The Trail soon leaves West Virginia across the Shenandoah River opposite Harpers Ferry. It will briefly touch this state again near Pearisburg. Virginia One-fourth of the Appalachian Trail lies in Virginia. Shenandoah National Park has 100 miles of graded Appalachian Trail and many side trails. The proximity of Skyline Drive the trail crosses it 32 times and connecting links offer endless varieties of trips never too far from a potential base of supplies.
Views here are extraordinary.
The trail continues roughly parallel to but generally many miles removed from the Blue Ridge Parkway . It crosses the Parkway two times in one 70-mile stretch. It is then close to it, with several crossings, for a short distance in Jefferson National Forest . This is a section of mature timber and wilderness with high summits, more impressive, perhaps, than any region to the north. From here the Trail route crosses west of the Shenandoah Valley.