So the plan I proposed to the group, first thing in the morning, was that we re-enter at the Swift Run Gap Entrance and go straight to the Big Meadows area and find that goddamn Wayside. And I had an idea where it was.
After that, the plan was to do two waterfall hikes. The Ranger had recommended the Dark Hollow Falls, but I'd also noticed on studying the map that the trail to Lewis Falls might yield an even better experience.
Anyway, that was the plan. But first we needed to check out and get coffee. Jim and I returned our keys and wrestled with the knockoff Keurig coffee maker they had in the little room that served as a lobby. The male proprietor with a cowboy hat came by to greet us and was a little knocked back by our accents. But he recovered and grinned as broadly as he could and wished us a blessed day, twice. Jim was a little confused by this ... we were not in Kansas any longer ... but I explained to him that "blessed" in my mind meant somewhere between "lucky" and "chosen by God." And that was fine with me. I wished the proprietor the same right back to him and he was skeptical but at least didn't get out his shotgun.
OK, threw the stuff in back and bid a "fond" farewell to the Country View (it would return later). We climbed the steep and severely winding hill up to the Entrance Station and somehow missed it (I blame being blessed) and found ourselves hurtling down the other side. This was not good and we realized we had to turn around in the stream of rush hour pickups that we were suddenly surrounded by.
Our Subaru Forester had no problem with that, and we were soon back to climbing up the ridge. I have to mention that the Forester was a champion through the trip, hauling four people and lots of baggage up and down steep slopes and over long highways. We never got into a real "4-wheel drive-only" situation but were prepared for it, and the engine and the tires never complained (though we lost some tread coming back, in an incident in Northern Maryland).
Well this time we didn't miss the entrance, and turned up North on Skyline Drive and proceeded as quickly as possible (at 35MPH) up to the Big Meadows. We took the correct turning there but were again stymied by lack of signage (or being blessed) and ended up cruising up to the Lodge, which had an expensive breakfast and actually looked kind of appealing. We encountered the Scandinavian family that had been right ahead of us at Dickey Ridge and right behind us at Hawksbill, thankfully for the last time.
This presented another conundrum. SarahP checked inside and got directions to where the poor people eat, but we realized that this was an opportunity to change plans. We could cancel our hotel reservations in Waynesboro (at the South end of the Park) for that night, and instead make reservations there at the possibly luxurious (or dodgy) Lodge. Sarah and I remembered how great it had been at Sequoia NP to overnight in the Park, and in-Park lodgings were available here. But the group discussed it and we agreed not to change plans at that point. My personal feeling was that we had just had a too-rustic experience at the Country View and that the Lodge might be similar, and also that it would end up costing us time in the big picture rather than saving time.
Anyway, hunger played a part in ending this discussion without a decision and we sped back down the Lodge driveway to the Wayside, where we got seats by the window and finally got breakfast. We also ordered a small side of biscuits and gravy as an experiment ... it's everywhere in the South. We snuck peeks throughout breakfast at the impossibly young and hardy group of 12(?) at a nearby table. They were probably several groups of AT through-hikers who had met on the trail and had stopped at the Wayside to stock up on calories.
Loaded up now and agreed on plans, we headed out! Actually, there wasn't much "out" to go as the Dark Hollow Parking Area was just a few hundred yards up the Drive. It was getting pretty full already, this was a popular place. The Ranger had told us that falls hikes always started downhill in SNP, and this one was no exception. But soon it changed from steep macadam with lots of signs to a nice mellow forest path beside a bubbling, roiling, singing brook.
This was the Rose River and it had a lot of character itself. As in New England, and as related by several people, from the Ranger to the cowboy in Elkton, this had been a very wet Summer and the streams and rivers were high. The Rose was rushing down the steep hill and in its enthusiasm it was finding shortcuts and forming mini-cascades around rocks and among the many fallen logs and nests of ferns and moss that were everywhere in Shenandoah.
We and many other groups hiked slowly down the steep but user-friendly path, admiring and gasping at the ingenuity of the water in finding the shortest path downhill. And soon we could hear the falls and see that the hillside would soon become a precipice.
Just then a gang of Rangers appeared, doing trailwork. We had seen another gang the day before, doing a botanical survey. I'm very glad such an important Park is not short on staff, though as so often happens in NPS sites, they seemed short on money for facilities. I feel, of course, that it's really important for our Parks to be managed well, if they are to be preserved and enjoyed at the same time.
The trail became really steep and the water was roaring to our right. The trail looped around downhill and ended up at the bottom of the main cataract of the Dark Hollow Falls, which was measured at 70 feet. We stopped and enjoyed this for a while, and took a few pix, before heading even farther and farther downhill in search of a better and better view.
It was another glorious, blue day, and the woods were just humming with the streaks of light through the trees and the dashing, tumbling water. We started back uphill (passing the trail crew heading downhill with much equipment to their vehicle, which was parked on the Rose River Loop at the bottom of the falls). We took some more pix and saw a tiny salamander and a long snake. It was hot and humid, as was our whole SNP experience, and my shirt was already damp from sweat and the spray from the falls.
This was a pretty crowded trail, and I bet at the height of the Summer season it's a treadmill of people. But everyone was friendly and having a marvelous time. How could you not on a day like that with scenery like that? We finally made it back to the top after several breaks, including sharing a well-timed candy bar that SarahP had brought along. Made it back to the macadam and the parking lot, where we cooled off and drank water for a while.
The day was already getting along, and though we were all psyched to follow up that great waterfall hike with one to the Lewis Falls a bit farther South (81 feet!), we had to consider WTF we were going to do for lunch. Back to the Wayside to use the bathrooms and we figured there was nothing to do but pick up some of their not-exactly-great-looking sandwiches and/or other lunch stuff, drop it in our packs, and continue down the trail.
So that's what we did. The parking lot for the Lewis Falls was even closer to the Big Meadows complex than the Dark Hollow Falls lot had been, but it wasn't marked and the falls were barely mentioned in the hiking literature. And that mention was only as a small feature on a very long loop. We still saw several groups on the trail (it intersected with the AT again), but for most of that hike we were alone with the trees, the moss, the ferns, and the deer.
The un-named trail started really steeply downhill on a fire road, lined with a couple of small and mysterious water works. It joined the AT for a short bit and then turned into a small, twisty, really twisty, really steep trail downhill. We could hear the water again and see a stream to our left rushing down to leap into space. We reached another juncture, this one marked by a warning sign telling us not to die, and then the trail jumped off the edge of the cliff ... which was where we stopped to eat lunch. The butterflies were ubiquitous, the mushrooms were mysterious, the fallen trees cultured villages of fungus, and the rocks were covered with colored layers of lichen.
Sarah and I split a turkey and cheese sub and did not eat the fruit we'd brought. This was not a place to get filled up; we knew the falls needed some exploring and that it would then be a steep climb back after that. We were a little confused about which way to go from our lunch spot but just at the right moment a couple of fellow hikers came along and advised us to go around the head of the falls, to an observation deck.
The falls crossing was treacherous but well worth it. Though the observation deck itself was falling off the side of the mountain and did not offer a great view, we could hear the falls roaring, feel the spit of the water in the air, and catch glimpses of the treacherous cascade, with small plants clinging to every surface. There was a steel railing hammered into the rock that we clung to on the way down to the observation point and back up. It was well-polished by years of Shenandoah tourists and might last a few more years before tumbling downhill.
OK, I say again. Time to suck it up, recross the head of the falls, and head back up the long, steep hillside. I should put in a note about bears. Black bears abound in SNP, but they're very timid and encounters are generally short. I'd given SarahP my orange whistle so she could at least signal her status as an ursine victim when appropriate. But she never had a chance to use it. Though we saw plenty of other animals we did not see any bears on the vacation, to our regret.
But we did encounter a pair of white-tailed deer on the trail, and stopped for a long time to watch them as they carefully checked every young plant, every patch of moss, and every shrub for likely leaves. Some of the white-tails we saw on the trip had luxurious rear plumage, not at all like the small, white spots at the tail end of the deer up in New England.
We crossed the AT again, checked out the weird water works, and made it back up to the small (but suddenly full) parking lot, and it wasn't yet drastically late in the afternoon. We had time to head back up the Byrd VC and harangue the Rangers like we owned the place. And we did!
SarahP asked the important question: if people leave food waste in the bathrooms (we had seen a lot in the trash cans), isn't it possible that some camper will find a bear in the bathroom in the middle of the night? The Ranger admitted that this was a new question to him, but opined that the bear would be dissuaded by other human smells first. SarahE asked about several plants she'd photographed, and the Rangers had a good time with this one; some of the plants Sarah had photographed were rare and were identification challenges.
They had some great interpretive displays in the Byrd VC about the history of the Park and the flora and fauna. SNP was founded in 1935 and represented a great step by the Park Service in making our special national places closer. The great Parks of the West were far away, but the people were newly mobile and the Shenandoah was within a day's drive for millions. The Skyline Drive was planned in the Depression and installed by crews such as the CCC, who had massive camps in the Big Meadows of Shenandoah.
But the important thing here was that we had the chance to exercise our group decision making again! We pulled four chairs together and got out the maps and all expressed our opinions. We had to consider not only what we wanted to do that moment and that evening, but how that would position us for further adventures. In the end we decided to press on to the South. It would be 50 long, slow, beautiful miles down to the bottom of the Park and out the Rockfish Gap Entrance Station, but this would allow us to get to Waynesboro for our reservations that night, and leave us in a great spot for getting to Monticello (in Charlottesville) the next day.
And this meant that we'd have a lot of flexibility the day after that also. What we decided to do was to book a hotel in Charlottesville for Wednesday night (it was Tuesday), allowing us plenty of time for Monticello and downtown Charlottesville. And we'd also try to get rooms back at the George Washington Grand (which we all had luscious dreams of after our sojourn in Elkton) for Thursday night, and this would position us perfectly for a trip to Harper's Ferry before ending up in DC!
I drove, SarahE accessed Expedia on her phone, and the miles and scenery cruised by. We had to stop at a few overlooks to breath in the view, especially in the way Southern part of the Park where the people were rare and the scenery was jaw-dropping. I remember especially one view of the peaks and ridges of the Blue Ridge Mountains extending South into the distant mist like waves in the ocean.
In the meantime, SarahE had had great success in Charlottesville for Wednesday, but the GW Grand showed as totally booked on Thursday. I'm sure the draw was the colonnaded swimming pool. Oh well, she booked rooms at a place in Strasburg a little South of Winchester for that night and that was fine. SarahP called the GW Grand twice over the next couple of days and tried to charm them into giving us rooms, but failed miserably. Oh well.
So we finally dropped out of the bottom of the Park, after some severe downhill work over the last few miles. Interstate 64 beckoned, but we turned sharply right on Route 250 and trucked on into the Quality Inn in Waynesboro. They had a pool there, but we were too tired to frolic and instead moved into our kittie-corner rooms in one of their buildings with sliders that didn't go anywhere anyone would want to go, and their creaking doors. But this was a great upgrade from the Country View!
While doing her work on the phone, SarahE had discovered that Waynesboro, for some reason, features the best Mexican restaurant in the Shenandoah Valley. Perhaps this is a matter of opinion, but review after review said so and we decided to check it out. This is Taqueria La Sabrosita and it was all it was cracked up to be, truly authentic, in a converted garage off the main road, with a Mexican grocery taking up the other half of the building. The other three all had what looked like excellent fajitas and I had a puerco al pastor burrito. I didn't feel it was completely successful, as the pork was diced into really small pieces and these were cooked and seasoned a bit too much. But it was great anyway, and their hot sauces were muy picante.
Time to head back to the Quality Inn and soon to bed for a pretty good sleep after an exhausting day!
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