Shenandoah National Park: Day Two

It was a day for being intrepid as we set out for two hikes in the national park. We'd hoped for clear skies, but that was not to be. We didn't mind. It felt good to be outside and hiking somewhere. On our first day in the park, we stopped off at a visitor's center and picked up a hiking book. This is our favorite series of books.

Whenever we visit a national park for the first time, I always look for one of these. They give lots of good information for geezer-hikers like us. We were first taking the Limberlost Trail. Here's an example of the information the book provides. What we were most interested in here at Shenandoah was the elevation gain or loss.

We'd read from multiple sources that many of the hikes here begin with a steep downward trek which, of course, means that one will also need to take a steep upward climb on the back end. Hikes that head down first while requiring you to hike up when you've done the whole thing and are now tired are our least favorites. We were looking for the easy ones...yes, we are weenies...old weenies, of the worst kind. And this book also rates the hike from weeniest to warrior-est (I just made up that word). The Limberlost Trail was the weeniest of the weenie hikes. So, anyway...this was our first hike of the day.

We were promised sitting benches every 400 feet or so, and that was not an exaggeration. The first one came after we'd hiked all of 30 seconds over flat terrain. Phew! We didn't sit, however. It was so foggy, it might as well have been raining, and the benches were all quite wet.

We'd donned our rain parkas, but we didn't need our rain pants.

It seems like as good a time as any to talk about the blazes that mark the trails here in Shenandoah. Blue blazes are for park trails. Yellow blazes are for back country trails. White blazes are for the Appalachian Trail which passes through the park. We were on a blue trail here.

The surface of the trail was crushed green granite, no doubt from the volcanic rocks that are ubiquitous throughout the park. Also, it was littered with leaves and the tops of acorns.

Until recently, the trail was lined with ancient hemlock trees, some as old as 400 years. Sadly, the exotic insect pest known as the woolly adelgid, which sucks the stored food from the hemlock needles, has wreaked havoc on the trees. Now, most are gone, having either fallen or been cut down for safety. The trees can be seen lying in place, gradually decaying into the soil.

The oak trees in Limberlost have also suffered from gypsy moth invasions. And all of that to say that Limberlost encompasses the story of a changing forest. If insect invasions weren't enough, Tropical Storm Fran swept through the area, uprooting many mature trees and causing extensive trail erosion, which was repaired in 1997 after several months of work. It's a great trail now, and includes two nice foot bridges. This next one crossed over a stream.

Here, we might have seen some of the park's oldest and largest red spruce trees, but we neglected to take notice.

An interesting geological feature of the trail is this example of columnar jointing, known as "Rock of Ages."

Here's some information about it.

At one point along the trail, I walked off the path to visit the "necessary room." (No room exists, by the way...we were au naturale.) On the way back to the trail, I noticed this fungus growing from a cut-off stump of a tree.

It was a leisurely hike...a good chance to stretch our legs and be outside.

From there, we headed over to a more strenuous hike (uphill first, downhill on the way out).

On our first day in the park, I took some pictures of the Stony Man formation. It was unimpressive, and so I didn't show them in that post. Here, I'll let you see where we were hiking to.

Here was the accompanying sign, and I'm going to say that it takes more than "a little imagination" to see the man.

Also, an interesting feature of this hike one might see...

We didn't see any falcons on our hike, but it was interesting to know this.

Possibly the best part of this hike for us was knowing that we were hiking the Appalachian Trail, if only briefly.

The park trail and the Appalachian Trail were one trail for a short distance. The white and blue blazes tell the story.

Along the way we saw a lot of these little guys.

They were so industrious, burrowing their noses under the leaves looking for acorns.

Within half a mile, we came to a crossroads. Here the two trails split from one another. There was a concrete post giving instructions.

The Appalachian Trail headed off in one direction, marked with a white blaze.

The park trail headed off in the other direction.

It was marked with a blue blaze.

We took the park trail. Not too much farther, we came to this sign.

We'd seen the green rocks all along the trail, but as we approached the summit, there were more of them.

Eventually they were on both sides of the trail.

When we reached the summit there were two ways to go. There were two other hikers there, and so we went the opposite direction from them.

You can tie up your horse right here.

One might think this is the Stony Man, but no...it's Mike. Also, if you'd like to read more about this green granite, you can click on this link right here.

On a clear day, we might have seen expansive views of the valley below, but no. We weren't that lucky on this day. If you'd like to see the expansive views, you can click on this link right here.

When the other hikers moved on, we climbed to the other side of the summit. Same view there.

There were a lot of interesting lichens growing on the rocks and trees. This one reminded me of kale.

And occasionally, we'd see a little green sprout coming up through the leaves that carpeted the forest floor.

And that was our hiking day. Altogether, we hiked about three miles and 42 floors worth of elevation change. Not bad for two weenie geezers.

Today the weather is much improved. The fog has cleared off and the sun is shining. It has grown quite cold, and we're expecting the temperatures to drop to 18 degrees overnight. Mike put out our heated water hose when we arrived yesterday morning. Our plan today is to hike the "Snead Farm" trail in the northern section of the park. We've not yet visited the northern section, and so we'll pull out at the pull outs and take in the views as well. More on that in tomorrow's post.

This is our last day in Shenandoah. We'll be moving on tomorrow, taking the Blue Ridge Parkway on our way to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina.