Mount Trashmore Park: Home to Virginia Beach’s Peter Toth Whispering Giant

Most people don’t get excited when you tell them you’re visiting a former landfill.

Honestly, I didn’t get excited because it used to be a landfill either.

I got excited because I knew exactly why we were here.

Years ago, when I would visit my parents in Virginia Beach, I would pack the kids into the car and head to Mount Trashmore. They’d spend hours running between playgrounds, climbing the painted stairs, and burning off enough energy to make the drive back to my parents’ house a little quieter.

Back then, I wasn’t chasing roadside attractions or trying to visit every Peter Toth Whispering Giant I could find. Mount Trashmore was simply one of our favorite places to spend an afternoon while visiting family.

This trip was different.

The kids are grown now. Zach had never been here before, and this time we came to see one of Peter Toth’s Whispering Giants.

From Landfill to Landmark

Before it became one of Virginia Beach’s best-known parks, Mount Trashmore was the city’s municipal landfill.

In the late 1960s, city leaders figured there was a better use for the site than just closing it and walking away. Instead of just capping the landfill and calling it a day, the city buried roughly 640,000 tons of trash under layers of clean soil and grass and built a park on top of it—the first of its kind in the country. It sounds like the setup for a bad joke, but somehow it worked.

Mount Trashmore officially opened in 1973, and that main hill climbs about 60 feet. Today, it’s hard to imagine there’s an old landfill beneath your feet. Families picnic here, people fish in the lakes, kids race across the playgrounds, and walkers circle the paved trails without giving much thought to what came before.

Honestly, if someone hadn’t told you the history—or if the park wasn’t named Mount Trashmore—you’d probably never guess.

A Peter Toth Whispering Giant

Our reason for coming back had nothing to do with the landfill history.

Nope. We came for the giant wooden guy hiding under the trees.

If you’ve been following our adventures through Peter Toth’s Trail of the Whispering Giants, you already know we’re slowly making our way around the country visiting as many of his carvings as we can.

Virginia Beach’s carving has stood inside Mount Trashmore for a minute, tucked beneath a canopy of trees that actually worked in our favor during a rainy visit.

We spent about ten minutes walking around the sculpture, reading the plaque, and admiring the details. When we noticed the dedication date—1976—I had to smile. That’s also the year my brother was born.

The feather immediately caught all of our attention. Zach, though, kept coming back to the carved teeth.

Mason couldn’t get over the fact that the entire sculpture was carved from a single tree trunk and has been standing here for nearly fifty years.

CarriAnna appreciated the carving, but I think she was mostly waiting for us to move on to whatever came next.

Let’s be honest…there’s only so much time you can spend staring at a giant wood carving. But if you’re interested in Peter Toth’s work, it’s absolutely worth the stop.

I don’t know if it’s technically the tallest Whispering Giant we’ve visited, but that feather certainly makes it feel like it. Between the height of the carving and the surrounding trees, getting the entire sculpture into one photo wasn’t easy.

Then the Three Daredevils Found the Skate Park

As soon as we finished with Peter Toth’s carving, the skate park won everyone’s attention except mine.

Mount Trashmore’s skate park is no joke—street features, bowls, rails, and a vert ramp tall enough that just looking at it made my stomach drop. I’m a thrill-seeker. I just prefer my adrenaline with seatbelts and engineering.

But guess who immediately climbed to the top?

Not me.

Zach, Mason, and CarriAnna walked right up, leaned over the edge, joked about falling, and acted like they were considering dropping in.

They absolutely were not.

Nobody was even close to the edge, nobody attempted anything ridiculous, and nobody suddenly decided to knee-skate down the ramp. They were simply entertaining themselves while I stayed safely on solid ground wondering why anyone voluntarily climbs that high in the first place.

Every family has roles.

Mine apparently consists of me looking at historical carvings while everyone else looks for something tall to climb.

There’s More Here Than We Saw This Time

Because the weather wasn’t exactly cooperating, we kept this visit fairly short.

Having spent so much time here years ago with my kids, I know there’s a lot more to Mount Trashmore than we experienced this time around.

If you’re traveling with younger kids, pack a lunch.

Seriously.

There are multiple playgrounds, plenty of picnic shelters, walking trails, open fields, and enough space for kids to burn off energy for hours. Mine certainly did.

One thing I’ve always appreciated is that the park includes therapeutic cradle swings.

Teenagers will disappear toward the skate park. Or maybe the sand volleyball courts. You’ll spot people fishing, walking the trails, flying kites, or just sitting on a bench. Basically, everybody finds their own corner of Mount Trashmore, and nobody’s bored.

Final Thoughts

We came back to Mount Trashmore to visit another Peter Toth Whispering Giant.

This time, my kids weren’t interested in playgrounds anymore.

Instead, I watched everyone admire the details in a nearly fifty-year-old wood carving before immediately wandering over to the tallest thing they could find.

If you’re following Peter Toth’s Trail of the Whispering Giants, Mount Trashmore is an easy stop to add to your list. And once you’ve finished admiring the carving, don’t rush back to the parking lot.

There’s a pretty great park waiting beyond the carving.