Hike #13: Seneca Rocks Trail (Monongahela National Forest)

Katherine Allen

Jun 14

Hike #13 took me back to Monongahela National Forest, where I was able to spend a night under the stars in the shadows of Seneca Rocks, one of West Virginia’s most unique rock formations, and a major attraction to rock climbers all across the U.S.

· Fast hike facts:

1. Monongahela National Forest

3. Seneca Rocks Trail

4. 38.90149760082137, -79.37219447371993

5. 4.3 Miles

6. 2 Hours

Seneca Rocks is located in Pendleton County, West Virginia, which is about 4 hours away from my home base. To access this trail, I camped at Seneca Shadows Campground, and let me just say that I was so lucky to be able to camp here; not only because of the views from my site, but because I snagged the last available campsite for the night (if not the whole weekend). Don’t be like me - plan ahead and use a site like recreation.gov to book your campsites in advance.

I camped in a part of the campground that was essentially a wide open meadow with tents scattered throughout. One word to describe this area - community. This is where you want to camp if you’d like to chat with your neighbors and exchange some campfire stories. But, the best part of my entire camping experience was the view of Seneca Rocks from the center of the meadow.

However, there are more isolated sites in other parts of the campground if that is what you’re looking for!

For this hike, all I needed was a granola bar and some water. It was a consistently uphill trek for about 2 miles that gave way to some seriously breathtaking views. I would call this hike easy to moderate. It is so consistently traveled that there are a lot of adaptations made to the trail to improve accessibility. It rained on the day of my hike, so I was pretty lucky and the trail wasn’t too crowded.

Trailhead directions can be found on All Trails or using the coordinates above!