Northeast Trip - Day 18 (Friday, June 23, 2000)
- Shenandoah and Luray Caverns -
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| I enjoy the view at an overlook. (Shenandoah National Park, Virginia) |
At our motel, we stopped in the office for a small, complimentary breakfast where some other friendly guests were chatting. After that, we made our way south onto Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park, for a day of driving, hiking, and sightseeing.
At the beginning we already began finding overlooks into the Shenandoah Valley, where I could see the winding river. We stopped for a little while at the Dickey Ridge Visitor Center, so I could familiarize myself with the hiking options we had. We made quick stops at every overlook thereafter. Highlights included a great view of the mountain range south of us, blooming flowers, and plants that had butterflies flying in them.
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| The stalacpipe organ in Luray Caverns. (Luray, Virginia) |
After about thirty miles on the scenic road, we turned west towards the town of Luray, where we went on a tour of Luray Caverns. It was a typical limestone cave, with beautiful speleothems all over the place. "Dream Lake" was only a couple inches deep, but cave lighting created a gorgeous deep reflection in the still water. I also enjoyed the sight of the formations known as the "Towel" and the "Dentures," which did have a resemblence to their namesake. A swirly formation that the guide pointed out in the tour was called "Ice Cream" in summer and "Christmas Tree" in winter.
The main reason I decided to tour this cave over others came near the end - the room containing the "Stalacpipe Organ." On a stand was a real organ, whose pipes were the stalactites in the room. Looking closely, we could see the mallets on some of the formations. It played an automated erie, but beautiful rendition of a classical Bach piece. On our way out, we passed by one more thing - the "Wishing Well," where we were encouraged to toss in coins for charity.
Back outside, we visited the modest "Historic Car and Carriage Caravan" museum, with a collection of beautiful historic vehicles, shown chronologically as we walked the aisles. We ate lunch in the nearby cafeteria, where I tried a sandwich with Virginia Ham that turned out to be quite bland. I only finished it because I was hungry.
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| Deer chewing grass near the Blackrock Summit trailhead. (Shenandoah National Park, Virginia) |
Back on the road again, we re-entered Shenandoah National Park, continuing south on Skyline Drive. On our first overlook of note, I could see a face-like set of rocks on a mountain that was known as Stony Man. I looked into the possibility of hiking there, but concluded we didn't have the time to do so. We did stop, though to take the short trail to Crescent Rock, where we got a great view of Hawksbill Mountain, highest peak in the park at 4051 feet. I wish I had time to take the trail up there too.
At least I wanted the chance to hike down to see one of the park's waterfalls, so my brother and I took the shortest trail to one, which led us to Dark Hollow Falls. The scenic trail included blossoms, cliffs, big rocks, and, of course, the waterfall, which was pretty but not spectacular.
Returning up the trail, we got back to the car and drove to the Byrd Visitor Center in Big Meadows to inquire about more short hiking opportunities. We found out there was a fun rock scrambling route to take up Bearfence Mountain, and we drove to the trailhead to do just that. I loved the view while making my way up the rocks, but discovered that the view at the top was limited by trees. We returned to the parking lot by taking a portion of the Appalachian Trail.
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| The view from Blackrock Summit. (Shenandoah National Park, Virginia) |
Many undistinguished overlooks later, we arrived at the parking lot for Blackrock Summit. We had already seen many deer along the road, but had our closest encounter here, with the animals casually eating grass right next to the cars. The hike up to the summit featured the most unusual landscape I had seen for this park - a mountain of broken talus made of quartzite. Scrambling to the top was fun and had a great view. Going back down a different trail, we walked through a meadow where we couldn't resist doing a little frolicking.
After twenty more miles of driving and glancing at all the overlooks on the way, we finally exited the park and headed east to Charlottesville. We drove around the city a bit before finding the motel we planned to stay in, then checked in. Craving some Asian food, we ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant, where I had sushi. Later on, we returned to our motel room to rest.
Contact me if you have any questions or comments about this trip.
| Document last modified January 06, 2009. Copyright © 1995-2009 Andrew Sawadisavi. All rights reserved. |
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