This year we chose to take our fall weekend mountain biking and camping trip to Stokesville, VA. We hit up rode the trails around Stokesville Campground, Reddish Knob and Massanutten West side trails.
Are the Massanutten Western Slope Trails worth the $10 Daily pass? The western slope trails are well worth the $10 for a daily pass that is needed for accessing the trails. The money goes to SVBC which is the group that maintains these awesome trails. The trails offer a wide variety of trails to fit your riding ability with awesome views to boot.
We found out about the some of the trails out of “Mountain Biking Virginia” that Jason purchased that covers the mountain bike trails in Virginia. This book is available in paperback and kindle. The book offers pictures, trail details and directions to the trails. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything in there on the Massanutten trails and we had only heard about this trail system through a rider at the bottom of the Reddish Knob Trail system.
We were initially told that we needed to go to the to the Bike Shop at the Massanutten Resort in order to purchase the tickets. This was not the case. The only thing we purchased from the Bike shop was the $3 map of the trails. In order to purchase the trail pass you need to purchase them online. More on that below.
The trails on the Western Slope of Massanutten are funded, built, and maintained by volunteers and members of the Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Coalition, in partnership with Massanutten Resort. According to the trail map found online over 15,000 volunteer hours have built over 12 miles of trail, maintained 25+ miles of trail, and created many smiles on our weekly work parties since 2004.
Trail availability
While this trail is open almost all year from February 15th through November 1st, however they do close it Monday through Saturday from November 1st through February 15th due to hunting season. With recent stories about riders accidentally being shot and killed by hunters you never can’t be too careful during hunting season.
The varying costs
One of the cool things about this trail is that you have several different options for gaining access to the trails. In our case we ended up going to the website to purchase the $10 daily tickets. If we would have learned about this trail sooner we might have tried this on both riding days of our trip.
They also offer a weekly pass that is a steal at $25 compared to the $10 daily rate. If your a local and can help put in 8+ hours of trail maintenance you can get a free annual pass or you can simply purchase one at $50. All riders must have a trail pass in order to ride. This includes kids who are old enough to volunteer for trail maintenance.
If you have the ability to tackle the 2 mile climb from the parking lot to the top of the trails then more power to you. I think we however are going to take the climb initially but try to shuttle it next time for consecutive trips. My legs were dying after the initial climb and some of the funner aspects of the trail I had to be a little less aggressive as I could feel my legs weren’t as strong as the beginning of the ride.
The waiver
Another thing that you must do is go online and fill out the waiver which can be found here. This will also work as your trail pass and it is only available online. I found later through research that if you don’t have the annual pass with the mirror tag then they want you to sign the waiver and print it out and place it on the dash. Because we were kind of scrambling to find out more about this trail on the day of the ride we didn’t have the capability to print it out so we just rode and figured we could look up the event bright purchase for the day.
The waiver is there for you to acknowledge that you are aware of the risk of mountain biking but it also acknowledge that you have read and will abide by the rules of the waiver. You are required to enter you name, address, phone number, birth date, email address and emergency contact. The final question is how you plan on earning your trail pass and then you have to sign electronically.
Trail Maintenance
As with most trails it takes a lot of work to maintain them in order to keep them in great condition which will allow riders to enjoy them time and time again. If you have the time and are physically capable of helping out with trail maintenance it’s a rewarding feeling when you are able to ride trails you helped work on.
After a little research it appears that Thomas Jenkins: tj@shenandoahbicycle.com , 540-434-9943 is the contact for signing up to help out with trail maintenance. The window for helping with maintenance is between March and November. If your local this is a good way to meet other riders and take pride in an awesome set of trails.
The gravel climb
As you can see in the elevation map, the initial climb to the top of the trail is a beast. It is 2 miles from the parking lot to the top of the trail system which sports an awesome view. The goat of our group, Jeremy, crushed it and rode the entire thing without stopping while Jason and I tried but had to take several walking breaks on the way up the climb.
I am going to blame not being able to ride the full 2 mile incline due to being sick for a couple of weeks leading up to the trip to Virginia. Hopefully next year I will be better prepared for this type of incline and can tackle it at least once. It is a big punch to the gut not being able to tackle the hill but the view quickly wiped that feeling away. That and the awesome single track on the way down.
The view
That view though was worth the climb. The Massanutten overlook offers riders a spot to regroup after the 2 mile climb to catch your break, rest your legs, grab a snack and hydrate. There isn’t a restroom for relief but a stroll in the upper part of the Kaylor’s Knob hiking trail could lend itself to that depending on how busy of a day it is.
The first thing I noticed when taking a stroll here is the size of the rocks. I knew it was going to be an interesting ride down the rest of the trails if they looked anything like this hiking trail.
The hucking huckables
In my previous post “What is Hucking a Mountain Bike: How to build confidence” I talked about hucking off objects on the trails. This slab of rock looked like an awesome opportunity to put my skills to the test but not this time around.
In the image above I am walking the B line while Jeremy is analyzing the right line for the A line. After much discussion we all came to the same conclusion that we would have to pass on it this time around due to our legs being shot from the first portion of the trail including the gravel climb.
When trying to tackle items like this you need to be fully confident that your legs will help cushion some of the impact as well as helping position your body on the bike so you don’t end up going over the bars.
Say What? A and B lines?
Some standard mountain bike lingo that is used quite often are A lines and B lines. Simply put, the A line is the main line a rider takes on the harder portions of the trail. As mentioned in the image above, Jeremy is on what could be considered the A line with the trail builders trying to take advantage of what the the terrain gives them to help the riders have an awesome experience.
The B line is a secondary line for riders who don’t feel confident about the A line and want to take this line so the can live to ride another day. Early on in my MTB journey I often Bailed using the b line simply because I was in my head about the line. This can really hinder a rider and probably leads to more of my crashes than anything else.
Trails Creation
According to the trail map found online over 15,000 volunteer hours have built over 12 miles of trail, maintained 25+ miles of trail, and created many smiles on our weekly work parties since 2004. The Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Coalition has played a big part in making these trails. Massanuttens Western Slope trails are funded, built and maintained by members and volunteers of the SVBC.
Related Posts
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