Virginia- Triple Crown and Shenandoah National Park

In November of 2025 our travels took us to Virginia where we had tickets to a concert in Charlottesville. We figured while we were there, what could be better than hiking on the Appalachian trail and exploring/ crossing off another National Park on our bucket list?
As previously discussed, the way we look at where we will be going next while living van life depends almost entirely on the weather. We knew we wanted to hike the Virginia triple crown which consists of three viewpoints or features, all on the Appalachian trail and all in Virginia. To thru hike them it would have been two nights on trail and about 35 miles, this would have been no problem at all if it wasn’t supposed to get down to 28 degrees overnight. We were supposed to be chasing 70 degrees and sunshine, what happened?

We decided that we would day hike the Virginia triple crown instead, genius. So what is this crown situation you might be thinking, well, it is Dragons Tooth, McAfee Knob, and Tinker Cliffs which can be hiked in a loop or the option we chose was a day hike to each individually. We selected McAfee Knob for our first hike and planned to hit the other two on our way back around Roanoke after jetting up to Charlottesville for the concert and a stop in Shenandoah while we were in the neck of the woods.

We were a touch late for fall colors but we earned our photo at the “most photographed spot” on the Appalachian trail when we reached McAffee Knob. The out and back hike was 8.5 miles round trip from the route 311 trailhead parking. There were several other people there who graciously swapped phones so we could take photos for one another. This seems to be a very common occurrence if you happen across other hikers, they are always ready to snap that winning photo for your efforts which is just the right amount of people-ing for this gal.

After a quick stop in Charlottesville for our concert, we thought we would try our luck at getting a campsite in a National Park on a weekend, what could go wrong. The government shutdown was still in affect after all so the completely booked online portal must be wrong…
The portal was not lying, and the first come first serve campground in the park was jam packed with a line of other hopefuls like us trying to get in if someone happened to leave early. Although there was not a single ranger in sight to gather entrance fee’s there were definitely staff available to police and charge for camping. We were on the rec.gov waitlist but service promptly dropped off once we entered the park so we took our chances and pressed on towards the larger campground in the hopes there had been a cancellation that we would miraculously be able to get before someone else jumped on it. Previous experiences told us we may just luck out.

Luck out we did, the camping gods decided to smile upon us, we were able to secure two nights IN the park and were set up within a few minutes thanks to the handy dandy nature of van life aka having everything you own in your van/home. We feasted on some pancakes made by the GOAT breakfast chef Eric, before heading out for a short bike ride to the visitor center. We got some hiking route options, a sticker, and all necessary trail maps, rode back to camp and selected a shorter hike for the waning daylight we had left, Lewis falls loop.

We were able to leave right from the campground and it made for about a 4 mile hike round trip. The waterfall was pretty minuscule as it had been quite dry, but the hike was nice regardless. Being lucky enough to be in the park campground on the last weekend they were open we grabbed some firewood from the camp store and had a little fire, made dinner and retired early so we could embark on our biggest hike yet in the morning, Hawksbill to Stony Man and back.

We parked at the upper Hawksbill trailhead and headed up to the summit which is the highest point on skyline drive (the road that winds through the whole park) at 4,049′. If you just want a quick hike, you do not need to continue on to Stony Man, it is totally fine to make this a short out and back of only 2.1 miles. We are crazy people though so we decided to go on, hike a part of the Appalachian trail to connect over to another peak called Stony man and then come back around the back side of Hawksbill summit by way of the Salamander Trail for a total of just over 13 miles round trip.

We must be getting stronger because the hike up did not seem to be too bad. There were some rocks that Eric of course had to mountain goat, or in this case little mermaid on, and then we continued on towards the next peril, I mean viewpoint.

As you can tell from these photos, most of the leaves were not only done changing color but had also fallen off the trees at this point in the season. It was rather windy while we were there too so it’s likely if any were still hanging on they had no chance after that wind. There were some neat rock features on the connector section of the Appalachian trail but the combination of the murder of crows squawking at us, the lack of people and the abundance of these twisted/naked trees, made us immediately name this section the “spooky forest”.

After we emerged from the spooky forest, the clouds were doing some magnificent things at the top of Stony Man. You can’t tell from this photo but it was WINDY up here, we immediately put our coats back on after it was taken, housed some trail snacks then pointed our already tired feet back the way we came, only 6.5 miles back…woof. Hiking tip of the day for you, invest in some options for temperature regulation. We both have a pair of insulated sleeves that pack up super small and are awesome for slipping on and off as needed while hiking or biking or just standing around outside. It is silly how many times these things go on and off in a single day of hiking but it’s really nice to be able to slip them on or off without having a big to do shuffling through a pack or changing a shirt.

Although we were tired, the sunset on the trail was pretty spectacular. We didn’t wait for the sun to fully set because we didn’t really want to hike the rest of the way down in the dark even though we had headlamps with us, always hike prepared folks. I think that Shenandoah has definitely got some great stuff going on. There are numerous other hikes, we barely scratched the surface. I think it would certainly have more to offer when the spring blooms are popping up, or during peak fall colors. For all you normal folk who don’t have an unending desire to punish yourself with extremely long walks, existing on nuts, dried fruit and granola bars, skyline drive provides loads of opportunities for gorgeous photo ops as well as a nice overview of the park. We drove much of it after our hiking outings when the temps dropped further. This National Park is definitely worth a visit!

Fast forward a couple of days plus a hotel stay since it was below freezing and our heater was still on the fritz (waiting for parts to be shipped to us to repair it) and we are back near Roanoke to hike the second crown, tine, spur? Tinker Cliffs.

What Eric is pointing to is McAffe Knob which we hiked first upon entering Virginia. So if we were to hike the loop outright it technically would start at Dragon Tooth, then go on to McAffee knob, and end at Tinker Cliffs. We did it inside out and backwards by starting in the middle, doing other stuff for several days and then hiked the end piece and finished with the beginning. How is that for some Alice in Wonderland riddle nonsense?

Tinker Cliffs out and back was a hearty 8.37 mile hike with some steep sections. It also contained my first full out fall. I am a serial toe stubber and this normally just results in a string of obscenities for being so silly as to drag my feet (can’t help it, been walking that way for almost 40 years can’t change it now) but I never fall. That is until this hike. I was taken down by the tiniest root, barely even a blip but somehow it got me just right and I fell all the way down driving my shoulder into the dirt like a Super Bowl Sunday line backer. Thankfully it was not on a downhill and I was far enough away from the edge (it was right at the Tinker Cliffs viewing area which is literally a cliff edge) that I wasn’t seriously hurt, besides a bruised ego that is. By the end of the hike I was able to laugh about it because, let’s be honest, falls are hilarious (if the faller isn’t hurt of course).

Now that I have shared that totally unnecessary embarrassing moment with you all, please marvel at my amazing rock climbing talents as I had effortlessly scaled the Dragon Tooth. Impressive right? It’s like I didn’t just fall on my face less than a day prior to sitting here atop a rock in the sky.

Eric made it to the top of the 35′ tallest tooth since he is part goat as previously discussed. The final of our triad of hikes was 5.5 miles. The path to the top does require some rock scrambling and has a bit of elevation gain like Tinker Cliffs. We did pass several people who were unable to make it to the view point, and that’s ok, know your limits, rescue is not a good option, I hear helicopters are expensive. You do NOT have to climb up on the tooth if you don’t want to, you can definitely see it from below with minimal scary stuff to get up there. There is one part that has a ladder rung sunk into the rock like we talked about encountering in Acadia on the Beehive hike but it’s not as intense as Beehive by any shake.

Overall Virginia was good to us. We completed our version of the Virginia triple crown, enjoyed a National Park and saw one of our favorite bands to boot. All this hiking on the Appalachian Trail has got us contemplating something really crazy like maybe a thru hike of our own, perhaps the Arizona Trail. Only time will tell as we continue to explore, hike, bike and get stronger. Stay tuned to see what we get into next.