Photo courtesy of Primland
One of the cottages at Primland Resort.
Alexandrians looking for a fall foliage weekend that doesn't involve Skyline Drive traffic have a reason to move fast.
The Lodge at Primland, Auberge Collection, the 12,000-acre mountain estate in Meadows of Dan, Patrick County, opens its fall calendar this Friday with two days of experiences built around Appalachian trout — and follows it with a season's worth of new additions, from a pizza truck parked in a meadow to padel courts to a closet of borrowed Barbour coats.
First up: Smoke In Chimneys weekend, Sept. 11-12
Friday and Saturday bring three separate events in partnership with Ty Walker, owner of Smoke In Chimneys.
Photo courtesy of The Lodge at Primland
Ty Walker of Smoke in Chimneys prepares trout.
Walker and his wife, Shannon, revived a 1930s trout hatchery in New Castle, in Craig County, and now raise rainbow and brook trout in gravity-fed earthen ponds supplied by a limestone spring — no electricity, no additives. The farm has become a favorite of chefs across Virginia and Washington, D.C., and ships to Michelin-starred kitchens up the East Coast.
Friday, 5 to 7 p.m.: Walker fires up the smoker outside Stables Saloon and hands out samples of freshly smoked trout. The tasting is complimentary, though dinner reservations at Stables Saloon are required; a Smoke In Chimneys dish joins the menu that night.
Saturday, 2 to 3 p.m.: “Trout Craft: A Farm-to-Table Experience,” a hands-on workshop covering the basics of preparing fresh trout. Participants make a trout dip together and go home with a jar of it, plus a recipe card and seasoning. It's $95 per person, service charge included, and reservations are required.
Saturday, 6 to 8 p.m.: Dinner at Leatherflower, the resort's fine dining room, with a trout feature built for the occasion. Reservations required.
Then, all season: pizza with a mountain view
Photo courtesy of The Lodge at Primland
A family enjoys pizza at Primland.
Once the weekend clears, the resort's new Wandering Hearth Pizza Truck carries the fall through. It sits beside Stables Saloon, serving handcrafted pies and drinks from a meadow with long views of the Blue Ridge.
The menu runs from margherita and pepperoni to BBQ pulled pork and mushroom artichoke. The setup is deliberately unhurried — outdoor tables, no dress code and the kind of afternoon that stretches longer than planned.
Courts, bocce and a game room in the old stables
Stables Saloon, which occupies Primland's former horse stables and is a stop on The Crooked Road: Virginia's Heritage Music Trail, has expanded well beyond bluegrass and Southern suppers.
Outside, guests can now play pickleball, padel, basketball, bocce, horseshoes, croquet and soccer. Inside, a new game room called Saddle Lounge offers billiards, shuffleboard, board games and arcade machines — a useful backup plan when the mountain weather turns, and an easy sell for families and multigenerational groups.
Padel, the racquet sport that has boomed in Europe and is now spreading fast through the United States, is still hard to find in Virginia outside a handful of metro-area clubs.
Into the cooler months: borrowed Barbour for the trails
Photo courtesy of The Lodge at Primland
Guests try out Barbour outerwear at Primland.
As the foliage turns, Primland's partnership with the British outerwear brand Barbour continues with the Barbour Borrowing Closet, which lends guests the brand's waxed outerwear for the duration of their stay before they head out across the property's trails.
It's a small touch with a practical payoff: Meadows of Dan sits at roughly 3,000 feet, and mornings there run considerably cooler than they do along the Potomac.
If you go
The Lodge at Primland is at 2000 Busted Rock Road, Meadows of Dan, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway — roughly a five-hour drive from Alexandria via Interstate 81 and Roanoke. Lodging ranges from rooms in the main lodge to fairway cottages and treehouses perched above the Dan River Gorge.
For the trout weekend, Stables Saloon and Leatherflower reservations are on OpenTable; the Saturday workshop is booked through the resort at 276-222-6837. Details are at auberge.com/primland.
