For today's historical tour, we are visiting Shenandoah National Park. We live about half an hour from the entrance of the park and have been there a few times. The park is basically a long strip of land with a road in the middle, which runs along the ridge of the Blue Ridge mountains. There are many hikes that branch off from the single road, Skyline Drive. Luckily dogs are allowed on almost all the trails in this National Park and the trails are all clearly marked.
Probably the most famous trail in the park is the Appalachian Trail. It is 101 miles long in the the park, but that is only one small segment of the trail. It runs for a total of 2181 miles, from Georgia to Maine. We have hiked the AT, but only for a couple miles. I'm pretty sure that Steve and I could tackle the full AT, but since we are stuck with two slow humans, we haven't been able to try.
There is a lot of wildlife in the park, including bears, but we have not seen any. Mom says this is very good because she doesn't want us to be eaten by a bear. I think she's really just afraid that she's the slowest and most likely to be eaten.
This is what Mom would see if she was running a race with us. Obviously she would be losing.
The Shenandoah National Park has several very good vantage points for looking out over the valley. Many of the viewpoints are pullouts from the road, but you can also hike to some scenic lookouts.
There are also several streams and waterfalls in the park, which is very nice when you need to cool off after hiking.
Thanks for joining us on this tour!
Kat