winter had prevented any new snow from accumulating the caves, which seriously threatened their continued existence. It's important to not enter the caves, ever: a few months after our visit, the entrance of the cave collapsed and falling ice killed a visitor and injured a number more. At the time of writing, the Forest Service had closed the caves to public access due to that incident.

Big Four Ice Caves

After our brief ice cave stop, we drove the additional mile to the Mt. Dickerman/Perry Creek Trailhead to start our hike. Mt. Dickerman was a grueling switchback workout: there's really very little to say or describe about the first two and a half miles of the hike, which simply climb steadily and continuously up a forested mountain slope through a countless number of switchbacks.

The good part of two hours of ascent and well over 2000 feet of uphill brought us to a flatter shoulder on Mount Dickerman and the beginning of the snow. The switchbacks ended and were replaced by a flatter segment of trail that winded uphill along the shoulder of the mountain. We chose to lunch here, although we were still quite far from the summit. Gaps in the trees provided views of Del Campo and Sperry Peaks across the valley of the South Fork Stillaguimish. The trail began ascending in earnest again once it reached the ridgeline that defined the north face of Mount Dickerman, about 2800 feet above the trailhead. Here was the first grand view: we could see the valley of Perry Creek laid out beneath our feet. To the right, still high above us, we saw the pyramidal summit and sheer north face of our destination peak.

The summit of Mount Dickerman

The rest of the hike was the reward for our long switchback ascent. We donned microspikes as we headed into more areas of deeper and more hard-packed snow. The trail itself was at this point entirely obscured by snow, so we followed the footprints of others along the ridge and then out into an open meadow. Incredible views emerged: Big Four, Sperry, and Vesper dominated the skyline across the valley. The Washington Trails Association hike description claims that these meadows are filled with blueberries during the summer: unfortunately, any blueberry bushes would have been buried under three to five feet of snow when we visited.

Big Four from the meadows

The bootpath through the snow passed by a remarkably scenic mini-ridge on the south slopes of the mountain. Behind the snow-covered knoll was a panorama of snow-covered peaks of the Monte Cristo Range. After passing the bump, the bootpath turned steeply uphill and cut directly through the snow towards the summit. It's possible that the actual trail takes switchbacks up this slope: however, with no discernable trail due to the snow, winter hikers took this ascent in a more direct fashion.

Monte Cristo Range

A final long push brought us to the summit ridge and the thrilling dropoffs of the north face. Winter hikers must be aware of cornice danger: snow builds overhangs at dropoffs. These cornices may be difficult to discern when viewed from above but can collapse any time; cornice collapse deaths are not rare.

Below our feet were some two thousand feet of air; all around us, the snowy North Cascades. We made the final walk along the ridgeline to the true summit, where we had a 360-degree view except for a few trees that rose just south of the summit.

Summit of Mount Dickerman

To the west, we could see the direction from which we came: the Mountain Loop Highway, winding its way through the valley of the South Fork Stillaguimish. Above the valley soared Big Four, Pilchuck, Three Fingers and Whitehorse. To the far north, the snowy eminence of Mount Baker was coupled with the pointed cap of Shuksan. Closer in, the bulwarks of White Chuck, Pugh, and Sloan formed a craggy eastern wall of the Sauk River valley. East of Sloan, Glacier Peak donned its winter robes of snow, hiding long-dulled fires beneath its mantle of white.

Mount Baker and White Chuck Mountain

Glacier Peak and Sloan Peak

The southern view included the jumbled peaks of the Monte Cristo Range and the closer summits of Del Campo, Vesper, and Sperry. Far in the distance, the Willis Wall and the Winthrop Glacier of Rainier reflected the late-day sun northward to our cold and lonely peak.

Atop Mount Dickerman

We wandered around the summit area for a bit and enjoyed the views before heading back down to try and reach the trailhead before dark. I tried glissading down some segments of the trail but found the snow too soft. The descent took slightly longer than expected, forcing us to finish the hike under the light of the stars, headlamps, and cell phones.

This was a difficult but incredibly rewarding hike. Few feelings can match the sensation of standing above a thrilling drop of many thousands of feet with a few of a hundred miles in all directions, or the satisfaction of having summited a fairly large mountain. Yet prospective hikers should realize that Mount Dickerman's 4000 feet of elevation gain is nearly double of that encountered on more strenuous Shenandoah hikes like Old Rag. Fit hikers will find this hike enjoyable; others may find its endless switchbacks excessive misery.

Mather Gorge

Mather Gorge from near Cow Hoof Rock

2.6 miles loop, 150 feet elevation gain
Difficulty: Easy
Access: Paved road to trailhead, $10 entrance fee for Great Falls Park

The manicured parklands and wide biking paths along the calm Potomac near the Kennedy Center and the Tidal Basin in Washington DC give little hint of the violent, churning waters the river experiences just a handful of miles upstream. Between the Piedmont and the Tidewater, along the fall line of the Atlantic seaboard, the Potomac River drops 76 feet in a mile, forming one of the most impressive sets of river rapids on the continent. Just downstream of the Great Falls, the Potomac carves out a scene of nearly equal drama to the falls: vertical rock walls confine the river to a narrow, charging course through Mather Gorge. Equivalently astonishing is the ease in which most visitors can access these sights: a short hike with minimal elevation gain allows hikers to see the Virginia side of the falls and walk the length of the rocky canyon. This hike follows sections of the River Trail and Matildaville Trail to make a brief but enjoyable loop that is a perfect afternoon outing from DC.

The Maryland side of Great Falls is probably better known and more often visited: it's hard to beat the direct view of the river's main channel from Olmsted Island or to one up the the Billy Goat Trail's rock scramble along Mather Gorge. The Virginia side offers an equally enjoyable hike along the Mather Gorge, albeit without the rock scramble that contributes to the excitement of the Billy Goat Trail.

I hiked this trail on a warm New Year's Eve with two of my very good friends from the University of Virginia. We met up in Northern Virginia near Merrifield and followed the Beltway to the exit for Georgetown Pike and Great Falls, which is just south of where I-495 crosses the Potomac on the American Legion Bridge. If you are coming to Great Falls Park from DC itself, you can get to Georgetown Pike by following the George Washington Parkway west to its terminus and follow signs for Georgetown Pike. Once off the Beltway, we followed Georgetown Pike west for four hilly and windy miles to Old Dominion Drive. We turned right onto Old Dominion Drive and followed the road to its terminus at Great Falls Park. The park is operated by the National Park Service, although it is not technically a national park; it falls under the administration of the agency's National Capital Parks.

We headed south from the large parking area past the visitor center to the wide trail that paralleled the river. Soon after passing the visitor center, we came to the first overlook of three overlooks of the Great Falls. We checked out all three, spending time at each to admire the roaring rapids of the Potomac at high water. During low water, two distinct levels of falls are visible in the center of the river; however, during our visit, after a week of heavy rains, the waters of the Potomac were full enough that the drops were barely noticeable as the river churned its way downstream. In many spots, the high water led to spectacular spray on the roaring Potomac.

The Great Falls of the Potomac

While at the third overlook of the falls, we watched two rescue boats work their way upstream towards the falls in what must have been a training exercise. One raft, belonging to the Cabin John River Rescue, advanced too close to the falls. The current overpowered the craft's engines, causing the raft to rotate and then capsize. One of the two men aboard was carried swiftly downstream by the river; luckily, he made his way out of the main current and into some calmer waters near the Virginia shore, where the crew of the other raft came and picked him up.

Boat capsizing at Great Falls

The man's rescue was a suspenseful moment. We wondered briefly whether the whole event was merely part of a training session but found that idea implausible: the raft capsizing did not seem at all as if it had been planned.

We left the Third Overlook and began to follow the River Trail, which split off to the left from the wide, gravel Patowmack Canal Trail that we had followed earlier. The River Trail offered few views of the river early on as it wound through the rocky terrain and forest a few yards back from the rim of Mather Gorge. At a few spots, the uneven terrain on the trail might require a brief bit of rock scrambling for some, but it is something that most hikers would be able to handle with no problem.

A few hundred yards along the River Trail, we came to the first good view of the river and the gorge. Here, a plaque proclaimed the name of the canyon and noted that it was named after the first director of the National Park Service. Mather and his deputy director, Horace Albright, were key in forming the current familiar definition of national parks as places meant for conservation, recreation, historic preservation, and science.

The entrance of Mather Gorge

While admiring the gorge and its gray cliffs of metamorphic rock, we saw a kayaker battling against the current on the Potomac. The kayaker took turns with a man on a stand-up paddleboard in heading to the middle of the river channel and paddling furiously and quixotically against the swift-moving waters.

Kayaker battling the Potomac

We continued on the River Trail, soon passing a four-way intersection with trails leading down to the river itself and back towards the visitor center. We stayed straight to cross a wooden bridge across a small stream gully. The next stretch of the trail was quite scenic, with frequent viewpoints of the gorge. A few hundred yards later, the trail turned sharply to the right and crossed the channel of the Patowmack Canal to join the canal path. We turned left and followed the canal south. It was soon clear why the trail had turned inland: the gorge rim was sliced by the canal cut where the canal descended to reach the Potomac. The canal is now long out of use: in many places, the channel of the canal is barely recognizable. It was once a project of great importance to George Washington, who hoped the canal would allow for trade by river to the upper reaches of the Potomac.

The canal path turned back into the River Trail, bringing us back to cliffs alongside the Mather Gorge after passing the canal cut. This was the most thrilling stretch of the hike: for the next quarter mile, the trail followed the rim of the gorge, offering continuous views of the river and of the rocky cliffs. The gorge walls were at their steepest here, with a nearly vertical drop from the edge of the trail to the now-more-placid Potomac.

Mather Gorge

At the end of the canyon rim segment of trail, the River Trail intersected with a paved road. The road headed downhill to the left towards Sandy Landing, a boat launch point on the Potomac; we skipped the river access and instead continued forward on the River Trail. The remaining portion of the River Trail stayed fairly far back from the river itself until we neared Cow Hoof Rock, which was perhaps another quarter of a mile beyond the road intersection. A spur trail led off to the left from the main trail towards a rocky outcrop, passing by what appeared to be an old fireplace. The view at the rock itself was quite impressive: here, the Potomac made a wide bend, exiting the straight, narrow channel that it had cut in Mather Gorge into the wider, less confined, but equally rocky downstream terrain. We sat on the rock and enjoyed the sunlight dancing across the metamorphed sandstone of the grey canyon walls as the clouds moved in and out. We ate food we had picked up earlier from H-mart and reminisced about the beautiful years we had spent in Charlottesville.

Mouth of Mather Gorge at Cow Hoof Rock

The real Cow Hoof Rock was a little further down the trail, a little bit farther uphill. We turned around at this point though, heading back along the River Trail to its junction with the road to Sandy Landing. At that intersection, we took the road heading to the left, away from the river. This soon became the Matildaville Trail, which we followed through a round, grassy field in what used to be a quarry. After passing the quarry, we took a right to stay on the Matildaville Trail near that trail's intersection with the Old Carriage Road. The Matildaville Trail followed a ridge parallel to the river, offering obscured views through the trees of Mather Gorge in the distance. Later on, the trail paralleled the Patowmack Canal, which we could also see through the trees to our right. After passing a connector trail leading to the Patowmack Canal Trail, the Matildaville Trail came upon its namesake set of ruins.

Today, Matildaville is just a set of stone foundations; in the early eighteenth century, it was a town next to the canal that relied on trade and operation of the Patowmack Canal. Just as George Washington championed the Patowmack Canal, another towering figure in Virginia history, Lighthorse Harry Lee, was instrumental in the establishment of the town, which was named after Lee's wife, Matilda. The town eventually lost relevance after the Patowmack Canal's usefulness wore out and was burnt to the ground by the mid-19th century.

Matildaville

After passing all of the stone foundations that remained at Matildaville, we came to the Old Carriage Trail, which we merged onto and followed to the right back to the visitor center and the trailhead, ending an easy and thoroughly enjoyable half-day hike.

Big Devils Stairs

Big Devils Stairs

7 miles loop, 1600 feet elevation gain

Difficulty: Moderate-strenuous, requires some off-trail navigation, bushwhacking, and rock scrambling
Access: Trailhead off Skyline Drive (paved road), Shenandoah National Park entrance fee required

In the north district of Shenandoah National Park, on the south slopes of Mount Marshall, a stream has cut a deep, rugged canyon into the Catoctin metabasalts of the Blue Ridge crest. The Big Devils Stairs- also rendered as Big Devil Stairs in earlier park literature- is one of the most impressive canyons in the park and was once of the most visited spots in the park. Today, a fairly easy hike leads to an overlook of this deep gorge. In the early days of the park, however, visitors followed a trail up through the high-cliffed canyon. The rock scramble through the canyon and past its tumbling waterfalls and great hemlocks was an experience some considered on par with scrambling up Old Rag. Now, the hemlocks are gone, victim of the wooly adelgid. The trail, now unmaintained for many decades, has disappeared into the brush. Intrepid hikers willing to bushwhack through some thick brush and find a route through a rough, rocky, and wild canyon can still catch a taste of what those early visitors must have experienced.

In The Undying Past of Shenandoah National Park, Darwin Lambert writes:

"One day in 1935 I asked Winfield Sisk, age 13, to guide me to the Devil Stairs- the bigger of the two. He told me the gorges of Little Devil Stairs and Big Devil Stairs "ain't different in size. It's the devil that's different!" ... I laughed with Winfield and imagined a giant moonshiner with a long rifle running his still in one gorge and a dwarfed but oh-so-crafty moonshiner in the other. Winfield said he didn't know if the devils had been stillers long ago, but he reckoned they'd been some kind of humans."

Big Devils Stairs is one of those special places in Shenandoah where treading off the beaten path into a routeless canyon gives a feeling of rediscovery rather than of finding something new. Although the gorge is rugged and wild, the landscape whispers reminders of its past and the cliffs seem almost to hold ha'nts from a lifestyle and a time that has disappeared. It's not difficult to stare down into the canyon from its high walls and understand why some of the former residents of these mountains might have thought these stairs housed a large devil. Or perhaps Big Devil Stairs is nothing more than another beautiful Shenandoah canyon; maybe my long absence from the mountains of my childhood has led me to over-romanticize the few spots I get to explore on my brief returns.

I hiked this trail with a good friend from high school around the new year. We set out from Fredericksburg fairly early in the morning and followed Route 3 west to Culpeper; in downtown Culpeper, we followed the signs to take US 522 north and west to Sperryville, where we again followed signs to take US 211 west to the Thornton Gap Entrance of Shenandoah. From the entrance, we followed Skyline Drive north up to Gravel Springs Gap near mile 18 and parked there.

There are many trails that head out from the trailhead Gravel Springs Gap. It is important to start off on the right one; fortunately, the widest trail leaving from the lot is the correct trail for going to Big Devils Stairs. We followed the fire road leaving from the end of the parking lot in the direction of the Gravel Springs Hut. This trail was once a mountain road that connected Harris Hollow with Browntown in Shenandoah Valley. The road headed downhill and came to an intersection with a connector trail that led to the Bluff Trail just a few hundred yards out of the parking lot. We took the left turn onto this small connector trail, which very quickly brought us down to the Bluff Trail. At the junction with the Bluff Trail, we took a left again to head northeast. We stayed left on the Bluff Trail a little further on at a junction with the Harris Hollow Trail.

The Bluff Trail derives its name from an old nickname for Mount Marshall. The Marshalls mark a significant point in the Blue Ridge: they are the northernmost 3000-foot peaks in the range. Their current name comes from the area's association with the family of none other than that champion of federalism in the budding American judicial system, the fourth Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. Although John grew up closer to Warrenton, he owned the Leeds Manor within eyesight of what is today his namesake peak.

The yellow-blazed Bluff Trail was surprisingly rock. The trail ascended and descended at times as it roughly followed the contours of Mount Marshall towards the stream that fed Big Devil Stairs. Along the way, my friend and I spotted some reasonably well-preserved columnar basalts that had seen minimal metamorphism. We also had spotty views of the Peak through the leafless winter forest.

Catoctin Formation columnar basalts along the Bluff Trail

We followed the Bluff Trail for an up-and-down but fairly gentle mile and a half to a stream crossing. We rock-hopped across the stream that flowed through Big Devil Stairs and immediately afterward came to the junction with the Big Devil Stairs Trail. We took the right fork here and began to head downhill through the mountain laurel towards the canyon. The trail generally followed the ridge just to the east of the canyon. We passed by a nicely cleared campsite on the right of the trail and could tell that the canyon was starting at our right; however, at this point there were not yet any true views.

The trail continued descending for a while. Finally, with the canyon in view through the trees, we reached a sharp right turn in the trail that brought us off the ridge and down to a large outcrop on the rim of the canyon. From the top of the eastern wall, we stared down into the Big Devils Stairs, a narrow and dramatic cut into the Catoctin metabasalts of Mount Marshall. Three levels of sheer cliffs defined the western wall of the canyon; the Stairs themselves were filled with small cliffs, huge boulders, dense brush, and a number of tumbling waterfalls visible from above. The terrain was so extremely rugged that it seemed reasonable that it would've been the perfect hideout for a moonshiner or even an atypically large devil.

View of the falls at the head of the canyon from the overlook

The view beyond the canyon was equally impressive: in the distance, we could see the tall peaks of the park's Central District, including Mary's Rock, Stony Man, and Old Rag. Closer in, we noticed a green, grassy clearing just outside the park boundary that seemed oddly out of place amidst the grey winter ridges.

How did the Big Devils Stairs form? How did this stream manage to cut a canyon that is more topographically astonishing than just about any other canyon in the park? My friend and I wondered these things as we gazed at the canyon. As my friend was an aspiring geologist, we began tossing around ideas: could this canyon have occurred due to faulting? Or perhaps due to some intrusion- an igneous dike- into the surrounding Catoctin formation? My friend looked briefly for evidence of either hypothesis; he noticed more heavily metamorphosed Catoctin basalts that would have been consistent with the idea of faulting but was ultimately unable to conclude much from looking at exposed outcrops. A cursory search after our hike yielded few answers; if you happen to know more about the canyon's geology I'd love to hear from you!

The next two to three hundred yards of trail were thrilling. The path hugged the canyon rim, allowing for many views of the commanding cliffs of the western canyon and of the stream below. After reaching a final viewpoint at the top of an outcrop with a sheer drop down to the stream below, the trail turned slightly left back into the forest. I would advise hikers without routefinding and scrambling experience to turn back here; this turn in the trail marked the end of the hike to the Big Devil Stairs overlook.

Big Devil Stairs, Central District peaks in the distance

After leaving the canyon rim, the trail became much more difficult to follow: the lack of hikers visiting the lower reaches of this trail left the path poorly tread through the layer of dessicated autumn foliage. The blue blazes that had earlier been visible at regular intervals were now sparse, but we still managed to find our way down. We did find the trail to be a tad too gentle at time, taking its time to switchback down slopes that it could very reasonably have descended directly. After a good period of switchbacking downhill, the trail cut to the right and brought us to the stream at the mouth of the canyon, which was just inside the park boundary.

In the past, visitors used to access this canyon from outside the park; however, the current owners of the adjacent property aren't as friendly to hikers, so be sure to stay within the park boundary. Yellow no trespassing signs marked the edge of federal land; if you stay on the trail you'll stay in the park. The trail reached the side of the stream before disappearing. If you don't know what you're doing, this is the point to turn around: you can still follow the trail 3.5 miles back up to the trailhead.

My friend and I followed the stream upriver into the canyon. There was no discernable path through the canyon, even though an established path had existed there four or five decades ago. It's useless to describe the canyon scramble in detail: anyone who can't navigate their way through the canyon doesn't belong there in the first place.  We had to cross the stream at least a half-dozen times, climbed over or ducked under dozens of fallen trees, whacked our way through thick brush while avoiding getting poked by thistles and thorns, and scrambled up many steep talus slopes and through some rocky chutes. Along the way, we passed towering cliffs, found a small cave, and saw dozens of small cascades on the bubbling stream. An hour and a half of pulling ourselves up rocks and rockhopping on precarious footholds across the stream brought us to the base of the tallest waterfall in the canyon, a pretty single-stream drop. We lunched here before scrambling over the last set of rocks to exit the most spectacular part of the canyon.

Small cave on the east side of the canyon

Waterfall in canyon

Big Devils Stairs

Waterfalls in the canyon

Waterfalls in the upper portion of the canyon

Waterfall at the head of Big Devils Stairs

Past the waterfall, the brush grew ever-denser. After following the stream for a little while longer, we realized that the walls of the canyon had more or less ended: we were now in more of a stream gully and were no longer hemmed in by cliffs into a narrow canyon. Reasoning that the brush ahead of us along the stream would remain bad, we chose to leave the stream and bushwhack uphill and a point at which we could tell that there were no true obstacle cliffs between our location and ridgeline to the east, which we had followed on the Big Devils Stairs trail. We cut through mountain laurel and other underbrush up to the ridge and met back up with the trail, which we followed back uphill to the junction with the Bluff Trail.

The cliffs and dense brush in the Big Devils Stairs

Back on the Bluff Trail, we turned left and followed the Bluff Trail for a mile and a half back to the junctions with the Harris Hollow Trail and the connector trail we had come from in the morning. Instead of returning the way we came, we followed the yellow-blazed Bluff Trail to its end at its junction with the Gravels Spring Hut access fire road. From this junction, we could spot the Gravel Springs Hut, so we walked the final few yards over to the overnight shelter for Appalachian Trail hikers. The hut is one of many along the AT in Shenandoah and offers shelters to AT thru-hikers and other backpackers in the area during the warmer months. On our visit, the hut was understandably empty. We flipped through the hut's visitor log, reading the ramblings of hikers nearly a thousand miles into a journey of over two thousand miles.

Gravel Springs Hut

From the hut, we followed the fire road back uphill to the trailhead. I stopped briefly at Hogback Overlook to see the late day sun paint the bends of the Shenandoah River and Massanutten Mountain before leaving my Blue Ridge for Fredericksburg and a return to the sunless days of Seattle.