It was a bright sunny morning, although a bit humid and icky when I left home. I left home about 10 am and arrived at Swift Run Gap (the closest entrance to the southern district of the park) at about Noon! I was very happy (and surprised) because I thought it was a solid 3 hours just to get to the southern part of the park!
When I was at the entrance station (buying my new National Parks Pass) I could feel the cool breeze of the mountain air! As I began driving down Skyline Drive I watched the temp drop - 72, 70, 68, 66....66 was as low as it went, but still! It was so nice up there! :-)
Once in the park my 1st stop was the Loft Mt. Wayside/Gift Shop, where I scouted anything that was flat that I could decoupage to a table. I found a few things, and a new T-shirt! After my brief stop I headed down to mile marker 90 to hike to Chimney Rocks.
The PATC has a new-ish guide with hikes to Peaks and Vistas. It's a small guide, about 10 hikes total and all the hikes are relatively short. The hike to Chimney Rocks is the longest in the book at 3.4 miles roundtrip. As I started down the trail I heard something big in the brush - I couldn't exactly tell what it was as it was moving away from me - I saw a long neck, it wasn't ugly enough to be a turkey, so I'm guessing it was grouse.
Before too long the trail began heading down hill. Hmmm...this was a bit odd - I'm hiking to a peak and I'm going downhill? It was fine by me, I much prefer hiking uphill, so am happy to get the downhill out of the way 1st! Eventually the trail went back up and soon I walked out into a huge boulder field with some amazing views! I checked the guide and was surprised to see that this was not Chimney Rocks - rather it was Calvary Rocks. Chimney Rocks was another .2 miles down the trail. So I set off. I walked around some cool big rocks, then the trail opened back up to woods and I was headed steadily downhill. hmm....I was pretty sure I'd walked more that .2 miles so I turned around and headed back. The book was a big vague on where Chimney Rocks was exactly and I never did find it. I just went back and enjoyed Calvary Rocks.
I was sitting on a rock, on the top of this mountain, having a snack and my phone (which was buried in my pack, I'd forgotten I'd even had it!) went "bluurrppp" - the noise it makes when I get a text! I looked down and sure enough I had almost full coverage, voice and data! Better coverage than I have in my living room! LOL!
When I got back to the car it was only 3:30 and I decided that I could get in 1 more short hike to a peak - it was a perfect clear sunny day so def a day to take advantage of the views! I drove back to a picnic area to use the facilities - thought it was closer than it was. Then headed down to mile-marker 94 to hike up Turk Mt.
I realized that Skyline Drive is only 105 miles long and I was super close to the end. I decided to drive down to end before hiking, mostly for the bragging rights to be able to say that I'd driving every mile of Skyline Drive. I didn't make it all the way to the end, was about 2 miles shy when I turned around at the last overlook.
Turk Mt was a 2.2 mile roundtrip hike - the guidebook said it was a gradual uphill until the very end. I headed out. Oddly enough the 1st part of the trail was again, downhill. What was with these southern district summit hikes, going down to go up? I checked the book and sure enough you had to go down into the saddle of the mountain, then back up again. About 3/4 of the way down there was a view of what looked like a very large mountain, my 1st thought was, that's Turk Mt. Then I couldn't see how a "gradually uphill" trail could make it to the top of that in less than a mile - the summit is only a mile from the parking area and I'd already come prob a 1/4 mile. Well, it did! It was gradual, but the end was pretty steep. At the summit you have a climb out on the boulders to get to the view - I didn't go all the way out, but I got some good pics!
As I was crawling out onto the boulders, my phone again went "blurrpppp" - I'd gotten another text on a mountain top! This time I didn't dig it out to see how much coverage I had, I got a 3rd text as I was heading down. Amazing. Maybe I'll have as good luck with coverage in Maine? Although I was close to both Charlottesville and Waynesboro.
Back at the car I decided to drive up to Big Meadows to see if their gift shop had anything different in the way of "artifacts" for my table.
A few miles into my drive up Skyline Drive I encountered a bear. He (She?) was just walking down Skyline Drive like he belonged there (which of course he does!). I managed to get a pretty cool pic of him after he bounded into the woods.
It was 7:15 when I got to Big Meadows and the sun was sinking low in the sky and I thought that there might be a spectacular sunset. So I decided to continue north on Skyline drive to try and catch the sunset. It was looking like it was going to be pretty good there for awhile, but then right about 8:00 or so the clouds started building and by the time the sun set the horizon was ensconced in clouds and you could hardly see a thing. :-(
I did end up driving all the way to Front Royal on Skyline Drive - in an attempt to keep moving toward home while "stalking" the sunset. I saw three more bears from the car - 1 that ran in front of the car and two more in the woods that someone else saw and was stopped looking at them when I drove up so they pointed them out to me.
I finally left the park at 9:00 and headed home down 66. Took me about 3 hours to get from my house to the 1st hiking trail and 4.5 hours to get from the hike home! :-)
Be sure to check out my pictures in the album!
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| Shenandoah National Park 7-6-09 |
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