Visited on Saturday, July 20th, 2019 by myself.

McAfee Knob is a highly photographed trail along the Appalachian Trail just outside of George Washington & Jefferson State Forest in Virginia. To get there, take I-81 towards Hanging Rock, and then follow VA-311 N (Catawba Valley Drive) for 5 miles, at which point a parking area will come up on your left.

Start the trail in the gravel parking area and then cross VA-311 towards the clearing in the trees.

The trail starts off fairly reasonably, with some slightly rocky sections and somewhat steep terrain, but is not a difficuly hike. After about a mile of hiking, you'll come upon Johns Spring Shelter on your right. After another 1.1 miles, you'll pass Catawba Mountain Shelter, which is where I later chose to camp for the night. After passing the Catawba Mountain Shelter, the trail gets steeper, and this last 1.5 miles or so is the steepest part of the hike.

Along the way, be sure to look out for small pulloffs which can give you a neat sneak-peek at the view you'll get once you reach the top of the knob. Here, you can see what I believe to be part of the town of Abbott.

After just under 4 miles of hiking, you'll be rewarded with that famous view.

Always be careful about it, but sitting with your legs over the ledge is one of the more popular photo opps on this hike.

Don't forget to take advantage of the full panorama, though; here's an excellent picture I got while standing McAfee Knob's famous outcropping, looking back in the direction of the trail.

If you plan it right, you can stick around at the top and wait for a nice sunset picture; the sun sets in in roughly the same direction as the previous picture was taken.

Unfortunately, I didn't stick around and wait for the full sunset, as there had been a fairly high volume of bear sightings in the area recently and I wasn't particularly keen on hiking alone in the dark given those prospects. So after eating a small dinner of country ham and fruit which I had bought that morning at the Roanoke Farmers' Market, I packed up my bag and headed back down to the Catawba Mountain Shelter.

I set up my hammock fairly far away from the shelter, as there was a fairly sizeable group of people already camping there, but after a few hours, one of them came by and invited me to hang out with them by the fire. We had a great time just hanging out and talking about hiking and life.

For a map of the trail, click here

For additional pictures from the hike, click here.