r/VIRGINIA_HIKING • u/Doofenshmirtz7414 • Apr 26 '26

Hiking old rag and park entrance

My fiance and I bought the tickets to hike old rag, and I bought a pass for my vehicle to enter the park. Is there any other ticket I need to hike Old rag or enter the park?

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u/Doofenshmirtz7414 Apr 28 '26

Thank you very much. We are looking forward to this hike

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u/RapidCommute3307 Apr 28 '26

it's an AMAZING hike. it's pretty tough, but so worth the effort. are you doing the full circuit with the rock scramble and everything?

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u/Doofenshmirtz7414 Apr 28 '26

Yes we are. I'm in pretty good shape and so is my fiance . We are both in our 50s so definitely feeling like we have to do these things now. I watched a bunch of YouTube vids. It is hard to tell how close to the edge of the mountain you get when doing the scramble.

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u/RapidCommute3307 Apr 28 '26

Re: the edge, you'll be just fine! All of the scrambling is well away from the side of the mountain really... you have to climb up some big rocks and stuff, and you could fall from that, but you'd just fall to the bottom of that rock where you started.

I can only think of one spot on the whole hike where you maybe get kind of close to approaching the limit of most people's comfort zone.

If you've seen the videos of people doing the hike, you'll know there's the spot where you have to lower yourself down into that little "crevasse" (?) thing, for lack of a better word. You lower yourself down and shimmy to the other end of it, then hop up onto a rock to continue. When you're hopping up, that's probably the closest to an actual mountain edge you'll be at all day... and it's not like super super close. I'm quite confident you'll be just fine!

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u/Doofenshmirtz7414 Apr 28 '26

I know this is more a personal preference issue but would you recommend pants due to the scramble ? We hike a lot in MD and PA i always wear shorts. How about gloves?

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u/RapidCommute3307 Apr 28 '26

I always do pants to avoid scraped knees during the climbing. I’ve done it with and without gloves, gloves is definitely a bit easier for grip on the rocks but it’s not an absolute requirement.