Shenandoah National Park


Now that I finished up my posts from Japan, I have a few more from early 2021 to add to the blog. I will keep these fairly short due to limited time (at the end of April I finally started my full-time training in Georgia). 

Back in March, when I was doing remote training in the DC area, I visited Shenandoah National Park. Shenandoah is nearly 80 thousand acres of forest stretching along the Blue Ridge Mountains, itself part of the Appalachians. Danny, one of the other guys in my training class, decided to make a day trip there to fly fish and invited us to ride along. It turned out that I was the only one to take him up on the offer.

Skyline Drive (in red) is the main park road cutting through the 
national park; the DC suburbs extend to the top right of this map

Danny left his house in Alexandria at the god-awful time of 4 am and picked me up at twenty after. He wanted to get to the park and set up before anyone else walked through and scared off the fish. Since we went on a weekday in March, I only saw a handful of hikers along the trails, so we probably would have been fine leaving at a much more normal time. But hey, I got a free ride, so I couldn't complain!

When we arrived at the parking lot just after 6 am it was still dark; the sun wouldn't come up for another half an hour. We donned head lights and set out about half a mile up the trail to a point where it crossed a stream. Danny set up his fly fishing gear, and then I set off on my hike. The trail initially continued upstream, eventually reaching Skyline Drive, the main park road. 

That afternoon was over 60 degrees, but when I started my hike 
it was below freezing, and snow still covered parts of the path

From the top of the trail I made a loop back down towards the parking lot, passing several large waterfalls. I stopped a few times to take a break and eat both breakfast and a light early lunch (I packed a breakfast sandwich, eggs, granola bars, and a banana). The entire loop was over 6 miles with plenty of elevation changes. By the time I made it back to the parking lot it was after noon; I explored a bit more and then rested by Danny's car until he met me at 2 pm to head back to DC. 

Below are a few pictures from my hike:




I rarely take selfies, but wanted at least one of me in the shot!




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