This was the first stop on our weekend tour. We got there just at midnight. We followed these directions we found on a website called Angelfire. Basically you go down 40 West until you reach the 4-way flashers in Staunton. You make a left and follow the road until you come to a 4-way stop. Make a right and go through town. Follow the road around the sharp curve to the left until you come to another 4-way stop. Make a right and follow the road about a mile or so. You will come to another fairly sharp curve to the right and the cemetery will be on your right on top of the hill. The other directions, we later found out are to go down 40 West past the 4-way flashers in Staunton. On 675 W you make a left and follow that road about 1/4 a mile. The cemetery is on your left. I definitely recommend using the first set of directions, especially if you go at night. The roads are extremely dark, most of them gravel and single lanes. There is a canopy of trees that covers any possible moonlight. You have to use your high beams and even then you can't see very far ahead. It reminded us of dozens of scary movies where people are out driving at night and suddenly some crazed maniac pops out of the woods into the middle of the road. All of this sets the mood.
Anyway, you definitely want to bring a flashlight (the one on my phone didn't do much). Legend has it that you count the steps as you are going up. This is pretty difficult to do since a.) it's pitch black out there and b.) the stairs are so old that many steps are broken and missing. Well, count them anyway on your way up. When you get to the top you turn around and face the open field. The ghost of the cemetery's first caretaker will appear and show you a vision of your own death. When you go down you count the steps again and if the number is the same as on the way up you are safe. But if the number is different you are supposed to die in the manner revealed to you in the vision. If you try and cheat and go up the hill on the grass not using the stairs, you will get pushed to the ground by a phantom hand that will leave a red imprint on your back for several days. Definitely spooky.
Now for the reality. Nothing happened. You can't really count the steps in any reasonable manner. Parts of them are just grass. Even still there aren't anything close to 100 steps. More like 60, maybe. What we did experience was an almost total silence and absolute darkness. When we turned off our flashlights you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. But when you looked up in the sky you were able to see millions of stars. It was simply breathtaking. Living in the city, we don't get to experience that kind of silence and see that many stars. We tried to take some pictures but it was impossible to get anything to show up. So we came back the next day and took some.
It is an old cemetery. Many of the grave markers are from the mid 1860's. Several are broken and there is a bit of graffiti on some of them. But all in all it is a beautiful and peaceful place. The creepiest part of this cemetery are the roads leading up to it if you are driving at night. During the day it is a beautiful drive.
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