This roughly 3 mile up, 3 mile back linear day hike took place on Monday, July 1, 2024. It was just me on this one.
On Sunday night, June 30, 2024, I looked at the weather for the week. Monday, July 1, 2024 looked like the coolest day of the week. So that was the day that I would do this hike. Like twice before this year I got up at 4:00 AM, left Manassas, VA by 5:00 AM and made it to the trailhead at US250 Ivy RD by 7:15AM. Traffic was light, probably due to the holiday week.
Parking at this trailhead was not good. I had called the UVA Campus Police Department a few days prior to this trip and asked if I could park in their lot while I hiked the Rivanna Trail. The officer was very nice but said that all spaces within the visitor lot were reserved. That didn’t make sense. However, when I got there, all of the spaces were taken by either campus police vehicles or the officers civilian vehicles. There was one space on the shoulder of US250. But I was afraid of being rear ended while hiking if I parked there. So I parked at the edge of their driveway one third on their driveway, one third on their grass and one third in the road. I was then concerned about getting a ticket.
Today I hiked the 9:00 to the 7:00 position on this loop trail around Charlottesville, VA. The morning was cool and delightful. The trail itself was parallel to US29 the entire way. It was never more than 200 to 1,500 feet away. So even though I was in the woods, I could hear traffic the entire way. The trail had it’s ups or downs and meandered back and forth. The high point at the 1.6 mile point was a small mountain called O Hill. According to:
O Hill is the high point in Charlottesville at 364 feet. However, it wasn’t a tough up. There were many side trails. However, the trail was well signed and I did not get lost.
As I got close to US29 Business Fontaine AVE EXT I heard a lot of noise. When descended the mountain I found out the source of the noise. There was a massive building project on the UVA Hospital Grounds. The trail had been rerouted. I saw this on the RTF website. However, this detour was not shown on the Rivanna Trail map on the Avenza app that I was using. And there were no signs or blazing showing the detour route.
So I went from memory and walked east on Fontaine AVE EXT, then took the first right onto the UVA Hospital Entrance on Ray C Hunt DR. From there I made a number of wrong turns and asked three different construction workers how to get back to the Rivanna Trail. Basically, I had to turn right on Ray C Hunt DR, follow the maze of protected sidewalks and worked my way to the far western side of the parking lot There was construction all around me.
I made it to the woods between the hospital and US29. And at one point, I could see the trail. But I could not get to it. So I kept walking this perimeter road and finally saw the trail come out to this road. There was a notice and map of the detour posted at the southern end of this detour. I did not see a map/detour posted at the northern end of this detour.
OK, I got to where I wanted to get to at 2.9 miles. So I turned around and started the journey back to my vehicle. In order to keep my energy up I took a Voke tab, a Super Beets gummy, a multivitamin and drank a bottle of Ensure at various points on this hike. All of these helped. I felt great on the return trip. I got back to my vehicle a bit after 10:00 AM. Not bad for 5.8 miles total. Ironically, I didn’t get a ticket for the way that I was parked. However, a UVA campus police cruiser was parked right across from where I parked and was deploying radar on US250. I just ignored him and went on my way.
On the way home I stopped at Yoders Country Market in Madison, VA and got one of their fantastic Reuben Sandwichs. That made the trip worth it! I got home before 1:00 PM. This was a fantastic day to hike!
I’ve made three trips to this trail so far and have only done 6.7 miles of the 21.5 mile Rivanna Loop Trail. Since I have done all up and back hikes, I have really done 13.4 miles on this trail. So in the future, I will either have to 1) Get someone from northern Virginia to drive a vehicle separately and hike with me so that we can stage a vehicle at each end of a longer hike; 2) Pay a local to shuttle me to a farther point on the trail and hike back to it or 3) Spend a night in Charlottesville and spend a few days on this trail. Do I have any takers for any of the above?
Mike C
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