The Nomad Retirees: Shenandoah National Park

We visited Shenandoah National Park and WOW - what a beautiful park with over 75 scenic overlooks on the 105 mile long Skyline Drive. We stopped at most of the overlooks, and the vistas were amazing. The park has 500+ miles of trails. Over 100 miles of the Appalachian trail runs through the park--it criss crosses Skyline Drive over 30 times. We visited the park over Mother's Day weekend so there were quite a few visitors, but it never felt crowded. We had a chance to chat with one of the park staff; he made an interesting comment about over half of the US population is within a one day drive of Shenandoah.

Shenandoah is also a remarkable place because of the role the CCC (Civilian Conservation Core) played in developing it. Between the beauty they created on Skyline Drive and the trails carved by the CCC - it's awe inspiring to think what the "boys of the CCC" accomplished between 1933 and 1942 in helping to preserve America's natural resources. Herbert Hoover had a summer retreat at Shenandoah named Rapidan Camp that has quite the history too. We hiked a number of trails in Shenandoah from "easy" to "moderate." We decided to forgo the "strenuous" ones after we hiked some they called "moderate." Shenandoah's hemlock trees, as well as all hemlocks, are under attack by an invasive species, the hemlock woolly adelaide. These aphid-like creatures have killed 95% of hemlocks in the park. We camped in Shenandoah for a couple nights and would have stayed another night, but the truck "bit" Laura in the leg. (That's another post.)