Shenandoah Sunday

First view overlook visited at Shenandoah National Park

Night driving ended with a mountain crossing, our Blue Ridge Sunday would begin with an ascent to another National Park Service engineering marvel. At Thornton Gap, we began heading south on Skyline Drive, which runs along the ridgeline for 105 miles, connecting with the Blue Ridge Parkway at its southern end. We would travel about 75 miles along Skyline, stopping at vista after vista.

For our first 10 miles, Skyline Drives was nothing but blinding sunlight. The morning rays drilled into my eyes at the perfect angle to make driving miserable. Soon it rose out of that inopportune spot and the winding mountaintop grew more pleasant. Each overlook added its own share of visual delights, with trees losing their green and coloring the park’s ridges. The wind blew cold and strong, not surprising on these high ridges. Every view was spectacular.

We could not come this far and skip hiking in these soaring mountains. If we did only one hike, we were going to the park’s highest spot. Steep but less than two miles round-trip, the Hawksbill Summit trail offers panoramas of the park’s middle section and the valleys flanking it. Maybe the makeshift hiking poles at the Hawksbill Summit trailhead should have tipped us off to the steep climb ahead (actually, the trail guide did).

At Hawksbill Summit

We each took one and were soon headed up the trail. Calves and quads were soon burning. Traffic was light. The wind just howled through spindly trees. They had lost enough leaves that we could see our progression toward the summit but not much else. Otherwise, the forest was quiet.

Soon the steep trail flattened. At the Byrd's Nest No. 2 shelter, the wind picked up. With a few dozen yards to the summit, it turned ferocious. In addition to a lookout with a Skyline Drive cuts a gray streak through the foliage.

The mountain’s north face dives 2,000 feet into a hollow, so there is no shortage of dramatic scenery. In numerous spots, the craggy rocks served as makeshift lookouts.

At Big Meadow, people wandered among the red grasses. We were still feeling our legs after Hawksbill and motored further south. The views don’t grow less majestic, but the overlooks do grow increasingly congested as the morning progresses.

Soaring birds were common from those gusty heights. The only fauna to emerge from the forested peaks was a single deer crossing the road. We watched it amble across Skyline at a quiet moment and walk directly behind a van whose occupants were oblivious to the deer’s presence.

Soon enough we came to Waynesboro, the park’s southern gate. Rather than continue down the Blue Ridge Parkway, we planned a stop that intersected with Todd family history. With a large traditional Mennonite community and horse-drawn buggies common along the highway, Dayton moved at a gentler pace.

 The local historical society set us on a self-guided tour of the former buildings of the Shenandoah College and Shenandoah Conservatory of Music.

Nancy’s Dad taught violin her in the conservatory’s final years before it moved north to Winchester, Va. The school relocated in 1960, while the former school buildings where converted into houses and apartments. The street was mostly deserted except for one elderly woman on a patio and a few people walking dogs. At the end of College Street, the farmland resumed.

Luray Carillon

We found the New Market Gap easier to follow during daylight. On the other side, we had a date with the Luray Singing Tower (officially the Belle Brown Northcott Memorial). The forty-seven bell carillon, set in a stone tower more than 100 feet tall, play a concert of standards at 2 p.m. Sundays.

Our day of Shenandoah travel stopped with late lunch-early dinner at the Artisans Grill, a restored 1930s-era building once home to the Hi-Way Coffee Shop. Right on Main Street in Luray, we had good pours of local wines along with chicken empenadas and a brie plate. The main courses were huge (jumbo crab cakes was no exaggeration), and we had a second meal fr
om them later that night.

Back at the Hillside Motel, the weekenders had left and we had the outdoor facilities to ourselves. With a bottle of wine, we sat at a picnic table, recounted the day and planned the next one. The sunset crept in and the neon hotel sign softly came to life. We would sit quietly along the porch, watching the occasional car throttle off to the national park.

Even more entrancing were the headlights on the ridge line. Eight miles or more away, we could see a train of tourists cutting along Skyline Drive, many clustering at the lodge nestled in the darkening peaks above us.

Hillside Motel office at sunset