2020 Winter Camping Trip Day2

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day2, 2020/11/27

We got up at 5:30 a.m. and ate breakfast. My breakfast is ochazuke and Mr.N's is oatmeal. You can tell who is American is who is Japanese by that. 

This day we drove 1.5 hour and went to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. It was my first time visiting Virginia. Things I knew about Virginia are 1) One of East Coast states, 2) It has Shenandoah National Park, 3) Mr.N's co-worker Ms.D is from Virginia. That's it. So it was good to be there and see in person what it is like. 

I found that Shenandoah is East Coast style National Park. Blue Ridge Mountains are pretty and its appearance and style is similar to New England's, especially New Hampshire's. There are full of green trees, however, although I mentioned that it is similar to NH, much less trees than New Hampshire. In NH, it is impossible to see any view between trees, but here in Shenandoah, you can see scenery between trees. I liked that. At the hill tops, there are rocks usually and views are nice. Iconic rocky terrain in New England is also in Shenandoah. 

One of interesting features about Shenandoah National Park is that the park is really long from north to south, but it is short in the width, east to west. It is about 100 miles from north to south, but some area less than 10 miles in the width. This shape is because park is covering the mountain range. Interestingly, there is a paved road on the mountain ridge all the way in the park. According to the brochure, the road was constructed to give everybody an opportunity to enjoy the mountains. The road was made in the era cars got popular in the U.S. Mr.N said that in that era Americans tried to make roads literally everywhere so that people could go everywhere by cars (and not walking at all). 

Another thing worth mentionining is that Appalachian trail is all the way along the scenic road. Appalachian trail (AT) is a long distance, 2190 mile-trail from Georgia to Maine. For AT hikers in this part would be great, because frequent visitor center accesses, which includes restaurants, campground, and lodges. According to the park pamphlet, there are 4 food service areas and 2 lodging areas along AT. When I was reading the brochure, I found a picture of President Hoover and his wife. Although I knew his name due to Hoover tower at Stanford (I worked there before as a scientist), I had never seen his picture. I said, "He is fat", and Mr.N said, "Yes." I replied, "How do you know?" Mr.N said that he learned that Mr.Hoover was fat at school. He learned that several things about each President and one bullet point about Mr.Hoover was that he was fat. I laughed. It was a bit sad that one of past America's President descriptions is being fat, but I thought that it was very funny. I read the description on the brochure regarding Hoover and I thought that he was lazy. He built Rapidan Camp as a retreat and he and his wife came to Shenandoah National Park "to escape the stress of work and summer's heat and humidity in the Nation's Capital."  The quote is from the pamphlet. I was not sure that President escaping from stress is publicly accepted. I had a positive impression of Hoover, because he donated his books to Stanford and beautiful Hoover Tower, but now his points are subtracted. Anyway from this and map, I learned Virginia and Washington DC is next each other, which I didn't know before. 

Lunch time

OK, so, finally hikes. We did small 2 hikes. The first one was North Marshall Mountain. It was only 1.3 mile with 276 elevation gain. It was a lunch time, so we sat down the top and ate tuna packs and bread with hot tea. We always prepare tea (K), and coffee (Mr.N) in a insulated mug (not Thermos but they are Zojirushi, which is my forever favorite brand) for a day. There were no people hiking at that time, so it was peaceful and nice.                                     

Blue Ridge Mountains

Second hike is another small one, 2.2 mile with 495 feet elevation change to the park's highest point, Hawkbill peak at 4051 feet. Probably because it is the highest peak in the park, there were many people, especially at the summit area. I wished there had been less people. 

After the hike we drove the scenic Skyline Drive until the end. Along the road there are many turnouts for overlook. One overlook is named Pinnacles Overlook. I was expecting that something interesting rocks there due to the name pinnacles, but there was not a single one. Hummm. It might be because there is a mountain called Pinnacle Peak 10 miles away. I didn't see any signs of pinnacles, but maybe some can be seen if I climbed there. Who knows.

Probably near Riprap Overlook

Near the end of Skyline Drive, we saw a very good view. The sunlight from clouds going to the waves of mountains. We sat down a little and enjoyed the view. Then we left the Shenandoah. 

Shenandoah is too far to drive for weekend from Boston, and if we fly we go to the West. If there was no pandemic, we would never visit Shenandoah. It was a good opportunity. 

Love Fire

                                                                                                                                               Then we drove to West Virginia and camped in the National Forest.  It was a big camping area but only one group was camping far away. We made fire and enjoyed it. The picture is a morning campfire. Fog in the forest was pretty. It was above freezing temperature and it was no problem with dealing with cold. 

To be continued...