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Shenandoah National Park lies amid the Blue Ridge mountains divided by Skyline Drive which travels 105 miles through the park. The Appalachian Trail runs across the ridge of Shenandoah's mountains 101 miles to the west of the Drive and there are another 400 miles of trails in the park of varying difficulty. Shenandoah is a beautiful park nestled in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. Native Americans named the park Shenandoah for "daughter of the stars" because of the park's sixty peaks covering eighty miles of hardwood, pine, and meadows of wildflowers. Shenandoah was once farmland and since the 1700s was logged. The farmers were moved and resettled outside the park and it has since bounced back so the marks of the logging and farming are no longer seen. Shenandoah has something for everyone. Hikers and backpackers find natural habitats everywhere they look, trout fishers have more than twenty-five stream to explore and riders can rent horses for certain trails. However, everyone enjoys the abundant wildlife: the park has deer, black bears, and wild turkeys, beautiful mountain vistas enshrouded in fog, and clean, clear lakes. In addition to its oak-hickory forest the wildflowers when in season along the Drive and trails are most beautiful in the fall when the mountains and forest turn red and gold.
Visitor information & Headquarters
Shenandoah is open year-round. The park
headquarters can be reached at 540-999-3500. The visitors' center in
the north is located at Dickey Ridge and mid-way through the park at Big
Meadow. the visitors' centers are open from March through November. http://www.nps.gov/shen/index.htm
How to Get There Shenandoah has 4 major entrances:
Airports: The closest airport is Dulles International in Washington DC. You can also use the Charlottesville airport. When to Go
Shenandoah gets over 2 million visitors a year, almost half a million of them go in the fall to see the foliage changes in October. Most facilities close in the winter.
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