Shenandoah National Park

By the time I finished the drive, including downloading an app to tell me where I might find places that would refill my propane tank (it also tells of dump stations, campgrounds, Walmarts, Cracker Barrels where one can park overnight), and detouring to get my tank filled, I arrived midday to the northern entrance of the park.  It was a sunny Sunday and the place was PACKED. I had to laugh. I drove straight through for 1 1/2 days to escape traffic and WHAMMO! TRAFFIC! But it was slow (<35mph) and you could predict where the backups would be (scenic overlooks) and signs warned you they were coming up.

But these sorts of traffic jams have been happening
since the park was created in the 1930s.

What? Is my car blocking traffic? Well, there's no place to park at this overlook and I MUST get my photo!

The fall colors peaked last week so there are a lot of trees without many leaves and thick carpets of brown leaves on the ground, which are quite slippery if you are trying to walk down a steep slope on such a carpet. But there are still nice pockets of vivid fall colors, enough to keep the leaf peepers happy. I admit to feeling a bit smug when I drove past folks taking pictures of past-prime colors. I took my share of pre-prime shots before I hit prime colors so it was easy to pass up the hordes of folks taking photos in some of these places.

I was a bit dismayed at the amount of pollution visible on the horizon. But I am not that far from those high populace places...







The sign at the north entrance to the park said all but one campground were closed and the open one was full. What?! Surely that can't be right! Don't these folks have to go home and back to work??! Even though I'd been driving for several days and REALLY wanted to get out and hike, I resisted the urge and made my way to the campground (55 miles down Skyline Drive), to see if I could find a place to call home.  I joined the hordes pulling out at scenic overlooks to grab and photo and keep driving, wanting to get to the campground early enough to maybe get lucky, since it's first come, first served. Sure enough, PLENTY of places. I grabbed a nice one at the back end with a filtered view. The Appalachian Trail passes within 15 feet of my campsite. I paid for 3 nights there.

I figured it was a good afternoon to catch up on chores. Since I was very short on exercise, I decided to walk to take a shower, carrying 2 heavy bags of dirty laundry. That was fine on the front end. By the time I got out of the shower I switched my load and walked back to my van to dump my shower stuff. It was quite warm (78 degrees) so, for the first time in weeks (!), I opened up 3 windows in my van to let the breeze blow through the screens and headed back to the laundry. There was a very light sprinkling but there hadn't been anything worrisome in the forecast. As I was folding the laundry the sky fell -- it was POURING! It also turned dark but I'd expected that so I had my headlamp. The rain eased (I thought) so I grabbed my bags of laundry and ventured out. Into thick fog! Heavy rain on hot, wet pavement. OOF! And the torrents returned. One of the bag, the plastic one (the other was cloth), started to fall apart.  I was clutching that bag with the cloth one over the top and trying to decipher what was under my feet to find my way back to my van. I ducked into a bathroom (might've even been a men's but I didn't care) to reorganize to make sure the remains of the plastic bag would keep my laundry contained (and the sheets for my bed semi-dry) and ventured back out into the torrents. I managed to find my van and was dismayed to see just how much of those torrents had made their way inside through those recently opened windows (including my mattress, sigh...). Oh well...

I had been thinking, when viewing the haze, that it needed to rain hard overnight to clear things up! I got my wish. Or mostly. There was still a fair amount of haze the next morning once the cloud cover cleared off. I started my hiking early enough that when I neared the first summit, it was fogged in, but I'd planned a circular route around the summit (highest point in the park) so I made my way around and by the time I reached the top again it was clear.




Assuming they load, the photos above show my campsite and the colors just before the sun went down. The next batch below show my hiking for the day. On top of the first summit (Hawksbill; photos below) I met some local hikers, soon to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. He asked me if I was a "High Pointer" and told me there was a club and they have annual conferences around nation, near a different state's high point each year. He was a serious "High Pointer", having hiked to the top of 49 of the 50. He settled for flying over Denali, since he didn't start this pursuit until after he'd retired and by the time he could've gotten in AK's highpoint, it was more than he should be tackling (though he looks pretty spry!). The granite-topped mountain in the photo below is Old Rag, I'll be hiking that one tomorrow (Nov 2nd)  since the sun is supposed to shine.








I finished my first hike midday, even with the much slower pace I took back to the parking lot to keep chatting with my new found friends. She had had a stroke in March so wasn't as sure on her feet as she used to be.  But she was getting around really well.

I still had plenty of energy after my 5.25 mile hike so I took on the 'strenuous' all-day hike nearby -- a 7.1 mile circular route that included 2 ravines and many water falls and still had some nice fall colors.








This morning there was intermittent light drizzle and VERY dense fog so I stopped at the Visitors Center and learned about park history and picked up info for my next hikes. Then I drove to a nearby lookout (overlooking fog) that had good cell coverage and got caught up on some business. As I finish this the sun has come out so it's time for an afternoon hike. :0)

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