Posts Tagged ‘Douthat State Park’
Tuscarora Overlook – Douthat State Park
Posted by Chris | Filed under Trail Information, Western Virginia
Total Distance (circuit): 9.6 miles
Hiking Time: 6 hours
Vertical rise: 2180 feet
This excursion into the western and southern regions of Douthat State Park is probably best done in the early spring. Not only will the trees still be leafless so that the views will be more extensive, but the two waterfalls you encounter will be running at their highest and most impressive volume.
Leave your car at the entrance parking area of White Oak Campground (C) and walk across Wilson Creek on the low-water bridge into the campground and past Beards Gap Hollow Trail (on which you will be returning). Across from the bathhouse and next to campsite 33, make a left into a woods of pine and oak on yellow blazed Tobacco House Ridge Trail. Some of the trees and shrubs you pass may have galls on them. Galls form on almost every plant in the world and are not a cancer or some other disease but the plant’s reaction to an attach by a parasite (which could be bacteria, fungus, eelworm, mite, or insect). Rarely will a plant be affected by the formation of gall. Rather, this abnormal increase in the number or size of cells isolates the parasite and helps to localize any poisons it may produce.
A break in the vegetation at 0.5 mile provides a pleasant spot, especially early in the morning when songbirds are most active, to overlook Douthat Lake. The Tobacco House Ridge Trail comes to an end upon meeting blue-blazed Blue Suck Falls Trail at 0.9 miles. This trail descends right to VA 629, but it also ascends to the left and that is the direction in which you need to turn. Early settlers noticed that wildlife was attracted to the salt from high sulfur content springs in the area of Douthat State Park and that the animals would stand above the springs to inhale the vapors – thus the name “suck”.
At 1 mile, gold blazed Huff’s Trail bears right toward the northern portion of the park; keep left on Blue Suck Falls Trail. Keep left again when white-blazed Laurel View Trail comes in from the right at 1.2 miles.
Conversely, bear right upon reaching the junction with yellow-blaxed Locust Gap Trail at 1.5 miles.
Continuing to ascend on Blue Suck Falls Trail, which is now steep and rocky, come to the falls, which drop about 50 feet down a rock facing lined with mountain laurel and rhododendron. Your route crosses the stream just below the falls and swings around the side of the mountain on a pathway still supported by rock cribbing constructed in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Keep left at 2 miles when yellow-blaxed Pine Tree Trail comes in from the right; pass by two excellent views of Wilson Creek valley bordered by Beards Mountain. The stone bench at 2.5 miles provides a place to rest and enjoy the view, but take the short side trail to the right to Lookout Rock at 2.7 miles for an even better vantage point on this vista of wave after wave of undulating Virginia ridgelines.
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