Shenandoah National Park, June 9-15

We left Assategue on Thursday headed for Shenandoah National Park. We stopped at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center. Excellent museum and worth the stop of you're in the area.

The drive around DC was horrendous but we finally made it to Big Meadows Campground late in the evening. We traded  ponies for deer.  We must have passed more than twenty after we entered the park and drove to or campground.

On Friday we did a short hike along the Appalachian Trail to a viewpoint on Bearfence Mountain.

Saturday was a work day. I worked on engineering stuff and Donna Sue worked on her blog.

Two short hikes on Sunday. The first was called Limberlost, and eat hike through groves of Mountain Laurel and some interesting geological features. And some Columbine, too.


The second hike was Stony Man with some wonderful views.



On Monday we hiked to Rapidan Camp, the precursor to Camp Davi, built by President Herbert Hoover and his wife, Lou Henry Hoover. Well, actually it was built by the Marines, but the Hoovers designed it. It was quite a complex with multiple buildings for staff and guests. Today, only three buildings remain, but one of them is the residence of the Hoovers.



President Hoover called it the Brown House. Get it?  White House and the Brown House.

The trail to Rapidan Camp was two miles down from the ridge of the Shenandoah Mountains, and, of course, two miles back up, our longest hike yet.  Three stream crossings and several waterfalls.




Tuesday was pretty dreary and rainy but we did make it up Hawksbill at the end of the day.



The spongy mouth caterpillars are decimating many of the trees at Shenandoah. They were particularly bad at the campground.  It was constantly raining caterpillar poop and bits of leaves. It's really sad. Not sure what they can do about it. We sure hope they are not as bad at New River Gorge.

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