Belfast Trail — Devils Marbleyard

The James River Face outlier, 40 miles up the Blue Ridge from the Triple Crown — a short, steep walk into Virginia's oldest designated wilderness that ends at its strangest sight. From the Belfast trailhead on Petites Gap Road (~305m) the trail crosses Elk Creek past the stone pillars of the 1920s Camp Powhatan and climbs the Belfast Creek hollow into the James River Face Wilderness. At ~1.4 miles the forest simply stops: Devils Marbleyard, an eight-acre river of white antietam-quartzite blocks — car-sized and larger — pouring 500 vertical feet down the flank of the ridge at around 2,000ft. Hikers scramble straight up the boulders (grippy rock, real route-finding) or continue on the trail along its edge; from the top of the field the James River gorge and Arnold Valley spread below. Legend blames a cursed missionary camp; geology answers with a frost-shattered Cambrian sea floor.