Permits to Hike Old Rag Begin March 1

For those who live in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah National Park, the nearness of Old Rag is a convenience many have taken for granted, popping up to hike whenever it was nice weather or when the mountains were calling.

Beginning tomorrow, March 1, there can no longer be impromptu, off-the-cuff trips to Old Rag because a new system of securing permits, or reserving in advance, will be implemented by the National Park Service. The mountain, always a popular destination, has been over-loved during the pandemic with hordes of hikers hitting the trail especially on the weekends.

Reporter Lizzie Johnson at the Washington Post has a good article about those who hike the mountain, some on a regular basis, and their thoughts concerning permitting at the very popular and thus very crowded area of the Park.

Details about how to obtain permits can be found here.

While at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado last summer, we ran into this system of securing admission. Unsure what days we would be in that area, we couldn’t pre-plan with entrance permits to the park that are necessary 9am-3pm from May until mid-October.

However, RMNP had a loophole. Arrival before 9:00am or after 3:00pm allowed admission without a permit which worked well with the out-of-state visitors. We made multiple trips to the park, including entering before 9 and staying all day. It worked well for our trip and introduced us to the throttling back of visitors in the most popular National Parks in the country.

The $1 permits needed to hike Old Rag are only for the mountain, not for Shenandoah National Park where a separate entrance fee is collected.

Cover photo of Shenandoah National Park by Lynn R. Mitchell