Virginia Creeper Trail
National Recreation Trail On The Former Virginia Carolina Railway Railbed, Managed Jointly By The US Forest Service And The Towns Of Damascus And Abingdon · Damascus, Virginia
Thirty-four miles of former railbed running from Whitetop Station, high on the flank of Virginia's second-highest mountain, down through Damascus to Abingdon - and the reason it is famous is that seventeen of those miles are downhill and require almost no pedalling at all. Shuttle vans take riders and bicycles up to Whitetop in the morning; the ride back down to Damascus loses about sixteen hundred feet on a steady railroad grade over about seventeen miles, crossing more than thirty trestles above Laurel Creek and the Whitetop Laurel, through rhododendron tunnels and hemlock, with the creek beside you most of the way. It takes two to three hours and children manage it. The railway it replaced hauled lumber and passengers from 1900 until the 1970s, and it was called the Virginia Creeper for the way the steam engines laboured up this grade. The lower half from Damascus to Abingdon is flatter, quieter, runs through farmland, and is where you go when you want the trail without the crowd.
Whitetop Station to Abingdon, via Damascus, Damascus, Virginia, 24236, United States
The trail is open at all hours, year round, and free. THE SHUTTLES ARE THE CONSTRAINT: vans to Whitetop are commercial, run mainly from spring to autumn, reduce or stop in winter, and SELL OUT on autumn weekends - book ahead. Bicycle hire in Damascus follows the same season. Confirm the trail is open end to end before travelling, as flood damage has closed sections and trestles in the past. Very little food or water on the upper trail.
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