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[tag]Shenandoah National Park[/tag] is a park defined by its road – [tag]Skyline Drive[/tag]. Skyline Drive stretches for 102 miles, bisecting the park from north to south. The great thing is that all the things to see in the park are close to the road. The bad thing is that you are never far from the road! So, backpacking in Shenandoah is a test of how well you can ignore the trappings of civilization (or revel in them, I guess).

For example, I donned my backpack on Thursday with the intent of heading out to see Camp Hoover and spend a night out in the woods. The story of Camp Hoover itself is interesting. Much like modern day Camp David, President Hoover was looking for a place to get away from the hustle and bustle of daily Washington life. He had three requirements when looking for a summer retreat. First, it had to be within 100 miles of Washington. Second, it had to be above 2500 feet to avoid Mosquitoes. Lastly, it had to have a trout stream running through it. Hmm, I’ll have to take a hint from ol’ Mr. Hoover when I look for MY next house. But I digress. I threw on my pack, headed down the Appalachian Trail towards Laurel Prong. I’d only gotten a mile or so when the skies opened up and I got myself a good soaking. But I set up my tent, napped for the afternoon and waited for the rain to stop. After it let up near dusk, I hiked to the the camp, looked around, and headed back to the road. At no time was I more than ¼ mile from the Skyline Drive – the whole time I could hear cars and the occasional siren. Not exactly deep wilderness. It reminded me of my days in the Boy Scouts as a kid, camping at Las Flores in Camp Pendelton Marine Base. It was fun to go camping, but hard to pretend you were out in the wilderness with Interstate 5 not 100 yards away.

Spent a few nights at [tag]Big Meadows[/tag] Campground in the park, keeping out of the rain, doing a few day hikes to various waterfalls and other park destinations. On the way up to Bearfence Mountain, I met a group of people slowly working their way up “The Scramble.” The Scramble is a ¼ mile long outcropping of bare rock along a high ridge leading to a very nice overview. In contradiction to all proper trailblazing techniques, the path heads straight along the very spine of these rocks, making for an exhilarating (for me) and terrifying (for some of the kids) experience. But I volunteered to take a picture of the intrepid climbers, so here it is! (The little boy in the front is not as happy as he looks!)

In addition to the very nice people I met at Bearfence (to whom I gave my website address), I also met the most boring and inconsiderate couple I’ve come across (to whom I DID not give my website). I don’t often complain about people on this website, but these guys are an exception. I was in Big Meadows just at dusk when I noticed two people crammed into a phone booth. Two people in a phone booth mean they are unsuccessfully attempting to set a how-many-people-can-we-fit-in-a-phone-booth record, or they are having car trouble. It was the latter; seems that he had gotten the sun in his eyes and run into a rock in the campground, ripping out the bottom of his radiator. Hey, it happens. One thing lead to another and I ended up taking them to the nearest town the next morning to get a rental car. The drive took an hour and a half. All their answers were one word – yes or no. It took me 20 minutes to figure out that he was a computer administrator working in Washington, and she was a teacher that had the week off. I tried telling him about my GPS computer, my old job as a software guy. I tried telling her about my sister teaching. I tried a few stories about my trip, about where I was going. All I got was a “Really? Wow.” I had never met such boring folk. As an experiment I tried not saying anything. Well, FORTY minutes went by and nothing. I dropped them off at the rental place, saying I’d stay outside just to ensure that there were cars available. The man popped his head out of the store and gave me a thumbs up. That was it! No thanks, no offer of breakfast or ten bucks to cover gas. Sheesh! No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

Although, I will admit, the woman did have one joke when I had mentioned I was driving to all the national parks, including the few in Hawaii. Here it goes:

A man is talking to God and says that he’d like a highway to Hawaii. God says, “Do you understand the engineering difficulties with such a project? Not to mention the financial, environmental and social impacts such a project would have. Want something else, instead?”

“Well, how about giving me the ability to understand how women think?” the man asks.

God replies, “Will that be two lanes or four?”

[tags]shenandoah[/tags]