St. Mary's Wilderness

I had done hike to St. Mary's Wilderness on 29th June 2014 . It is located in Virginia State at Blue Ridge Parkway.
Hike Location
Name: St. Mary's Wilderness
Distance: 94 miles from Richmond(approx)
Total hiking distance: 10.1 miles.
Altitude: 3200 ft.
Hike Team: Sujay and me
Hiking Experience:Started around 6:39 am from Honey Tree and reached Sujay's place by 6:52 am. Started to Hike location around 7:00 am.  Reached the parking location by 8:47 am. There were few cars already in the parking lot. Had our breakfast and started for the hike around 9:07 am.The start of the trail is a narrow path along the side of the Kiosk board. The trail was covered by trees on both sides and there were no markings on the trail. First time have seen a trail in us without any markings. After walking for few yards we reached the intersection of Bald Mountain and Mine Bank Creek trail, where we took left and started walking on Mine Bank Creek Trail. The trail lead us deep into the jungle and it was steep down. It was leading us to the valley of the hill through the middle of the jungle. It was dense forest with lot of trees. The climate was good all through the day with continuous breeze throughout the hike.we crossed the small river streams while going through the narrow trail. There were invisible small thin spider web  along the path initially. The path is covered by leaves making the surface smoother. Slowly as we approached valley, the path is full of stones making it hard to descend further into the valley. We reached the St. Mary River Trail. Took a right onto the trail and started towards the green pond. Another half an hour or so the trail still steeped down. We reached a campsite at the valley.
                       

 To the right side we saw a small narrow trail which is very steep upward. we hiked the path and continue on the trail to green pond. The slope of the trail increased gradually. The trail is full of stones on it and covered by trees. While walking along the trail, it became sunny and temperature around us started heating up. We have couple of diversions on the trail which might lead us to different trail or path. we stick to the map we have and followed as per it.After hiking for around 1.2 miles we reached the forest road(mud road) which is broader road and used by 4*4 vehicles ad mud bikes as well. We were not able to see the green pong as it was small and not along the trail path. It was pretty boring walk on the forest road. we have stopped on the mud road for lunch around 11:55 am. Had proper lunch and started again by 12:20 pm. There were so many turns initially on the mud road but as we moved ahead it was a pretty straight boring walk with few campsites being sighted on either side of the path. After walking overall distance of 1.9 miles on the mud road, to the right there was a small narrow trail. It was Bald Mountain trail. The trail again lead us deep into the jungle and it was very steep descent. The trail was very narrow and most of the path was covered by small plants and bushes. We could not see the trail ahead due to these thorny bushes.
                        We reached the valley of the mountain after many twists and turns across the trail. After crossing the valley stream the trail started going upward towards the top of the hill. We followed the trail, it was not at all well maintained. There were so many hurdles along the trail and many trees obstructed the path. There was valley on one side and trees on other side of the trail. We continued hiking along the steep path until we finally reached the intersection where took left in the beginning. we came from the left side of the trail and headed towards parking. We reached the parking lot by 2:09 am. We completed the entire loop within 5 hours. Overall it was a great different hiking experience. There were many times where we looked for directions in the map to ensure we were on the right track as the trail was not blazed. We left the parking and reached home around 4:11 pm. All is Well.