Recreation
Rough Mountain Wilderness is so difficult to access that it never receives much use other than during hunting season. In addition, the only reliable water sources exist just outside of the Wilderness’s boundaries and there are few flat spots suitable for camping. The only established trail in the Rough Mountain Wilderness, the Crane Trail, starts from possibly “the most remote trailhead” in the George Washington National Forest. The trail itself only 3 miles long, but requires an out and back hike because private homes and hunting camps block access to Virginia State Route 42 at the western end of the trail. The eastern trailhead is located next to railroad tracks leased by the Buckingham Branch Railroad from CSX Transportation, so access to the trail from either terminus may not be possible without trespassing.
It may also be possible to bushwack across the ridge of Rough Mountain to Griffith Knob starting from a parking lot north of the Wilderness boundaries. This hike requires a 2.6 mile trek through an adjoining nonwilderness roadless area before reaching the Wilderness boundary. It has been described as possibly “the loneliest hike in Virginia” in one guidebook.
Read more about this topic: Rough Mountain Wilderness
Famous quotes containing the word recreation:
“Playing snooker gives you firm hands and helps to build up character. It is the ideal recreation for dedicated nuns.”
—Archbishop Luigi Barito (b. 1922)
“Media mystifications should not obfuscate a simple, perceivable fact; Black teenage girls do not create poverty by having babies. Quite the contrary, they have babies at such a young age precisely because they are poor—because they do not have the opportunity to acquire an education, because meaningful, well-paying jobs and creative forms of recreation are not accessible to them ... because safe, effective forms of contraception are not available to them.”
—Angela Davis (b. 1944)