Thursday, May 11
Woke up after a good sleep in that luxurious hotel and strategized for the day. We were excited to head a bit South to Front Royal and re-create our 2019 trip to Shenandoah National Park. We had had some great times hiking in it and wanted to do that again, but realized we would have to keep in mind that we’d need to get to the Southern end of the Park by the end of the day to be well situated for our next destination.
The first point of order was breakfast and we walked over to Steamy’s, where we’d had great loaded bagels on the last trip. Things have changed though and it was take-out only, so we walked back to the Hotel and tried their breakfast, at the Pizzeria Uno in their lobby. It was surprisingly good, with great coffee and a friendly waitress. They had some complicated stuff on their menu and I got quinoa and avocado poached eggs with some questionable hot sauce … perhaps a little *too* complicated before a long car ride.
Anyway, it was time to pack up the car and get out of town, back to Interstate 81 (after a gas fill-up), then East on Interstate 66 for a stretch, and then South through the town of Front Royal to the Park entrance. Just five miles past that we were already entranced with the Skyline Drive, and we pulled over into Dickie’s Ridge VC. The sky had looked a little unsettled early that morning, but even so there was still great visibility and any overcast was now disappearing. It was cooler than we’d expected; I almost got out my windbreaker at that point and I sure needed it later at even higher elevations.
Got some great advice from a Ranger at Dickie’s Ridge and we were off, tootling around the curves (always at the speed limit) up into the sky! The Ranger had recommended Little Stony Face Trail and we pulled over there, shocked to see that the parking lot was already almost full. Where had these people come from??
Put on a lot of bug spray, though bugs turned out to be never a problem on the trip. We climbed up the Appalachian Trail and along that for a bit, then detoured over to the Little Stony Face view, which was pretty but not spectacular. The lovely stone of the Shenandoah was all around us though, and the bright trees. All along the Blue Ridge, you could have pinpointed your elevation by the foliage. The trees were all leafed out in the valleys and hollows, but were yellower, redder, or even bare as you went higher and higher up the peaks of the ridge.
The most wonderful thing about that trail was not the views, but the sudden explosions of trilliums. We were perhaps a little past peak wildflower time in the Virginia mountains, but the magic was still going on if you looked a bit. And another astonishing thing was the millipedes. They’re just creepy bugs in some settings, but these were out in the middle of the woods like us and were everywhere, if you looked closely, moving like they were meant to be there.
In all aspects, Shenandoah NP was as spectacular and lovely as I’d remembered it from our Fall 2019 trip. The mountains were covered with all shades of green as well as many shades of yellow and red, the sky was a brilliant pastel blue with white clouds, and the clouds cast shadows on the mountains. Skyline Drive (and the Blue Ridge Parkway to the South) runs along the tops of the mountains, winding and winding uphill and down, sometimes on knife edges. The scenery changes with every second as you drive and get different angles on it, and when you stand still and take in the whole panorama it’s not static either. Your senses fasten on this soaring bird, then that small blue lake glistening in the valley, then the swoop of trees up to a summit, then a patch of wildflowers at your feet.
The next recommendation from the Ranger was the Rose River Trail, and maybe we should have prepared a bit better for a long hike, but we were psyched and jumped right into it when we got there. It’s a loop trail, but it’s about 1000’ of elevation change and 4 miles long. We were too excited to pause to make and pack lunch, but we had plenty of water and granola bars. The trail started off steeply downhill and we began to wonder what we were getting into, we knew we’d be making up that elevation later.
This was a great hike! In the first couple of miles there were a good number of people, heading down the downhill side of the trail. It went along the steepest part of the river and then dropped down a steep bank to the Rose River Falls. We hope all those people made it out, because by the time we got to the Falls, we were deep in the valley and some of the people who had hiked down there didn’t look very mobile and would have a long haul to get back.
The trail then continued and looped to the South, back uphill on another fascinating tributary of the river, featuring cascade after cascade over large boulders and fallen trees. Didn’t see anyone for the next few miles. This steep part of the hike was captivating, though it showed signs of never ending and we were beginning to wear down ourselves. It finally took us to the bottom of the Dark Hollow Falls, where we’d been with S&J in 2019. Didn’t climb up those falls, but detoured back to the North up a fire road and eventually made it back to the trailhead.
What a great hike and what time was it?? We realized we’d better hit the dusty trail tout de suite, and saddled up for the South end of the Park, many miles away. We simply had to stop briefly at a few incredible overlooks, but kept on pressing down to our destination of Waynesboro.
Sarah researched dinner options as always, but the pickings in Waynesboro were slim. We finally settled on The River (not the radio station) and went directly there when we got into town. This was not a good dinner choice either, though who knew? Our waitress forgot our beers (I got a Basic City 6th Lord IPA, which was nowhere as good as its name) and our burgers were greasy. Besides that it was ok I guess. But we soon decamped for the Super 8 Waynesboro. Not bad, but there was a good amount of noise in the corridor at night and my bedspread was haunted, always diagonal.
We had traveled 139.5 miles that day, most of it rolling left and right and uphill and downhill at 35MPH through the captivating Blue Ridge.
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