Date: 2003-07-27
From: Waynesboro, VA

To: Fire Road (?)
Miles today: 13.5

(Craig says) Today was our first day in Shanendoah National Park, the second national park of our journey and the last one on the way north. There are plenty of national forests left, which in my opinion are just as beautiful and if not more convenient to hike through because the lack of strict park rules. But parks, due to their lack of hunting, give you an opportunity to see more wildlife than you'd normally see. The first seven miles of journey out of Rockfish gap is actually outside park boundaries and therefore is not given as much care and maintenance and not very indicative of the trail inside the park. Most of the trail was a swath of dirt not much more than four inches wide and at times completely obscured by tall, hard 'reedy-like' grass and meandering vines with sharp thorns that have the habit of catching on your shins and arms. Erin expressed her disdain with some well-chosen words. Less than thirty seconds after we arrived at the kiosk where you register for your backcountry permit at the boundry of the park, I felt something crawling on my leg. A tick. I removed it and stuck it to a small square of duck-tape to deal with after I was finished filling out the form. Just as I was about to tear off the carbon copy for Mr. Park Ranger, I felt something else crawling on my leg. Another tick! I stuck that one right next to first. I wrote "beware" beneath them and stuck the tape to the kiosk. I could see the discomfort in Erin's face. She immediately started scouring her legs and arms thinking she felt them all over her. 'Welcome to the Shanendoahs,' I thought.The rest of the hike however, was great. It was tickless (almost, erin spotted one on the ground making a slow clumbsy dash for her shoe) and the trail was much improved over the tiny wedge we were tiptoeing through before. We couldn't wait to reach Skyline drive so we could escape from the sometimes cramped feeling of the trail and do some wide open road walking. It was fun to walk along the rock walls and grassy banks of skyline. Cars whizzed by, while little curious faces peered out the back, giving us the occasional wave. We stopped at the turnoffs which were usually spots of some geographical significance and gave motorists wide views narrated by a wooden sign or plaque along the rock wall. We stopped to read each and every sign, giddy to have a little intellectual stimulation and an actual explanation and story to go along with what we were looking at. Some spots told you about the CCC and what they did here in the thirties, others told you about the air quality or how this mountain or this valley was formed by a glacier 10,000 years ago. You know, just because you've hiked in the woods for a few months doesn't mean you know what the hell you're walking through or looking at. There's a lot of history in the high appalachians, most of it little known facts of local lore or biology. For instance, did you know that Skyline Drive was originally the driveway to Roosevelt's (FDR) Summer home? (Well I guess that's not that local or biological but it's the only fact I could think of off the top of my head.) Or that everyone except about twenty very elderly residents, hundreds of people who'd spent generations in these mountains, were displaced and their homes burned when Shanendoah was turned over to Federal land for its designation as a national park? No? Me neither. You can still see some of the foundations and apple trees left over from the old homesteads.Erin had mentioned the idea of doing a 20-miler today, but as time closed in on 8:30pm and our feet started to ache, we ditched the idea and began looking for the next invitation to exit the road and set up our tent. We accepted the invitation of an inconspicuous fire road which shortly led into a wide open area of grass circled by piles of dirt and rocks, probably dumped by the maintenance crew. Almost as soon as we laid down in the tent, a posse of deer came out of the forest to greet us, coming awfully close but further than arms length, making aloof passes at us as if to imply that they wouldn't mind a handout but they were certainly not going to beg. We didn't fall for their trap. They know they're beautiful, graceful creatures just like a kitten knows it's cute. And they know how to work some sorry tourist sap for all the granola they're worth. But we weren't having it. At one point there was even a quarrel. Two does stood on their hind legs waving and slapping at one another until one of them backed off and joined the other two deer off to the side. It looked almost like a cat-fight between two women who are annoyed with each other enough to engage in some light contact but not enough to warrant messing up their hair. For an hour or so they continued making pass after pass, stopping just in front of us to nibble grass and turn their dignified noses in the air to sniff. But after a while they seemed to grow tired, realizing we weren't game and headed off to find a good patch of leaves to munch on.