"A Thin slice of country " a Shenandoah National Park Travel Page by chewy3326

The 196,000-acre Shenandoah National Park stretches from Front Royal to Waynesboro over the Blue Ridge Mts. Luckily for me, it's a close 2-hr drive away.

I visited Shenandoah in August 2003, but didn't get many photos because of the constant haze (smog, actually) that hangs over the park. I came back in May 2006, and found the air quality to be somewhat better than it was in my first visit. Two things were similar both times: heat, and good scenery.

Skyline Drive winds 105 miles through the length of the park; both times, I've only visited the central section of the park (between Thornton Gap and Swift Run Gap), mainly because that is where the main visitor facilities as well as some of the best scenery is.

To compare the smog in the Blue Ridge at different times, look at this photo....

... and then this one. The sky is probably clearest during winter and fall; often, if you're driving US 29 between Culpeper and Charlottesville, the Blue Ridge Mountains will be visible during those times.

Shenandoah National Park is a thin and long park that stretches from Waynesboro on I-64 to Front Royal on I-66. 100-mile Skyline Drive runs the length of the park, and the park also contains about 105 miles of the Appalachian Trail. The park is divided into three sections: the north, central, and south sections.

Shenanodoah National Park was established during the Great Depression of the 1930's. The Blue Ridge Mountains were originally inhabited, but the state of Virginia helped to relocate and resettle those who lived in the mountains and reforested the land, which is gradually returning to its natural state. Since Congress refused to appropriate funds to purchasing land for the park, the state of Virginia ended bearing the costs and donated the land to the US Government.

Autumn is generally considered the best season to visit Shenandoah. Fall foliage is spectacular and skies are clear. In winter, trees in the park are bare and somewhat ugly; though snow does beautify the scene. However, after heavy snowfall, Skyline Drive is usually closed (the park receives about 40 inches of snow a year in higher elevations).

In May 2007, I returned to Shenandoah to do a hike that I've been looking forward to for a long time: Old Rag Mountain. Old Rag is the mountain pictured in all of the three photos here. At 3268 feet tall, it's not the highest mountain in the area; but it is detached from the main Blue Ridge and stands alone; therefore to climb it, you must start from the base. Also, because the mountain is detached, it has the best views of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the park. However, the trail up the mountain isn't easy; besides switchbacks, there's also a difficult rock scramble.