It has now been three weeks since my wife and I returned from our trip to Shenandoah. I had originally planned this trip to allow for us to experience spring conditions for hiking and photography. Since we live “up north”, in the Delaware Valley area of New York State, we were looking forward our trip and the more advanced spring conditions “down south”. As it turned out, the weather turned drastically colder the night we arrived, with significant storms (see sample photo in preceding post). Nights actually went into the thirties, with the first two days not even hitting fifty degrees. Not exactly what we had planned for! Since we did have the proper equipment and clothing, this was not too bothersome, but it did somewhat limit what we did in the first day or two. Essentially, we ended up doing some hiking in more wooded, lower lying areas during the sunny parts of the day.
Camping at Big Meadows placed us right in the middle of Skyline Drive, the center of the Park. The campground at Big Meadows is also right along the Appalachian Trail, and we had intended to hike portions of the AT during our stay. Campsites at Big Meadows vary in terms of available amenities - some allow electrical hook-ups for RVs, our site was a “walk-in site”, a bit farther removed from the rest of the campers - essentially at the edge of the campground. We had intended to “bushwhack” to the AT from our site, and as it turns out this was entirely possible due to the open nature of the forest in this area. These are nice campsites, and we would be more than happy to do this type of camping again. Even the walk-in sites are not that far away from parking or bathrooms, and the AT is only minutes away.
We did two hikes directly from our campsite. In the southerly direction there is a waterfall that has a nice stone observation platform that turned out to be just under five miles round trip (this is more or less a loop hike, with only the first and last mile or so on the AT), and to the north it is possible to hike to the Hawksbill - the highest point in the park, and eight mile round trip (this one is an out and back.) Both of these hikes were very, very nice, but the photographic focus of this post is the Hawksbill hike.
Most of the hiking on the AT is quite easy, as the trail runs along the ridges in the park, is rather wide and very well maintained. The trail is also rather smooth for hikers like myself who have grown up hiking the trails of New York’s Adirondack Mountains. As we hiked along the AT toward the Hawksbill, we reveled in the beautiful spring flowers, such as Azaleas and Trilliums, and many other varieties that we are not familiar with. It was a bit hazy on this day, yet, the views from some sections along the trail into the Shenandoah Valley to the West were exhilarating. The first set of views came up at Fischer’s Gap where the trail opens up into a steep meadow for about 50 yards. This is also where we saw our first Trilliums along the trail. From here on, the trail continued down to an elevation of below 3000 ft. At this point we knew that we would have some work to do - as the Hawksbill is at 4051 ft, however, the nice trail and moderate grades made hiking easy. Also along the way, we saw Mountain Laurel whose buds were only just starting to bloom. We marveled at the geometry of the opening buds, and the image below shows how these shrubs grow even under adverse conditions - against all odds right out of the rock wall along the trail.
Mountain Laurel - Against All Odds
As we continued along the trail and toward the Hawskbill summit, we heard birds singing in the trees, but did not initially get a good glimpse. We often stopped at the view spots and let our dogs enjoy the view (seems that even they like looking out over the valley!) At one spot, we got a glimpse of something very bright red chirping in the trees. I don’t usually carry my long zoom lenses on a hike such as this one, but had actually done so anyway this day. I pulled out my 80-400 VR Nikkor (click to see my review), mounted it on my camera, and went to see what kind of luck I would have photographing this bird. As I followed the animal from tree to tree, I noticed that it’s movements were not really dictated by my presence. Interesting - as I have found that my 400 mm limit is usually a show stopper for song bird photography. I continued following this bird and photographing, essentially until I thought I needed to move on. I might have had an opportunity to get even better images, had I been more patient. Still, my processed images was good enough to identify the bright red and black bird as a Scarlet Tanager.
Scarlet Tanager With Bug
The bird image is still not really professional quality, but considering that it was taken hand held, with minimal effort, it turned out fine for this blog post - and I might add that it’s pretty much as good as any song bird images I have been able to take (not that this is saying much! I’ve seen some pretty good bird images, and mine don’t really compare!)
All that said, this was a great hike, wonderful nature, good company (my wonderful Wife, and our two German Shepherd Dogs), and some really great views. So, I think it would be appropriate to show at least one image of the views possible along the trail. The image below is just a bit below the summit of Hawksbill. We chose to stop here for lunch after we made it to the summit, and on our way back. It’s more fun to eat without other people around. Still, this image shows the beauty of the Shenandoah Valley, even though the humidity was high and the visibility was not that good this day.
Annie and The Shenandoah Valley from Hawksbill
Bottom line, this was a really, really great trip. This is definitely a park we will revisit, especially since it is one of only two National Parks that allows dogs on the trails. I can highly recommend Shenandoah to any dog owner that likes hiking and camping. One word of caution, however: be prepared with insect repellent. The trails are loaded with ticks. If you bring dogs, I highly recommend that they be treated with Frontline Plus prior to coming. Also makes sure to check yourself at night, shower before going to bed, and check your gear prior to storing it on your return.
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