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This 1.8 mile up, 1.8 miles down or 3.6 miles total hike was sponsored by
and was led by Michelle House. Elevation change was about 800 feet.
Today was a beautiful day to hike. I left Manassas, VA at around 7:00 AM and got to the meeting place at the corner of VA675 Edinburg Gap Rd and FR374 around 9:00 AM. I wasn’t sure where we were meeting and at first, turned into an entrance for the OHV or Off Highway Vehicle parking. The road was very rutted and there was no one there. So I drove back out to VA675 and drove another quarter mile and saw Charlie & Michelle’s vehicle at the parking area just off of VA675 and on FR374. Sue drove up shortly afterwards. So there were four of us on this hike.
We started right around 9:30AM. We pulled our vehicles closer to where the Masenutten Trail leaves FR374 to begin it’s ascent of the north end of Short Mountain. The goal was to get to the top and enjoy the views from what is called Capericus Ridge. I never knew that this view was called Capernicus Ridge. I always thought that it was the view from the north end of Short Mountain. It was mostly all uphill for about 1.5 miles until we got to the top. Then it was another .3 miles until we turned left onto a side trail and were treated to some fantastic views to the east.
By the way, according to:
Nicolaus Capernicus was a Polish astronomer that lived from 1473 to 1543. His claim to fame was that he declared that the earth rotated around the sun and not visa versa. He received a great deal of initial criticism from his scientific peers as well as from the Catholic Church. But eventually, his theories were accepted and we moved forward scientific knowledge wise thanks to Copernicus. But I still don’t know why thay named this ridge after him. Maybe it was because, if the weather conditions are right, you can view view some of our neighboring planets from this vantage point at night.
Once at the overlook we were able to see three mountain ranges: Masenutten West, Masenutten East and Blue Ridge. It was beautiful. I didn’t want to leave. We spent about a half hour at the overlook and then we started our decent back to our vehicles. The temps were right around 70 when we started this hike and were in the mid 70’s when we finished around 12:30 PM.
I am glad that I did this hike today because I will be leading a group hike of the entire Short Mountain in May, 2026. It will be about 7.1 miles. It will be a tough hike but I am up for the challenge. So it was a great day thanks to Charlie, Michelle and Sue.
Mike C
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