Hike, March 1, 2020: Little Rocky Row Trail to Appalachian Trail to Fullers Rocks and back. 6.2 miles.
The view from Fullers Rocks onto the James River and, beyond on the horizon, Apple Orchard Mountain.
One good measure of a good walk is how good the destination point is. Which, on nearly all of our hikes, is somewhere near the mid-point, for lunch.
The Little Rocky Row Trail, at an obscure spot along Va. 130 east of Natural Bridge, Virginia, is a good trail—wide, not-too-rocky and usually empty—to an especially good destination. You reach the Appalachian Trail after a 3-mile climb with far fewer switchbacks than the A.T. offers for its longer route up to the same spot. And from that intersection, it’s just another tenth to Fullers Rocks, a flat, open spot looking down on the James River.
It’s a good place to talk about the mighty James, on its 348-mile way from headwaters in Botetourt County on down through Richmond and into the Chesapeake Bay. We wondered, looking down, if it was maybe one-fifth as wide where we watched it glisten as it is where we’ve walked along both sides in Richmond.
It’s a good place, on a warm, sunny winter afternoon, to look beyond the James as well, up onto the horizon, where you can see the tower atop Apple Orchard Mountain, the highest spot on the Great Trail, headed north, until you get to Vermont.
And the walk back to Va. 130 is mostly all downhill and pleasant.