After Andy’s and my incredible hike and camp at House Mountain, my heart craved another camp. Enter Jefferson National Forests’s Big Rocky Row:
- Twelve-point-three mile loop
- 2,694-foot elevation gain
- Level Four of Five difficulty
Big Rocky Row has beautiful views of the James River, which is where we began our hike as the water cuts through the Blue Ridge Mountains and heads all the way out to the Chesapeake Bay.
To get views of the James River from our mountain-top overlook though, Andy and I needed to head north on our beloved white-blazed Appalachian Trail. This meant heading into the forest and crossing over the Rocky Row Run creek …
It was early October, and our trail had pops of color as the autumn leaves were just starting to change from green to yellow, orange, and red …
Our first overlook destination was to Fuller Rocks …
The trail up has many switchbacks and is said to get progressively tougher, though saying that we don’t remember the trail being hard … which could be because we are actually experienced now … or we had to pause for an extensive time so that I could hug this massive tree.
I will be honest and say the glee I have when hugging trees greatly allows me to easily forget any bit of physical exertion and pain … which I suppose also means I had a nice quick-second thought now in believing that Andy and I were actual hiking experts ….
Back to the trail: Not only were the autumn leaves beautiful …
but there were also still colorful wildflowers …
and I say all of this to mean before Andy and I realized it, we had reached Fuller Rocks …
The view supposedly shows Apple Orchard Mountain and the mountain’s Federal Aviation Administration’s radar dome, but we had trouble spotting it. What was clearly visible though was the James River …
This overlook shows water gap, which is a geological formation created by water that has cut and currently cuts through mountains.
Fuller Rocks is one of many overlooks within a short distance of each other so after a tiny zero-point-one mile-walk, we had a similar view …
though this overlook was more open so the Thunder Ridge cliffs could be seen …
As much as we wanted to set up camp here, we needed to cover more ground before staking our tent so we ventured further on our trail. This meant gaining about 550-feet in elevation as we hiked up Big Rocky Row Mountain to Big Rocky Row overlook …
About a mile and a half in, we arrived as the sun painted the sky in pinks and oranges. Sadly, Big Rocky Row overlook does not point west so our sunset peeked between the trees …
The good news though is that the overlook points east, which means we would get an amazing sunrise in the morning. To get that though, we had to set up camp for the night, and I’ll note two other creatures decided to join our sleep-over too as Andy found two large stick bugs safely tucked under our rainfly …
The next morning, both Andy and I woke early to ensure we could catch the sunrise. (This, you should know, is unusual as my Yorkshireman will throw quite a fit in refusing to leave his sleeping bag. Normally, his groggy farewell escapes between snores as I reluctantly give up coaxing him from sleep and unzip the tent door to take in the rising sun solo.) Fortunately, this sunrise was well worth his awakening …
This was one of the most breathtaking sunrises we (or, um, I) have seen thus far, and we remained until the sun lifted over the mountains and drifted higher and higher in the sky …
The morning fog made the view even more surreal as it slipped over the valley and provided a contrast against the Blue Ridge Mountains …
Once the pastels faded into the blue sky, we set about getting our day started. Andy and I had roughly seven miles to cover heading northbound on the Appalachian Trail as it went over our mountain before going up and over the next …
First though, we would need to remove last night’s stick bugs, who were apparently still in the throws of romance, on our tent …
I’ve written before about stick bugs (read my four interesting facts about the unusual insects in Virginia’s Campbell River and Secluded Swimming Hole Hike) as I find them quite fascinating so to find two stick bugs — and stick bugs who were certainly getting sticky — felt an exceptional occurrence.
At first Andy tried to encourage the couple to climb up a tree trunk, but the in-sex-ts were either too exhausted from last night’s rendezvous or still enjoying their mating pleasures that they made zero efforts to start a tree-climb. Because of this, Andy placed the bark and, therefore, stick bug couple on a tree branch then left the two lovers to their privacy as we packed up and headed out …
As we were walking, the tap-tap-tap of a woodpecker interrupted the quiet of the forest so we took a few moments to find the highly camouflaged bird …
Up and up we climbed until the distance increased so much that we could see our earlier Big Rocky Row overlook …
Our hike was nearly done though …
Soon, our trail intersected a fire road before it followed Rocky Row Run creek back to where we started at the James River …
There, kayakers paddled under a bridge as Andy and I took a moment to pause by the river’s bank. A crayfish scurried over river rocks in the water near our feet, and little fish swayed in the current.
Hiking teaches appreciation so that the smallest moments on a trail (such as two stick bugs mating in the safety of a tent or a little freshwater crustacean crawling in clear water) feel of equal value to the grandest moments on a trail (such as a views of a mirror-like river cutting through mountains or a magical pastel sunrise over fog).
And this appreciation slowly fills me the moment I disappear in the shadows of trees then carries me through the world until I’m able to fill up again on the next trail.
