Wilderness Wandering

October 14, 2024

As Yosemite and Yellowstone captured the imaginations of Americans and showcased the wonders of the American West, there were no parks in the east where the vast majority of the population lived. Shenandoah was created to bring the national park experience to people living in the east. 

We arrived about sunset on October 13. We didn’t realize it was Columbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and therefore a holiday weekend. We were arriving a day early and didn’t have a reservation. We got lucky and someone had left a day early, so we pulled in and got settled.  The campground host came by and asked if we had a reservation for this site.  We said “No”.  He said he’d give us the reserved tag to put on it, but that we had to go out and find cell service and call the 800 # for the park service and come back. We did that and got back after dark. We had a quick meal and campfire and called it a day. 

Monday we got up and were out of the campground about 7:30 AM. We saw the remnants of a beautiful sunrise as we drove along the Skyline Drive.

Shenandoah is a rather long narrow park through the Blue Ridge Mountains. It is only 75 miles from Washington DC. The Skyline Drive runs the entire 105 mile length of the park. All the sites, accommodations and trails are marked by their distance along Skyline Drive. 

We hiked the Compton Gap Trail, a 2.4 mile moderate hike. As we crossed the parking lot, we noticed three men  about our age sitting on the ground with large backpacks.  They had just finished hiking 100 miles through the park over 9 days and were waiting for their ride. 

The hiking here is quite rocky. At the top of the hike, there were arms to the trail the left and the right. 1/4 mile to the right was a great view. 1/4 mile to the left was a fascinating geological formation called columnar jointing. We also were able to access the Appalachian Trail and walked a little bit of that. 

Next we drove back to the north entrance of the park and into town to fill up with gas. Then back into the park and the Visitors Center. We spoke with a fabulously helpful young ranger about hikes. We also watched a Ranger talk about planning your day along The Skyline Trail. And we stamped the passport. 

We set back out and stopped for lunch at one of the many pullouts along the Skyline Drive.  Several people wanted a tour of our van, which we love doing. 

After lunch, we drove to the Mary’s Rock trailhead at mile 31. The wind picked up and the temperature dropped. Mary’s Rock is a moderate 2.8 mile hike to a rocky 360 degree view. It was very windy at the summit. Back down and back at Calypso, we continued on to Big Meadows Campground and hunkered down for the evening. We decided it was too windy and chilly for a campfire. We ate, charged up the Jackery and caught up on the blog and some other chores. 

October 15, 2024

We woke up to deer milling around the campsite. It was still very chilly, but the wind had died down. We checked out Big Meadows Lodge. It had a roaring log fire in the lobby. It was difficult to leave. 

We began the day on the Rose River Falls trail at mile 49.  It’s a moderate 4 mile loop with two sets of great water falls – Rose River and Dark Hollow. We ran into very few people. 

We did meet a woman from Davenport, Iowa who saw a black bear near the Rose River Falls, but the bear was gone when we got there. 

It began to rain about 2/3 way through the hike. 

After the hike we decided to dry off and backtrack to Skyland, mile 42 to check out the lodge and other amenities there and wait for the rain to end.  We ate lunch at the van and took our books into the cafe at Skyland. We ordered hot chocolate and a slice of Mile High Blackberry Ice Cream Pie. It seemed like our poor server had half the tables in the restaurant. She was really working hard. She still took great care of us! The pie had graham cracker crust with a thick layer of blackberry ice cream followed by an even thicker layer of meringue and drizzled with a very chunky blackberry sauce. I’d never had anything like it. As Tim said, “ The only thing better than pie with ice cream, is pie made of ice cream!”

We read and ate for a while and by the time we were done, the sun was peaking through the clouds. We decided to do one more hike. We chose Bearfence Mountain mile 56,  an intermediate 1 mile loop where you have to scramble over big boulders to reach excellent views. We were laughing like kids while we bouldered to the summit. The views were spectacular. We decided it was one of our favorite short hikes we have done!

We returned to the van and continued heading south on Skyline Drive to mile 80, Loft Mountain campground. The sites are not too secluded, but we are close to the bathroom, and the bathrooms have HOT water! When you’re chilled like we were, the hot water feels amazing. It’s the little things!

We heated up canned soup and made quesadillas for dinner. We did a load of laundry and I went back to Skyline Drive to try to catch some sunset photos. It was a pretty sunset, but not spectacular. We ran our Mr. Buddy heater to warm up the back of the van and dove under the covers for a good night’s sleep. 

October 16, 2024

We didn’t want to get out from under the covers this morning. It was 35 degrees outside (and inside too). When I did crawl out and scurry to the bathroom, there were three female Appalachian Trail hikers “camping” in the bathroom!

Once we got ready, we drove to mile 52 for the Mill Prong hike to President Hoover’s Rapidan Camp. Mill Prong is a 4 mile moderate out and back. The trail was really spectacular. It wound through a beautiful hardwood forest and meandered along several streams. There were three fun river crossings. We arrived at our destination, Rapidan Camp. Rapidan was President Hoover’s presidential escape like Camp David is today. Only three of the thirteen original buildings remain today. The site is spectacular! It stands at the intersection of 3 rivers. Hoover was an avid fisherman. As we arrived a volunteer (named Forrest ❤️) was opening up the Brown House, named that since it is a brown cottage, like the White House is white! Forrest gave us an excellent tour of the simple cabin that was the Hoover’s  summer retreat.  We were also able to tour a guest cottage. The third building is used as a residence for volunteers and not open for tours. 

Please let me fangirl about Lou Henry Hoover for a minute! She was the first female Stanford University grad in geology. She spoke 5 languages including Mandarin Chinese. She was the President of the Girl Scouts and loved the outdoors. She designed the buildings at Rapidan to incorporate the outdoors as much as possible. Between the windows, she designed areas that had screens that had hinged wooden shutters, so if you opened the windows and the shutters, you had a full wall of screens to capture the breeze. 

We loved this hike and the history lesson! Next we drove to a picnic area and had lunch. 

After lunch was Blackrock Summit, a .8 mile easy hike to beautiful views.  It was another fun hike. 

We drove back to our campground. I went exploring in the campground and discovered that the Appalachian Trail went right by the campground! I walked about a mile of the trail collecting leaves to make a leaf rainbow. 

We enjoyed dinner with a doe and her twin fans hanging out with us. We went inside the van and turned on our Mr. Buddy heater and Tim read while I went through all the photos and updated the blog. 

We had a great visit at Shenandoah National Park. There are many great hikes in the 2 to 4 mile moderate range, which makes the park family friendly.  We did not do the Old Rag hike, which is supposed to be the park’s most epic hike and Tim has decided he wants to ride his bike on the Skyline Drive. I have a hunch we will be back!