Shenandoah National Park. If you stood among the ancient hardwood trees and watched the mist flow across the land, you would swear that Shenandoah was a magical place filled with fairies hiding in the mountain laurel and gnomes dancing from rock to rock. Although there are no fairies or gnomes, this huge section of land is a wilderness filled with color and quiet splendor underground, in the forest and across the sky.
Skyline Drive cuts through Shenandoah National Park and eventually connects with the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway. It is a lovely winding drive around the mountain with many picnic areas and scenic overlooks every few miles. Stopping at every overlook is well worth the view but can drastically eat into your visiting time. However, near sunset, the deer frequently forage on the open areas near the overlooks. Many people prefer to park somewhere and explore some of the 500 miles of hiking trails, most of which are relatively short but at least one trail is as long as 101 miles representing part of the historic Appalachian Trail used by the first settlers. The Whiteoak Canyon Trail is one of the most popular because it leads to six lovely waterfalls and an old-growth forest.
Located in the northwestern third of the state of Virginia, Shenandoah National Park is a wilderness that is part of the Blue Ridge Parkway in the middle section of the Appalachian Mountains. These East Coast mountains are about 300 million years old and were formed when two of the Earth’s plates were crushed together, pushing miles of volcanic rock, limestone and greenstone (green metamorphosed limestone) upward. In the beginning the peaks were as tall as if not taller than the Rocky Mountains but time and water have worn the sharp facades into gently sloped mounds and deep valleys.
Deer
Numerous bed-and-breakfast style hotels are nestled the little towns that border Shenandoah but they tend to cluster at the four main entrances of Front Royal, Luray, New Market, Elkton and Charlottesville, Virginia. Inside the park, visitors can stay at Skyline Lodge, Big Meadows Lodge, or Lewis Mountain cabins which are all run by Virginia Sky-line Company. Each area has dining rooms, grocery stores and coin laundry facilities.
When English explorers searched for passages through the mountains, they discovered the Indian tribes of the Monacans and Manahoacs who lived peacefully with the forest. As American settlers filtered across the mountains, they cleared the timber for farming. The native animals were hunted to close to extinction. Although the Shenandoah Valley is still covered with fertile farms, the thin mountain soil eventually gave out and the farmers moved on to better lands.
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