Part 1

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Shenandoah NATIONAL PARK VIRGINIA

CONTENTS

Page _INTRODUCTION TO THE PARK_ 3 _FUN IN THE PARK_ 3 _AT HOME IN THE PARK_ 6 _SKYLAND_ 7 _BIG MEADOWS_ 8 _LEWIS MOUNTAIN_ 8 _THE SKYLINE DRIVE_ 10, 11, 12, 13 _GEOLOGY_ 14 _PLANTS_ 16 _WILDLIFE_ 17 _THE SEASONS_ 18 _HUMAN HISTORY_ 20 _A PARK EMERGES_ 21 _PRESERVING THE PARK_ 21 _PREPARING FOR YOUR VISIT_ 22 _HOW TO REACH THE PARK_ 22 _PARK REGULATIONS_ 23 _VISITOR USE FEES_ 23 _ADMINISTRATION_ 24 _AMERICA’S NATURAL RESOURCES_ 24

Shenandoah is one of seven National Parks east of the Mississippi River. Set in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, its most celebrated features are the succession of panoramas from the crest of the ridge and the lush beauty of the slopes. This is your park—we of the National Park Service hope you will help protect and preserve it so that many future generations may enjoy it. The superintendent and his staff are here to help make your visit a happy one.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PARK

Like a great, hazy shadow against the sky, the Blue Ridge Mountains rise between the Piedmont and the Valley of Virginia. The 105-mile Skyline Drive winds along the Blue Ridge highland, crossing and recrossing the crest. It roughly bisects Shenandoah National Park, which encompasses over 300 square miles of scenic mountain country and claims 60 peaks that rise 3,000 to 4,000 feet. Seventy-five parking overlooks on the drive give you panoramic views of the Piedmont to the east and Shenandoah River Valley to the west. From Hogback Overlook, on a clear day, you can count 11 bends in the river and look down on fertile valleys where Indian villages once stood.

To know Shenandoah National Park, to discover its secrets, you must take time to stop, look, and listen. For adventure, you must explore. Leave your car at one of the overlooks or visitor-use areas, and hike or ride horseback along the trail. Between the drive and the park’s boundaries are miles of ridges and valleys, hills and hollows, laced with sparkling streams and waterfalls. Trout lurk in shadowed pools, and wild gardens of rock, vines, shrubs, and wildflowers nestle only a short walk from the busy roadway.

At night, take time to look down on the twinkling lights of Luray, in Shenandoah Valley, and to see the stars through air so crystal-clear they seem almost within reach. On a rainy day, watch the fog roll in like a tidal wave; on a sunny day, see the cloud shadows sweep across hill and valley.

FUN IN THE PARK

_Dickey Ridge Visitor Center._

This should be your starting point, if you enter the park from the north, for it is just inside mile 4.6 (see pp. 10-13 for mileposts). Wherever you enter, be sure to stop here sometime before you leave the park. Ranger-naturalists are on hand to orient you and help you get all the information you need on hiking or camping, or whatever you plan to do. A short sequence of color slides will give you a general introduction to the park. The program describes the variety of park attractions—trails, wildlife, wildflowers, geology, and history.

_Visitor Activities Program._

During the summer, ranger-naturalists conduct a number of field trips daily to points of interest and give nightly campfire programs at Skyland, Big Meadows, or Lewis Mountain. The entire family can enjoy these park-sponsored activities. In spring and autumn, park naturalists present evening talks at concession lodges. For the “do-it-yourself” visitor, self-guiding nature trails are open throughout the year.

SOME TRAILS OF SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK Round Trip Name of Trail Starts Miles Time Remarks

Marys Rock Mile 31.5 3.6 3 hrs. Steady climb for 1.8 miles but easy return. Broad sweep of scenery in every direction. Little Mile 39.1 1.5 1 hr. Steep 385-foot climb for 0.6 mile Stony Man of forest trail. Splendid view of Shenandoah Valley. Stony Man Mile 41.8 1.5 2 hrs. Easy grade. Self-guiding nature trail through the woods; startlingly beautiful vista atop Stony Man profile. Whiteoak Mile 42.6 5 ½ day Cool walk through the woods; long Canyon (Conducted pull returning. First of series of walk from six waterfalls at end of trail. Mile 43) Limberlost Mile 42.6 1.5 2 hrs. Easy walk through hemlock forest (first part of Whiteoak trail). Upper Mile 46.6 2 1½ hrs. To summit of Hawksbill Mountain, Hawksbill highest in park. Shady but steady climb. Dark Hollow Mile 50.5 1.5 1 hr. Shady trail; fairly steep climb Falls returning. Falls drop sheerly 50 feet. Big Meadows Mile 51.2 2 2 hrs. No climbing; trail through swamp Swamp (Big Meadows and woodland. Self-guiding. Amphitheater)

A complete schedule of these free interpretive activities is found in the _Visitor Activities Program_, available at all park and concession installations in Shenandoah National Park, or by writing to the Park Superintendent, Luray, Va.

_Hiking._

The park is a hiker’s paradise, with over 200 miles of foot trails, including a 94-mile link of the famous Appalachian Trail, which extends more than 2,000 miles from Maine to Georgia. The park maintains a series of open shelters along the trails, conveniently spaced a day’s hike apart. Each hiker should bring his own bedroll for use on one of the six spring-covered bunks furnished in most of the shelters. These bunks are occupied on a first-come, first-served basis.

Detailed hikers’ guides and maps of the trail system can be ordered by mail. (See p. 22, PREPARING FOR YOUR VISIT.)

_Horseback riding._

There are about 25 miles of scenic horse trails in the park. Horses (and ponies for children) can be rented at hourly rates at Skyland and Big Meadows.

_Photography._

A filter is advisable when you are taking panoramic views, for haze is often present without your even noticing it. You will get better definition and more interesting shadows if you take your pictures in the morning or late afternoon, rather than in the flat light of midday.

With a long exposure you can get most dramatic photographs at sunset when the trees and rocks stand out against the western sky in silhouette. Don’t be afraid to go out and shoot black-and-white film in the fog or during a storm; cloud effects often are more striking than ever. If you want good pictures of wildlife, a telephoto lens will help.

_Fishing._

The fun of fishing awaits the eager angler along the park streams. There, to try your skill, are native brook trout. At the park entrance stations you can get rules and regulations governing angling and also directions to fishing waters. You will need a Virginia fishing license. A 3-day limit, nonresident trout fishing license is available at all concession units in the park for $3.

_Picnicking._

Campers and picnickers come from all over to take advantage of Shenandoah’s superb facilities for 9 months of the year. Fireplaces make it easy to prepare steaks or fish or even pancakes. Your frying pan rests on a grill as steady as your own stove. Choose one of the picnic areas along the drive for your evening meal, and then walk out and watch the sunset. (Picnic grounds are noted on the map, pp. 10-13.)

AT HOME IN THE PARK

_Where To Stay._

All of the lodging and restaurant facilities, the gift shops, and service stations in Shenandoah National Park are operated by the Virginia Sky-Line Co., Inc. While types of accommodations in the park are limited, there is a wide choice of cabins, tourist homes, motels, and hotels in nearby communities, which are available the year round.

Hotel-type accommodations may be obtained in the park at Big Meadows. Cabins, with rooms and private connecting baths, may be rented at Skyland, Big Meadows, and Lewis Mountain. These accommodations are closed during winter. There are no cabins equipped for housekeeping.

As rates are subject to change from season to season, no prices for facilities are given in this booklet. Reservations and rates may be secured from the Virginia Sky-Line Co., Inc., Luray, Va. Whenever possible, lodging reservations should be made in advance, particularly from early July through October. You are urged to plan your trip to the park during the middle of the week to avoid congested periods over weekends.

_Camping._

Campers and picnickers should bring camp stoves or fuel for fireplaces since wood is not always available. Food supplies, ice, charcoal burners, and fuel may be obtained at Big Meadows Wayside. Electricity is not available. Use of campgrounds is free but is limited to 14 days in any one year. Reservations for campsites cannot be made; the policy is first come, first served.

_Shelters._

There are 20 open shelters, each sleeping 6 persons (see map, pp. 10 -13); they cannot be reserved, and hikers must bring their own bedding. However, locked, equipped cabins are available by reservation from the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, 1916 Sunderland Place NW., Washington 6, D. C. A small nightly charge is made for the locked cabins.

_Restaurants_

are operated by the Virginia Sky-Line Company at Panorama, Skyland, Big Meadows, and Big Meadows Wayside, Lewis Mountain, and Swift Run Gap. Light lunches are available at Elkwallow; groceries, at Big Meadows Wayside.

_Mail_

is delivered daily to the lodges; campers should direct their mail to be sent in care of General Delivery, Luray, Va.

_Long-distance telephone service_

is available 24 hours a day at the developed areas.

SKYLAND

STONY MAN 4010 HORSE TRAIL APPALACHIAN TRAIL NATURE TRAIL PARKING WHITEOAK CANYON SKYLINE DRIVE RESTAURANT RECREATION HALL OFFICE CAMPFIRE CIRCLE STABLE

Skyland, at 3,680 feet elevation, is the highest point on Skyline Drive. Here in the largest of the park’s developed areas are accommodations for 350 persons. The lodge is the center of the community, with groups of multiple-unit cottages scattered within walking distance along the ridge and under the trees. Besides dining room, coffeeshop, and gift shop, there are lounges for use on chilly nights and a terrace for lazy sunning.

Skyland is the starting point for many of the guided walks and horseback trips; stables are just downhill from the lodge. The campfire circle is the scene of naturalist talks on fine evenings; in rainy weather you will find them in the recreation hall, “under the hill.”

Don’t leave this area until you hike the 1½-mile round trip to Stony Man Mountain. You saw the rock profile in view for many miles if you approached Skyland from the north. From this cliff of weathered, greenstone rock, the view is sheerly downward to the valley, and sweepingly across to the Massanutten Mountain, a hazy blue in the distance. The half-day hikes to Whiteoak Canyon, and to the summit of Marys Rock (trail starts at Panorama), as well as shorter walks to Millers Head, Little Stony Man Cliffs, and Hawksbill Mountain, are most easily reached from Skyland.

BIG MEADOWS

Second largest of the developed areas, Big Meadows has a hospitable lodge with spacious veranda, surrounded by individual cottages. These, together with a few lodge rooms, accommodate 250 persons. Tent, trailer, and picnic grounds are a part of the development. The lodge dining room is open to all visitors. At Big Meadow Wayside, you will find a coffeeshop, small grocery store, gift shop, and service station. Horseback trips from Big Meadows begin near the ranger station.

The great charm of Big Meadows lies in its open fields, in contrast to the forests on every hand. The fragrant meadows once were heavily grazed, keeping down the trees that only now, after 30 years, are starting to come back.

Of considerable interest is a swamp in one part of the fields, destination of the self-guiding trail fittingly called the Swamp Trail. Usually the pathway is quite dry, but in the damp areas nearby is an unusual variety of vegetation—gray birch, cardinal flower, and American burnet, all rare in the park. Remnants of the ghost forest of gaunt chestnut trees still stand. From the edge of the meadows there are fine views of the valley. An equally relaxing walk of another kind—along a forest trail—is to Dark Hollow Falls, a round trip of 3½ miles from the lodge.

Campfire talks are held in the amphitheater several times a week in summer, and in the lodge in spring and autumn.

LEWIS MOUNTAIN

At mile 57.6, Lewis Mountain is the southernmost and the smallest accommodations area in the park—room for only 24 people. But besides the cabins, there is a coffeeshop and camp and picnic grounds. Park naturalists present campfire programs during the summer.

NATURE TRAIL STARTS PICNIC GROUNDS FISHERS GAP OVERLOOK AMPHITHEATER LODGE CABINS CAMPGROUND BLACK ROCK 3721 3650 SWAMP DARK HOLLOW TRAIL LEWIS SPRING SHELTER 3300 STABLE LEWIS FALLS APPALACHIAN TRAIL HORSE TRAIL SKYLINE DRIVE DARK HOLLOW FALLS PARKING WAYSIDE 3498 TANNERS RIDGE OVERLOOK

TO FRONT ROYAL PICNIC GROUNDS RESTAURANT CAMPFIRE CIRCLE CABINS SKYLINE DRIVE APPALACHIAN TRAIL

THE SKYLINE DRIVE

The drive is 105 miles long from Front Royal to Rockfish Gap. Mileposts numbered from north to south are keyed to the map on the left, and to the table below. Symbols indicate developed areas (accommodations, restaurants, service stations); entrance and ranger stations; camp and picnic grounds; trail cabins and shelters; roads and trails. Most picnic grounds have fireplaces; all have tables and water.

_NOTE: Dates given for accommodations areas vary with weather conditions from season to season._

Mile Point of Interest Elevation, Feet

0.0 Junction with US. 340 595 0.6 North Entrance Station 705 2.8 Shenandoah Valley Overlook. First important view 1,390 of the valley 900 ft. below. Directly opposite is Signal Knob. Civil War communications post, on Massanutten Mountain 4.6 Dickey Ridge Visitor Center. Exhibits and programs to explain park. Information, bookstore, maps. Restrooms. Picnic grounds nearby. Telephone. Open daily Apr. through Oct. 17.1 Range View Overlook. Piedmont Plateau; Blue Ridge 2,810 peaks 20.1 Hogback Overlook. Eleven bends in Shenandoah 3,385 River visible on clear day 24.1 Elkwallow. Picnic grounds. Lunch, souvenirs, 2,445 gasoline. May through Oct. 31.5 Panorama (Thornton Gap Entrance Station). 2,300 Intersection with U.S. 211. Dining room, lunch counter, gift shop, service station. Open all year. Trail to Marys Rock. Park headquarters 4 miles west on U.S. 211; 8 miles to Luray 32.4 Marys Rock Tunnel cut through 700 feet of rock 2,545 (13-foot clearance) 36.7 Pinnacles. Picnic grounds 3,550 37.4 Pinnacles Ranger Station 3,215

Mile Point of Interest Elevation, Feet

37.4 Pinnacles Ranger Station 3,215 39.2 Little Stony Man Parking Area. 1½-mile-round-trip 3,210 trail to sweeping view of Shenandoah Valley 41.8 Entrance to Skyland. Lodge rooms, cottages, 3,680 dining room, coffeeshop, gift shop, riding horses. Accommodations for 350. May through Oct. Stony Man Nature Trail Parking Area 42.6 Whiteoak Canyon Parking Area. 5-mile-round-trip 3,510 trail to falls 44.5 Crescent Rock Overlook. Best view of Hawksbill 3,550 Mountain, highest in park 46.6 Upper Hawksbill Gap Parking Area. 3,400 2-mile-round-trip trail to summit of Hawksbill 50.5 Dark Hollow Falls Parking Area. 3,070 1½-mile-round-trip trail to falls 51.3 Big Meadows Wayside. Coffeeshop, gift shop, 3,500 service station, campers’ store. Apr. through Oct. Entrance to Big Meadows. Lodge, dining room, hotel rooms, and cottages. Gift shop, riding horses. Accommodations for 250. Apr. through Oct. Camp and trailer sites, picnic grounds. Showers and automatic laundry. Big Meadows Nature Trail. Ranger station. 57.6 Lewis Mountain. Coffeeshop, cabin accommodations 3,390 for 24, Apr. through Oct. Camp and trailer sites, picnic grounds 62.9 South River. Picnic grounds; 2½-mile-round-trip 2,940 trail to falls 65.7 Swift Run Gap. Intersection with U.S. 33. Dining 2,365 room, gift shop, service station. Apr. to mid-Nov. 73.2 Simmons Gap Ranger Station 2,245 78.2 Rockytop Overlook. Big Run watershed, wild canyon 2,860 scenery, trails 90.1 Calvary Rocks Parking Area. 2-mile-round-trip 2,730 trail 104.6 South Entrance Station 2,070 105.4 Rockfish Gap; intersection with US. 250; 5 miles 1,910 to Humpback Rocks Visitor Center—Blue Ridge Parkway

GEOLOGY

Geologists tell us how the rounded, forest-covered mountains of the Blue Ridge record more than a billion years of the earth’s history. The two types of granitic basement rocks are the oldest. These rocks were formed many thousands of feet beneath the surface of the earth, as large masses of magma (molten rock) cooled and crystallized very slowly. One type of granitic rock (hypersthene granodiorite) is exposed at Marys Rock Tunnel, and along the crest and on the western flank of the Blue Ridge. The other type is a much coarser grained granite. It is named Old Rag granite for exposures found on that mountain and in the area east of the crest of the Blue Ridge. Both of these granitic rocks were changed by heat and pressure (metamorphism), which accounts for their layered or laminated (gneissic) textures at many locations.

Hundreds of millions of years ago, long before the present landscape was formed, erosion carved an ancestral terrain of mountains, hills, and canyons into the ancient granitic rock. There were no trees, wildflowers, or animals to relieve the barrenness of the wind- and rain-swept landscape. A half-billion years ago, only a few primitive plants (algae) may have spotted the jagged granite hills.

Then, from a series of long cracks or fissures in the earth, layer after layer of lava poured out until most of the granitic hills were submerged in a vast, level plain of lava. These basaltic outpourings formed the principal rocks of the Catoctin formation. Long after the lavas had hardened, they were radically altered by intense metamorphism into completely new groups of minerals, which give the rock its present characteristic green color, and its name—greenstone. This extremely durable greenstone schist caps many of the highest peaks in Shenandoah.

The lava plateau sank slowly beneath advancing Paleozoic seas. Some 30,000 feet of sea-floor sediments were deposited in a vast trough, or geosyncline. Only the very lowest or oldest rocks from this age are now found in the north and south districts of the park. They belong to the Chilhowee series, but throughout the central district even these have been stripped by erosion from the crest of the Blue Ridge.

Near the end of the Paleozoic era (some 180 million years ago), the sediments of the Appalachian geosyncline were subjected to intense compression by tremendous unknown forces acting from the southeast. These intense pressures slowly wrinkled, folded, shoved, and fractured the ancient granites, lavas, and sea-floor sediments into a great original Appalachian mountain system, which stood several times higher than the present mountains. Most of the younger rocks were shoved into parallel mountain ridges to the west of the Blue Ridge and now form the Allegheny Mountains. Continuous erosion has stripped thousands of feet of material from the former alplike mountains. Vast quantities of this material have been transported to the sea. Some of it was deposited in local basins to the east during the Triassic period. The Triassic redbeds are now being uncovered by erosion along Lee Highway (U.S. 211) and in the road cuts west of Bull Run or Manassas Battlefield. Even today the geologic forces continue, almost unnoticed, to change and shape the land.

PLANTS

Ninety-five percent of the Blue Ridge is wooded, and much of this forest is made up of scarlet, red, and chestnut oaks. On the ridges and dry slopes there may also be hickory, black locust, black birch, and scattered maple, black gum, ash, and pine. In moister coves there is a greater variety of species including white oak, maple, birch, yellow-poplar, sycamore, and basswood. In cooler coves and on north slopes, hemlocks are dominant. At higher elevations, red spruce and balsam fir stand as relics of the northern forest type that covered the Blue Ridge during the more arctic conditions of the Pleistocene Age.