Shenandoah National Park

In December I was in Virginia for work and spent some time visiting family in Washington D.C. I decided to drive over to Western Virginia and check out Shenandoah National Park. I didn’t have much time to visit the park, so I decided to enter the park at the Northern Front Royal entrance and drive the scenic Skyline Drive Road. The road is a little over 100 miles and websites said it takes about 3 hours to drive. December isn’t the most popular month to visit the park, but the colder weather and lack of vegetation also meant less crowds and I felt like I had the whole park to myself. There was almost no one at the scenic view stops, and I only ran into three people on the hikes I took. I could only imagine how nice it would be with vivid green, or autumn colors, but the sparse brown vegetation had it’s own beauty, and the lack of leaves meant more vast views along the drive. The lack of vegetation and people also meant I saw a ton of wildlife, lots of deer and birds including Bald Eagles, Turkey Vultures, and Hawks. Because of my time constraints I was only able to do one waterfall hike, the Dark Hollow Falls, which was a steep 1.5 mile hike. The internet said it took 1-2 hours, and while I think you could do it in 1, I took closer to 2 hours, although I did spend a fair amount of time taking pictures. Following the Dark Hollow Falls hike, I continued on the Skyline Drive, leaving the park at sunset at the southern end of the park and headed to Charlotte for the night. It was a very short day trip/drive through the park, and I would love to come back and see it at a different time of year and spend a few days.