takenreasy

Can anyone recommend a good route from Northern Virginia (Falls Church) to Loft Mountain on Skyline Drive? I've only "toured" on the C&O Canal and would like to branch out to some of my old motorcycle camping areas. I'd probably want to break up the trip into two or three days with camping along the way.

JimF22003

Hey, I just rode from Loft Mountain to Big Meadows and back yesterday! I'm presuming you want to start at the north end of the park at Front Royal instead of the south end at Waynesboro or coming in on 211 or 33. You can get a bunch of the way out there via the W&OD trail. It depends on if you have any particular places you want to camp. Sky Meadows State Park is off of Rt 17 near Upperville/Paris. In that case you'd want to take the W&OD all the way out to Purcellville.

This route takes the W&OD trail to Leesburg, and then goes through Middleburg and Marshall. There's a short stretch on Rt 15 that looks a little hairy, but I've ridden it many times, and there's a pretty good shoulder the whole way.

Rt 55 is also fine from Marshall out to Linden:

Leesburg Front Royal - Leesburg, VA

pdlamb

I only know most of that area through maps, but would riding to Purcellsville, then taking 690, 611, etc. be a viable alternative?