Big Devils Stairs Trail is an nice easy hike in the Shenandoah National Park (SNP), although the name would have you believe it’s some “hellacious” hiking trail, but it wasn’t. HikingUpwards.com has this trail rated a 4/5 difficulty, again I disagree. The only thing difficult about the trail was the hike back up the “Staircase” which lasted only about 1 mile at most. The rest of the trail was very easily graded without any real steep challenges to speak of. The temperature was hovering around (83F) felt rather toasty and I actually finished my 3L of water with 1.5 miles left on the hike. The path was virtually empty with only a couple of hikers that we ran into along the way. The scenery was still pretty uninspiring in the woods, but once you get to the top of Big Devils Stairs Trail the view opens up with some great photo opportunities.

Tito decides to get on top of this rock like he always does when he finds high ground. He has this obsession of  climbing on rocks and ledges.

Numerous fallen trees along the path, although Big Devils Stairs Trail is well maintained.

First view you see once you’ve made it to ledge of the “Staircase” section. The Big Devils Stairs Trail path runs along the edge of this cliff, giving it about 5 ft of walking space.

I didn’t really feel like walking that fast this day and Tito let me know the whole trip that I was walking too slowly by looking back and barking at me.

We meandered to the bottom of the hill as it got pretty steep along the edges of path..

Big Devils Stairs Trail Data

Total Distance: 9.73 km (6.0 mi)
Total Time: 3:04:14
Moving Time: 1:54:18
Average Speed: 3.17 km/h (2.0 mi/h)
Average Moving Speed: 5.11 km/h (3.2 mi/h)
Max Speed: 12.50 km/h (7.8 mi/h)
Min Elevation: 558 m (1832 ft)
Max Elevation: 820 m (2690 ft)
Elevation Gain: 629 m (2063 ft)
Max Grade: 6 %
Min Grade: -6 %
Recorded: Sun Apr 24 13:03:22 EDT 2011
Activity type: – Trail Hiking

The hike back up the gave our legs a pretty good burn, but nothing too serious. This was the hardest part of the hike and actually slowed Tito down quite a bit, he doesn’t care much for hills and steep climbs.

This is why they call this area the “Blue Ridge Mountains”

Small stream that Tito decided now “belongs” to him…

On the way home, I decided to go to one of the local wineries here in VA to pick up a bottle. It seems like every mile there’s a local winery in the Western side of VA. I’ve never been to one until this weekend.