Shenandoah Day 3

2019-06-28
Shenondoah National Park, VA

Today I have just one hike planned: White Oak Canyon Trail. This trail goes from Skyline Drive at the top to another road just outside the edge of the park 5 miles away and 2500 feet below. The Skyline Drive trailhead was less than 10 minutes from the campground, while the lower trailhead was about an hour away (because there are only four exits from the park). I chose to take the close trailhead, even though I knew that once again I was starting at the top. I was half of the cars in the lot.

This trail is another great example of the Shenandoah greenery, with "lush" being the operative adjective. The trail goes down for about 2 miles until you hit the upper falls. At the top of the falls I encountered some people that had ridden down on horses. I offered to trade with them for the trip up, but they had grown attached to their mounts.

The map indicated that the falls were all clustered in the middle of the five miles of trail; the top and bottom portions are just enjoyable for the walk. But I also knew that by the time I had dropped from 3500 to 2800 feet in two miles. This wasn't much of a concern. However, after the upper falls things took a downward turn. As in steep stairs downward. In the next half a mile I dropped another 500 feet to another great waterfall.

At this point I considered the amount of drinking water I had left (about 2/3 of what I had brought), the steep descent to continue down the trail, the 2.5 miles and 1200+ feet of climb back to my car, and the amount of hill climbing I had done yesterday and decided that it was time to start back up. I will come back to this trail and either start up from the bottom so I can push myself without worrying about being trapped, or come in rested if I start from the top. The trail is well worth the effort; however, I simply hadn't considered the ramifications of starting at the top of every trail. I mean, you don't start at a job and work your way down...