9. Skyline Drive

Tuesday, July 16th - Today we drove the Skyline Drive.  For those not familiar with it, it is a scenic highway that goes from Waynesboro, VA, at the south end to Front Royal, VA, at the north end.  It is 105 miles long and runs along the tops of the Blue Ridge Mountains through Shenandoah National Park.  It was built by the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression.  It was started in 1931 and finished in 1939 and was built before the Blue Ridge Parkway.  But for practical purposes it can be considered a part of the Blue Ridge Parkway or vice versa.  50  plus years ago when I was a student at the University of Virginia, I used to drive this route.

Our first stop was to hike to the top of Turk Mountain.  This was a 2.2 mile round trip with about 640 feet of elevation gain.  We started out by hiking about 0.2 mile of the Appalachian Trail and then split off for the Turk Mountain trail.  For the firsts half of the hike we went down hill and then the rest was uphill fairly steep and in areas the trail was covered with rocks.  It was hot and humid and by the time we finished this hike we were soaked through.  The next photo shows the trail we were hiking.

As we were climbing the trail came across this lizard basking in the sun.

Here is the marker at the top of the trail.

Here is the marker where the trail split of of the Appalachian Trail.

By the way did I mention it was hot.  We came north in July to escape the heat in Florida, unfortunately, it was hotter here then it was back home.  So for the rest of this day we took it easy.  We grabbed some lunch at the Big Meadows recreational area which is in about the center of the park and then took one short hike at the Pass Mountain Overlook.  The scenery was spectacular but once again the visibility to the east was much better then to the west.  The first photo is to the east and the second to the west.  The river in the second photo in the Shenandoah.

This was our last day in the mountains.  We exited the Skyline Drive at Front Royal and drove to Charles Town, WV, which is just a few miles from Harper's Ferry, WV, where we will spend tomorrow.