There is a warm spot in my heart for the southwest corner of Virginia and we were thrilled to spend Easter weekend there with both Chris and my family.

The Creeper Trail is a 34.3 mile Rails-to-Trails project stretching from White Top to Abingdon Virginia. In addition to the beautiful scenery, the trail also has the advantage of gently sloping downhill for the first 17 miles to Damascus! My favorite way to bike 🙂 Most people catch a shuttle in Damascus and bike back, making for a not-too-strenuous day in nature.

Since we stay at my grandparent’s place (use this link to get $40 off your first airbnb stay) we just roll our bikes down the driveway and roll down the trail at the 30 mile mark. It’s fantastic because if we leave the house at 9 or 10 we beat the crowds on the trails and don’t have much competition for the return shuttles. If we are missing the first 4 miles of trail, we can take the shuttle to the top and bike down them at the end of the day.

We put the kids in the trailer and start down the wide dirt and gravel path. They always doze off at some point during the trip.

The path snakes through the woods, past farms and tiny towns, and along the winding Laurel River. Depending on the season you can expect to see hikers coming from Georgia to Maine (the AT meets the Creeper Trail in Damascus and stays together for a couple miles), fishermen in the river, beautiful rustic farms, incredible trees, old wooden bridges, and many happy bikers.

We take around 2.5 hours with a couple stops, grab lunch and playground time in Damascus, and then catch the shuttle back. My parents have been known to continue another 17 miles to Abingdon, but we have yet to attempt that. I’m saving it for when the kids can pull me in the trailer!

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not much of a biker, but the gentle slope along this stretch of trail is delightful to ride and Damascus is a wonderful town to end up in. I cannot recommend this trail enough as the perfect family weekend getaway. We biked down with 3 generations this weekend and everyone had a blast!

 

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