A Day In The Park: Shenandoah National Park

Drive 75 miles (121 kilometers) from busy Washington, D.C. and you’ll enter 200,000 acres (>80,000 hectares) of protected geography rich with history and the ghosts of Civil War soldiers vying with songbirds and waterfalls to tell their stories. Shenandoah National Park in Virginia is a landscape of ancient, rounded mountains, rolling hills, shadowy backwoods, and quiet hollows. This is a park with four distinct seasons where wildflowers blanket the meadows in spring to be replaced with lush greens of many shades in the summer. With the fall come “leaf peepers” looking for the brilliant oranges, reds, and golds of maples, beech, oaks, and other hardwoods. Winter will offer maybe a little snow and a lot of solitude as well as vistas normally hidden by leafy trees in the spring and summer, now opened to view when the branches are bare.

Shenandoah is a popular park, with around 1.5 million visitors during each of the past five years, and with good reason since there is so much to do in the park. If you are a birder or enjoy bird photography, pack your binoculars and camera for your visit, because there’s a high probability of seeing one or more of the 190 resident and transient feathered species calling Shenandoah home. Of the park’s wildlife, there are 50 mammal species, and you may spot white-tailed deer and black bears or perhaps an elusive bobcat or big brown bat. Frogs, toads, newts, and salamanders (including the endangered Shenandoah salamander) love the park’s wetlands, marshes, swamps, and moist forest floors.

With over 500 miles (805 kilometers) of hiking trails ranging from less than a mile (1.62 kilometers) to more than seven miles (11.3 miles) in length, you can explore green, leafy forests, rocky hillsides and ancient mountains, and cascading waterfalls. The park even has recommended hikes specifically for birdwatchers. One of the most popular day-hiking destinations, however – Old Rag Mountain – will require a day-use ticket. If you’d rather get far away from the crowds and spend a few days immersing yourself in the beauty of Shenandoah’s backcountry (particularly the Appalachian Trail, which runs the park’s ridgelines for 101 miles / 162.5 kilometers), you can do that, too, as long as you have a backcountry permit which you can purchase through recreation.gov.

Don’t feel like hiking? There’s plenty more to do, including biking, fishing, horseback riding, and rock climbing. You can drive the 105-mile (169-kilometer) Skyline Drive, the only road through the park, stopping off at the many overlooks offering scenic vistas perfect for your smartphone, point-and-shoot, or SLR  camera.

According to park staff:

As you travel along Skyline Drive you will notice mileposts on the west side of the road (right side if you are traveling south, left if you are heading north). These cement posts help you find your way through the Park and help you locate areas of interest. The miles begin at 0 in Front Royal and continue to 105 at the southern end of the Park. The largest developed area, Big Meadows, is near the center of the Park, at mile 51. All Park maps and information use these mileposts as a reference.

After a day of exploring all this national park has to offer, why not consider spending the night at one of the three in-park lodging establishments: Skyland Resort, Big Meadows Lodge, or Lewis Mountain Cabins. If you’d rather pitch a tent or park your RV directly beneath the stars, there are five campgrounds, all located along Skyline Drive.

Shenandoah National Park is always open (although parts of the Skyline Drive might be closed due to weather). Visiting this park provides opportunities to experience the landscape and history nestled within the Appalachian Mountains. Because of Shenandoah’s popularity and multiple activities, you might wonder how to plan for a visit and what you should do once you arrive. This Traveler’s Checklist should help with those travel plans.

Traveler’s Choice For: Hiking, birding, fall colors, backpacking, photography