Wilderness, Strider, and I got some hotel breakfast, a small resupply at CVS and then a ride back to the trail from Greg who runs the Waynesboro town website and sits on the planning board. He was one of about 20 “trail angels” offering free rides for hikers. Very nice hiker town. It was 11 by the time we were on the trail though, but it was time for Shenandoah National Park.
Shenandoah. The name sounds magical to me and it’s been one of the places I’ve been looking forward to the most even since I started planning for the AT. It always looked amazing, and it has a reputation for being an easy section of the trail, and it means I’m almost halfway to Katahdin. At first it seemed a bit disappointing though: upon entering the park from the south I encountered a couple big transmission towers early on and there weren’t any good views all day. Add to that the fact that the trail seems to not stray more than a few hundred yards from Skyline Drive and the trail starts to lose its’ wilderness feeling. I know the next few days I’ll appreciate being near the road more when I get to buy food and drink at the park waysides.
The hike itself wasn’t too bad, another big 20 mile day and probably 80% of it was uphill, but nothing was challenging or steep. Even more so than usual it was incredible how quickly the landscape changed in the park today. I felt like I saw ten different forests; some areas were dry with thin vegetation, some had pine trees, some were covered in the bright green ferns, some parts felt like a rain forest – all in 20 miles of trail. It was a warm day so I was pretty excited when an afternoon thunderstorm materialized overhead. It didn’t last long but the rain was cold and refreshing. There’s no doubt my pace quickened dramatically thanks to disappearance of the sun’s direct heat.
After a few days of basically being alone at shelters there is a packed house tonight – about 10 people inside and several tenting. There was a ridge runner around as we were eating talking about bears in the area, and about 15 minutes later I was the first one to spot a bear walking near a spring about 30 yards from the shelter. He didn’t seem remotely interested in the crowd or the shelter, just kept moving through the area. So that makes it two total bear sightings, both on the first day of a national park.
That also makes it three days in a row of 20+ miles and seven of the last eight days over 18 – ready for a break.