Today is Day 1 in Shenandoah National Park. We just arrived in Virginia last night with our daughter, Becky’s parents and Paul’s mom. In addition, Becky’s Uncle Bob flew in from Arizona to join us for the week. None of us have been to Shenandoah National Park before and we are looking forward to explore the park. We’re also looking forward to taking our daughter to her 1st waterfall, Dark Hollow Falls.
Planning Dark Hollow Falls in Shenandoah
We were planning this trip last year, but we contracted Covid right before and had to cancel. But, we decided to try again this year. We are going during our daughter’s spring break which for her is always around Easter. And being in mid-April, we’re hoping for some good weather though we know it may get cold this week. We booked a 4 bedroom condo at Massanutten Resort less than 20 minutes from the park. And we look forward to spending the week here and going to the park whenever we can.
After running some errands in the morning, we are ready to go to the park in the afternoon. But we need some information so we plan to go to their main visitor center first. We are especially interested to get more information on some hikes, including to the popular Dark Hollow Falls. Though this trail is short, it is also very steep and rocky. So, we’ll see if we can find an alternative route. For more information about this park, check out: Shenandoah National Park (nps.gov).
Harry F. Byrd, Sr. Visitor Center
We enter the park at the Swift Run Gap entrance at mile 65.5. Skyline Drive is the 105 mile road that runs through the park from the Northern entrance to their Southern entrance. Through the Swift Run Gap entrance, we turn left to head north having over 65 miles of park ahead. But we are heading to the Byrd Visitor Center at mile 51, just 14.5 miles from the entrance. Mileposts are all along Skyline Drive making it easy to find where you want to go.
The Byrd Visitor Center is located across from Big Meadows in the center of the park. We head in after 4:00PM knowing they are only open until 5:00PM daily. Becky and her mom, Gigi, head to get their passport stamps. We also head into the store, where we have to get our customary fridge magnet, etc. Our daughter also gets Paul’s mom “Grandma” to get her a cute little finger puppet deer. But our main reason for being here is to get information.
We talk to a park ranger to get info on some hikes. We are interested in their thoughts on the popular hike to Dark Hollow Falls. Our main concern is Becky’s dad Poppa. He is in good physical shape, but he has had eye problems and his vision is limited. Not to mention we have 4 adults over 70 with us. The park ranger tells us about an easy path to Dark Hollow Falls via a fire road. It is a wide fairly straight road to the base of the falls. She also mentions Blackrock Summit Trail in the South and the Limberlost Trail near Skyland that we will check out later this week.
Parking for Dark Hollow Falls
Once we leave the visitor center we also pass the Big Meadows Wayside. It has another store that has some food and other supplies. This area is also the only place to get gas if you need it. Across Skyline Drive is Big Meadows, the only large open area along this drive. We plan to head back past Big Meadows after our hike, and we heard it’s good to see wildlife here at dusk.
We turn left again to head north on Skyline Drive. We will be hiking the Rose River Fire Road to the base of Dark Hollow Falls. To access this fire road, we park at Fishers Gap Overlook at mile 49.5. We pass the Dark Hollow Falls Parking lot at 50.5 just past the visitor center. So, it’s just a mile past that. Besides the normal overlook parking, there is a small parking lot right off Skyline Drive. We park there and get ready to cross Skyline Drive to start our hike.
But before we start the trail, we take a picture of everyone going on the hike. Grandma decides to wait in the car, but takes a picture of the rest of us. It’s really hard to get everyone to keep their eyes open at the same time (i.e. Gigi).
Rose River Fire Road
The park ranger tells us it’s about a mile along the fire road to the base of the falls. So instead of a steep 1.4 mile round-trip, it will be a longer, but easier 2 mile hike. And once we get to the base of the falls, she says, we can continue to the top of the falls adding about another 1/2 mile. It is about 5 minutes after 5:00 and we have plenty of time for this hike. And this should put us back to Big Meadows in plenty of time before sunset.
So, we cross the street, where we see the start of the road and a sign saying authorized vehicles only. There is also a chain blocking vehicles from driving on the road. Just past it is a trail marker with Rose River Fr. Rd. and an arrow pointing straight ahead. The road is wide and has plenty of space for us to spread out even when others pass. Though the road bed is firm, there are some rocks so good footwear is helpful. And we thought this hike would be relatively flat, but it is a gradual decline on the way there.
Our daughter heads in front with her dad exploring the trail. The trees are still bare but there are some cool large rocks to check out. Uncle Bob follows closely behind followed by Becky and Poppa and Gigi bringing up the rear while holding hands. As we get closer, we can hear water and a creek to our left. And after 35 minutes we reach the falls.
Base of Dark Hollow Falls
We can see the falls before we reach them. There is a wide bridge that crosses the creek that forms at the base of the falls. And our daughter makes it to the bridge first. It’s her 1st waterfall and she is excited! From the bridge we can look back at the creek or up at the falls.
The fire road continues past the bridge and up around the mountain. The Rose River Loop Trail also starts behind the bridge and goes along the creek. It will take you to Rose River Falls before looping back to the fire road and the parking lot. But we stop on the bridge which provides a great view of a small waterfall. But this is not the 70 foot Dark Hollow Falls. We have to climb to see the main waterfall.
Hiking to the Top of Dark Hollow Falls
The park ranger did say it’s about 1/2 mile from here to the main falls. Past the large rock Poppa and Uncle Bob have been resting on, is the trail to the top. This trail has stairs leading up and looks very steep. Our daughter wants to go with her daddy, but everyone else wants to stay.
The trail switches back and quickly rises above the small waterfall at the base. Above them is another cascade into a good sized pool. We stop here where our daughter has to check out how cold the water is. Becky climbs up to join us at the pool. After a few minutes, we decide to continue up the trail, but Becky decides to go back. And after a rest, Poppa, Gigi and Uncle Bob join Becky to head back to the parking lot.
We continue to climb up steep steps passing multiple cascades to another pool below the main falls. Here we stop to admire Dark Hollow Falls, and play in more water. After a few minutes we continue up to the connection to the end of the main Dark Hollow Falls trail. The main trail is much more traveled and there are many people resting around the top. And after a few minutes we head down the way we came passing others. Holding hands the whole way, we carefully descend the trail to the bridge.
Heading Back on Rose River Fire Road
Fearing that everyone is almost back to the car, we step it up. The fire road was mostly declining on the way to the falls, and is mostly ascending on the way back. It’s not steep though and we make good time.
But our daughter starts complaining and wanting to be carried. After doing about 2 miles on her own, including to the top, she deserves a piggyback ride. She is getting heavy, but after about a 1/4 mile, we catch up to the others.
We meet back up together and in another 5 minutes we see the end. Our daughter races past Poppa to finish first. She is super competitive! We finish just past 6:50PM taking us just over 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete. Everyone made it ok and feels good. We head back across Skyline Drive to the car and Grandma.
Big Meadows
We head back down Skyline Drive to the Big Meadows area. We check out the BIg Meadows Wayside but it just closed at 7:00PM. But we all get out to use the restrooms here. We then head back in the car to go across the street to the Big Meadows parking lot.
We get out to look for some wildlife but we don’t see any around. There is a walkway into the meadow that seems long. So, we decide to just enjoy the beauty from the parking area. With the sun behind us, our shadows show across the beautiful colors of the meadow. It’s worth the stop even if we don’t see any wildlife.
Driving Back on Skyline Drive
We jump back in the car and onto Skyline Drive. And only after a few minutes of driving, we see deer! We first see one, then two, then three, then we see more. The deer come out to graze at night right beside the road. We get to see them pretty close up as we drive slowly down the road.
After seeing almost 20 deer, we decide to stop at a few overlooks to get some sunset pics. We stop first at The Point Overlook and the two of us jump out of the car and take some pics. The sunsets here are beautiful and is a great time to stop at some of these overlooks. We head farther down Skyline Drive looking for the next overlook facing west.
We also stop at The Oaks Overlook and then at Baldface Mountain Overlook. The views at the overlooks provide plenty of colors from the sky over the mountains. The views from Skyline Drive are also great from the car just driving back to where we started. We exit through the Swift Run Gap Entrance Station just before 8:00PM.
Summary
Today was our 1st day in Shenandoah National Park and the weather was great. We first went to the Byrd Visitor Center at Big Meadows to get some information. After buying a few things, we learned about an alternate route to Dark Hollow Falls. And with time this afternoon, we decided to make the hike to the falls. Rose River Fire Road provided us a wide and easy trail to the base of the falls. And from there some of us ascended to the top of the falls while the rest took a break. We met up on the way back before finishing the trail. Once back in the car, we headed to Big Meadows for a quick stop. Then we continued back on Skyline Drive where we quickly spotted many deer. We also took in a few sunset views from a few overlooks before exiting the park.
Today was a great 1st day in the park. The Byrd Visitor Center is centrally located in the park and is a great place to get information. We always think talking to park rangers is helpful and they were. We had no idea about the alternate route to Dark Hollow Falls and we were glad we all could do it. Plus it was our daughter’s 1st waterfall and she enjoyed seeing and playing around the falls. We always enjoy seeing wildlife and we’re glad we spotted so many deer on our return drive. Though. we only got to drive a short portion of Skyline Drive in the central portion of the park today. And the weather is supposed to change, so we look forward to seeing more of Skyline Drive later this week.
Other Adventures This Week
Check out our trip to the newest national park at: New River Gorge National Park in a Day