In November, with my dive season coming to an end, it was time for a winter trip. My friend David and I were thinking about national park options that were within single-day driving distance, and settled on Shenandoah National Park, in Virginia for a mid-November hiking trip. Shenandoah is a long, narrow park, with the 100+ mile Skyline Drive running down the center of it, at the top of a section of the Appalachian Mountains. The park is navigated by mile markers, with Mile 1 being in the north. This was somewhat confusing when trying to understand the park from afar, but it did make things easy once we arrived.
We left early on a Thursday, and it was raining for most of the ten-hour drive. For the rest of the trip the weather was absolutely beautiful, not a bad trade off! We considered staying in a hostel, but found a motel in the town of Luray that was about the same price. I love staying at independent motels, and the Cardinal Inn was a great one. We arrived fairly late, or it at least felt late with the 5:30 sunsets that we get in November. After we found dinner, we played some board games and planned out our first day.
It was really foggy in the morning, especially when we made it into the park. We did stop at a couple of scenic overlooks on the way to the northernmost visitor's center, but the view was limited...
We were looking for advice, and the visitor center was very helpful. We were given a handful of maps, highlighted just in case we were a little slow, and sent on our way with a series of short hikes in mind. They did have some nice souvenirs, but it didn't seem right to look at them much before we experienced the park. The first spot was right by the visitor center, at Mile 9, Land's Run Falls. We had been warned not to expect too much, but decided to stop anyways and were delighted. It was a short half-mile descent to a little trickle of a waterfall, and then a steep climb back in the fog. Being from Michigan, we're not used to such climbs, so it was a good warmup!
Next up was one parking lot at Mile 10, Compton Gap. From there we went north and did a small loop, about two or three miles, up to Fort Windham Rocks and back on the Appalachian Trail. We did see one of the few backpackers that we saw on the trip near the rocks, which was inspiring. The rocks were really fun to see, big and seeming to be split in half.
When we got back to the parking lot, we filled up our water and had a snack, then walked south to the other part of the trail, Compton Peak. This trail initially had a very steep climb, but we did make it to a fork where we first detoured down to some rocks we had been told were interesting, and went down, and further down... I couldn't believe we had gotten so out of breath (or I had at least.. David was doing a little better!) just to go back down to parking lot elevation, it was shocking! But the rocks at the bottom were amazing, big honeycomb hexagons, and the climb back up to the fork and then to the peak wasn't so bad. There was no view at the Compton Peak overlook, just a fog bank, but on the way back down we did get a brief glimpse of the sun, it was really exciting after the gray day.
After we got back to the car, we made some sandwiches, which taste so much better eaten outside after hiking. By this time, it was maybe 3 PM, so we didn't have a ton of time until sunset. It was getting cold, and I was waffling on which trails we should try, but David picked a winner for us. It was about 2.5 miles one way down to the first of a series of waterfalls, Overall Run Falls, from a parking lot near Mile 22. I was skeptical that we would have time to get there and back before dark, but hey we had headlamps and coats, and we were there to do a lot of hiking after all.
We were learning that from Skyline Drive, all hikes would have pretty significant elevation gain: any hike to a waterfall would involve a descending first, leaving the climb for last, and any hike with a peak would be climbing first. Of course climbing first and getting the hard part over with early on is the ideal trail! Descending first naturally means you have to consider the great heights you'll be climbing back up when you eventually turn around!
Remarkably, we did make it to the falls before our planned turnaround time, and even saw a lizard blending in with the leaves, the only one we saw on the trip. The falls were beautiful, and definitely worth the long way back up to the parking lot. We made it back with perfect timing, right around sunset, and spent the rest of the evening eating Chinese food and playing board games.
Total mileage: ~12
Total elevation: 2,647'
The next day the fog was totally cleared, and it was perfect November hiking weather, sunny and cool but not too cold. We visited Luray Caverns, a thoroughly-publicized self-guided cave tour. We were actually up slightly too early, so we stopped at a bakery. I bought a mango sconce for later. The caverns really were cool, although they've been transformed pretty far from their natural state. I love seeing underground areas, and its a really big cave with many beautiful formations. I didn't love how commercialized it is, when you enter the staff takes your photo on a green screen, and when you leave they already have photo packages printed out in hopes that you will be tempted to buy them. We managed to also resist the gift shop, which is unavoidable on the way out.
Afterwards, we drove to Shenandoah to start our hiking for the day. We had two peaks in mind, and started with Mary's Rock, at Mile 32. We had a hard time finding the overflow parking lot (it was Saturday, so the main lot was full), this involved leaving the park to get to the lot entrance. This hike was an out-and-back of about 3.7 miles and ~1,200' of elevation gain. We got quite warm getting to the top, and the view once we made it was expansive. We could even just barely see the parking lot. It was extremely windy at the summit, but we stayed a little while to take it all in before heading back down. When we got back to the car we had lunch, and I also ate my mango sconce, which was as delicious as I had imagined it could be.
Next up was Hawksbill, at Mile 45, the highest point in the park at 4,051'. It was quite steep to get up to the peak, and then we connected with the Appalachian Trail to make a short loop of about three miles. The view at the top was again incredible, and we did see another rock with the hexagonal pattern that we had seen the previous day.
When we got back, we had maybe 45 minutes of daylight left. We decided to squeeze in a short sunset hike, and picked Stony Man, at Mile 42, which is a mile or so walk out to a great west-facing view. We ended up joining maybe fifteen other people who were waiting for the same event, and it was of course spectacular, a great way to finish off the day.
Total mileage: 8.5
Total elevation: 2,212'
Total time spent underground: 2 hours
Total number of souvenirs: remarkably, 0
On Sunday, we had reserved tickets to hike Old Rag, which is probably the most well known hike in the park. It's so popular that the park limits access to 800 people a day, which sounds like a ton. Tickets are only $2, so its more to make sure that parking is possible than to make a profit. I was a little concerned about how my legs would feel, as they had been pretty sore on Day 2, being unaccustomed to this kind of climbing, but they actually seemed a bit loosened up on Sunday, despite no stretching of any kind.
We had heard quite a bit about this hike, including many warnings about a "rock scramble". We didn't really know what that would mean but it sounded intriguing. The park recommends hiking up a steep trail first, then the rock scramble to the peak, followed by an allegedly less steep descent down a fire road to make a loop. It's a little under ten miles, but has 2,400' of elevation gain. The parking lot is quite a ways from Luray, on the other side of the mountains, and is actually outside of the park. We were planning on saying goodbye to the very enjoyable Cardinal Inn and relocating to a different town slightly closer to the southern end of the park, so we packed up everything in the morning.
When we arrived, the parking lots were already maybe halfway full, and a steady stream of people were getting ready. David would have been faster, but I walk slow and steady without many rest stops, so we did get passed by groups, but we also passed plenty of people as they stopped for breaks. The ascent went on for some time through the woods, up a beautiful trail. As we approached the top we did take a break for a while and prepare for the rock scramble, which turned out to be quite strenuous! The first part involved climbing down a giant boulder, and it stayed exciting for some time after that.
The scramble was exhausting after that steep climb, and so much fun. There were marks painted on the rocks to reassure us that we were on the right path, but it was still hard to believe sometimes. There was a lot of climbing, and a lot of gasping for air. I can see why the ticket system is necessary; although it didn't seem at all crowded, there were occasionally bottlenecks at tricky areas as people worked their way through. When we finally made it to the top, I was very grateful for the rest, and for the amazing view while we had some lunch.
Although the walk down was maybeee less steep, it was on a fire road which wasn't the nicest to walk on with the gravel. We also passed a small waterfall on the way down, and had a view of the peak we had just been to. It was an extremely fun and satisfying hike; I wish there were more like it nearby.
I had a convoluted plan to stop at a more southern visitor center, Big Meadows, to get advice for the next day's hikes, plus I was now thinking about what souvenirs might be at the gift shop, so we went back into the park. This involved quite a bit of driving, but it was all very scenic and we did stop at a few overlooks. I will say the park is loaded with deer that like to spend time grazing extremely close to the roadside, which makes for a spooky driving experience. But we did make it there, and grabbed some maps and some mugs to commemorate the trip.
Total mileage: 8.9
Total elevation: 2,406'
Total souvenirs: 2 mugs
We had switched to a Howard Johnson, which was the cheapest motel in the town of Harrisonburg. It wasn't bad, but it was no Cardinal Inn. For our last day at the park, I was glad we got advice from the visitor center; there were tons of trail options and it's hard to guess the best ones. All in all, the visitor center gave great advice, we really enjoyed every trail that was suggested to us.
We started the day with Dark Hollow Falls, at Mile 50. Strangely, descending down to the falls was really warm, the valley was trapping hot air and it was dramatically different from the parking lot. The falls themselves were beautiful, and we even walked along the river for a short ways along the trail.
Next up was Bearfence at Mile 56. I'm not sure why it is named that way. We were told it was a rock scramble with a panoramic view of the park. It was fairly steep, but after Old Rag, the rock scramble couldn't compare. It was definitely fun, and the view was amazing, but these rocks were more stegosaurus fins than boulders.
After that we had our eyes on a waterfall hike, South River Falls, an 83' waterfall at Mile 62. We ended up misunderstanding the distances on the map, so were surprised by how far we ended up hiking. The map distances only took into account reaching a viewpoint, and of course we wanted to get to the falls themselves. We descended for probably 2.5 or 3 miles before finally reaching the falls, which were incredible. These falls were much larger than the other ones we had seen, and were definitely worth the long uphill slog that awaited us.
Again, we ended the hike fairly close to sunset, with just enough time to make it up to a spot that I thought might have a good view, High Top Summit, at Mile 66. I was a little concerned about having to descend that trail without much light if we didn't make it before dark. Fortunately, we made it to the viewpoint before sunset, but late enough that the sky was absolutely amazing. We had many wonderful views throughout the trip, but this one that we ended on may have been my favorite.
Total mileage: 10.5
Total elevation: 3,056
All in all, we had a great trip; Shenandoah is a wonderful place for hiking. And its only ten hours from Michigan, so its not terrible to get to. It would also be perfect for a scenic drive, with the 105 mile long Skyline Drive and the many overlooks.
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