Shenandoah National Park
Traces Trail
FamiliesHistory BuffsBeginners
0 mi Distance
1-2 hours Estimated Time
Out & Back Trail Type
What to Expect
The Traces Trail is a quiet loop through second-growth forest around Mathews Arm Campground, and it rewards the attentive hiker more than the athletic one. The path is wide, well-maintained, and gentle — a modest climb that barely registers in your legs — but the real work is in the looking. Scattered through the woods are the remnants of families who farmed these ridges before the park displaced them in the 1930s: stone walls running nowhere, collapsed chimneys half-swallowed by oak roots, old terracing that reveals where a hillside was once tilled. The forest has been reclaiming this land for nearly a century, which makes the traces feel like archaeology. This trail is ideal for campers at Mathews Arm looking for an unhurried morning loop, families with young kids, and anyone who finds the human history of these mountains as compelling as the scenery.
Trail Details
Estimated Time 1-2 hours
Trail Type Out & Back
Pets Dogs allowed (leash required)
Season Year-round
Trailhead Traces Trail
- 1
If you're camping at Mathews Arm, walk this trail in the hour before dark — the low-angle light picks out the old stone walls and chimney remains far better than midday sun filtering through the canopy.
- 2
Bring a field guide to Appalachian homestead plants: non-native daffodils, lilacs, and patches of periwinkle are telltale signs of former yards and garden plots, and spotting them sharpens the whole historical narrative.
- 3
Late fall and early spring, when the understory is bare, is when the homestead foundations become easiest to trace — the stone outlines that disappear into summer leaf cover suddenly read as clear floor plans.
Photos
NPS
