Glen Lyn Town Park (Blog Hike #797)

Trails: R.J. Foote and Mary Ingles Trails
Hike Location: Glen Lyn Town Park
Geographic Location: east of Princeton, WV (37.37263, -80.85825)
Length: 1.9 miles
Difficulty: 2/10 (Easy)
Date Hiked: June 2020
Overview: An out-and-back with side trip partially on asphalt trail along the New River.
Park Information: https://glenlyn.org/town-park/
Hike Route Map: https://www.mappedometer.com/?maproute=816996
Photo Highlight:

Hike Video: 

Directions to the trailhead: From Princeton, take US 460 east 13.1 miles to the New River bridge, which marks your entrance into Virginia.  Immediately after crossing the New River bridge, turn right to enter Glen Lyn Town Park.  Park in the small parking lot beside the red caboose and picnic shelter.

The hike: The date was July 1755 when the Shawnee attacked a white settlement near present-day Blacksburg, VA, killing some of its members and transporting others hundreds of miles northwest as prisoners.  One of their captives was a 23 year old daughter of Irish immigrants named Mary Draper Ingles.  Against all odds, Ingles managed to escape her captors and walk alone for hundreds of miles up the Ohio, Kanawha, and New Rivers back to her home valley.  She would later move to Radford, VA where she would live to the ripe old age of 83.

            Today the journey of young Mrs. Ingles is commemorated as the Mary Draper Ingles Trail, a collection of sites and experiences in southwest Virginia.  One site on the Mary Draper Ingles Trail is an actual hiking trail that starts at Glen Lyn Town Park and follows the New River downstream along the Virginia/West Virginia border.  The park also offers a 1.73 mile asphalt bike trail called the R. J. Foote Trail, and combining the Mary Ingles Trail with part of the bike trail forms the hike described here.  While this hike is not one of the more scenic hikes in this region, it offers an easy one hour leg stretch to break up the drive along US 460.

Information kiosk at trailhead

Red caboose at trailhead

            The asphalt bike path crosses the campground entrance road just past the parking lot; a port-o-let, red caboose, picnic shelter, and information kiosk also stand here.  The bike path heads west with the river and campground on your left.  After walking under US 460's New River bridge, you reach the signed start of the Mary Ingles Trail.  Turn left to leave the asphalt and begin the single-track dirt trail.

Start of Mary Ingles Trail

            Marked with orange/yellow rectangular paint blazes, the Mary Ingles Trail starts by tracing around a nice meadow that offers New River views to the left.  The river was high and muddy when I came here in mid-June, and some nice lavender flowers added color to the meadow.  Past the meadow, the trail crosses a stream on stepping stones and climbs steeply but only for a short distance to leave the New River floodplain.  At the top of the hill, a wood and wire fence adorned with a sign that says "Private Property, No Trespassing" blocks the trail.  The orange/yellow blazes clearly continue past the fence, and while I could tell some trail users had scaled the fence and continued downstream, I turned around and headed back to the asphalt bike path.

Hiking through a small meadow

            Upon reaching the bike path, turn left to continue heading toward the Glen Lyn town center.  The asphalt climbs gradually paralleling first US 460 and then Houston Lane.  If you look over your right shoulder near the intersection of US 460 and Houston Lane, views of Glen Lyn and a power plant appear across the New River.  The asphalt bike path becomes a concrete sidewalk when it begins following Houston Lane.

Glen Lyn Municipal Building

View across New River

            The sidewalk ends at the Glen Lyn Municipal Building, a white building with four columns that looks like a large house.  Turn around here and retrace your steps back to the Glen Lyn Town Park to complete the hike.  The rain began falling on me as I walked back into the park, but the R. J. Foote Trail also forms an asphalt loop that goes through an open mowed-grass area east of the parking lot.  Adding this loop increases the distance but not the scenery or difficulty of this hike.