From Va. 613: War Spur Connector Trail to Appalachian Trail to Potts Mountain Trail beyond White Rocks; back to Appalachian Trail past Wind Rock back to War Spur Connector Trail to 613. 12.7 miles.
Though we’ve hiked often in the War Spur area, this day had a new destination for us in White Rocks, an obscure spot on the little-used Potts Mountain Trail. In fact, it turned out to be so obscure to us that we walked on by it by more than half a mile by our calculation, before coming back and find a good, fairly white rock to have lunch on, looking out over the Johns Creek Valley and onto Johns Creek Mountain.
On the way back, we walked blithely past the little cut-through back to the Appalachian Trail from the Potts Creek Trail and thus extended our walk on the Potts Mountain Trail by going all the way to Wind Rocks before turning back northward on the AT and its intersection with the War Spur Connector.
This good walk (which can be shortened by about 4.5 miles by using the cut-through in both directions and going only to White Rocks and not beyond) contains within it the stretch across the 4,000-foot plateau just below Potts Mountain. There are healthy hemlocks in here, and a bog or two, along with the big rattler we were lucky enough not to see this trek.
How to get there: U.S. 460 west from Blacksburg to Va. 613 past Mountain Lake Hotel to parking along the road well after it becomes unpaved.
May 2, 2010
