SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK

AT Day 054: Wednesday May 31,  2023

Mile 864 + 18.5  miles /29.8 km

Total Distance Hiked: 882.5 miles/1420 km

Rockfish Gap – SNP Entrance – McCormick Gap – Bear Den Mountain – Skyline Drive/Beagle Gap – Little Calf Mountain – Calf Mountain – Calf Mt Shelter – Bucks Elbow Road – Skyline Drive/ Sawmill Run Overlook – Skyline Drive/Turk Gap – Skyline Drive – Camp 

A: 4220 ft /1287m  D:3495 ft /1066 m

Today the Appalachian Trail enters Shenandoah National Park for the next 105 miles. The Park is located 75 miles from of Washington, D.C.  And according to the National Parks Service “Shenandoah National Park is a land bursting with cascading waterfalls, spectacular vistas, fields of wildflowers, and quiet wooded hollows. With over 200,000 acres of protected lands that are haven to deer, songbirds and black bear”.  The AT parallels Skyline Drive through the park and criss-crosses it many times along the way. 

The day dawned to a spectacular blue sky. So amazing to see, it feels like ages since we’ve seen this sight.  The town of Waynesboro is a hiker friendly town and the Chamber of Commerce has a tourism program where volunteers offer to drive AT hikers to and from the trailhead. The motel had a printed list of contacts and we found a local man,  Kevin who was free and able to shuttle us back to Skyline Drive to rejoin the trail. We were dry, our gear was dry and our packs were heaving with 5 days of food as we left the motel at 9am. 

Kevin and his dog Elvis (it was a she with David Bowie eyes) picked us up. Elvis was a rescue dog and looked like it had a bit Australian dingo in it’s breed. 

As we drove out of town, it was nice to see the old parts of Waynesboro, it looked so interesting. Another small town we wish we had more time to explore. In the 10 minute drive back to the trailhead Kevin told us a little bit about his recent retirement and how much he loves living in the Waynesboro community. We said goodbye to Kevin and Elvis and got back on trail. 

It felt good to be back and hiking in sunshine. The song “Walking on sunshine” was going through my head or maybe I was singing it out loud. Hammer was a little way behind so did not complain about my terrible singing. The first few miles were through a landscape with evidence of it’s previous uses as farmland. Orchard trees and even some old fence lines were evident along the trail.

I was brought out of my sing -song  reverie by Hammer calling me to come back. I dropped my pack and ran back downhill to find him standing next to a mother load of Pink Lady slipper orchids.  I had walked right past them without seeing them.  There would have been around 80 in the patch. This looked unreal, I was jumping for joy. Something good is always around the corner. We thought we had seen the end of them about a week ago.   Such a pleasant surprise.

It was only 11am,  can this day get any better?  And it did. The woods became more beautiful, the trail easier underfoot, the trees were taller, huge towering oaks with the beautiful green light filtering through the canopy. 

Most of the afternoon we hiked through undulating trail, without any long ascents or descents, just nice easy hiking. We had brilliant distant views of the Blue Ridge Mountains from Sawmill Run Overlook. It was very hard to photograph as the mountains blend into the sky. Mountain Laurel in the deepest shades of pink I’ve seen so far lined the trail. All seem to be still in full bloom.

We crossed Skyline Drive five times today. It was nice to find a campsite just before another crossing as we were getting close to the end of our hiking day. There is hardly any traffic just a gentle breeze whistling through the trees as the sun set.