National Park #22: Shenandoah

With a long weekend for our kids, we planned an October backpack to Shenandoah National Park. Shenandoah National Park is a long and narrow park, nearly 110 miles from north to south along the Blue Ridge Mountains. It has miles of great hiking trails as the Appalachian Trail runs through the park. Because of that, it also has great backcountry campsites, camp stores with lots of supplies, and a very organized backcountry webpage.

As we explored the backcountry hiking page, we knew we wanted to hike three days and two nights with roughly 4-8 miles each day. The park is broken up into the North, Central, and South Districts, with each area having unique features. We decided on a loop near Loft Mountain in the Southern District that had us hike quieter trails on Day #1 followed followed by a more popular dayhiking trail near beautiful water falls.

The next big factor after distance was factoring in water sources and permitting space on the recreation.gov website. With a lot of the rain from the hurricanes that came up the east coast, the creeks were flowing at rates similar to spring snow melt season. Reliable water sources no longer became an issue and depth of streams became more of an issue.

Getting down to Shenandoah was a 5-6 hour drive from the New York suburbs. We booked a hotel near the Northern District to get a good nights rest. We didn’t really want to drive 6 hours and immediately start hiking.

Being that this was the first family backpack since we hiked in Sequoia National Park, we accumulated some new equipment to make things easier. We had borrowed a person backpacking tent in 2021 from a friend. Last year, around a holiday sale, we purchased a Marmot 4-person backpacking tent, wearing in just under 8 pounds. We also have benefited with the girls getting older, as they were able to carry more weight in their own backpacks. They each carried their own clothes, jackets, hats, inflatable sleeping pads, water bottles and stuffed animals. Mary and I divvied up the remaining communal items: water filter, bear can for our food, ten essentials, closed cell sleeping pad, sleeping bag and clothes for me, while Mary carried three sleeping bags, her sleeping pad, clothes and our JetBoil campstove.

Overall, I estimate the pack weight around 45 pounds for me and in the 30s for Mary. The kids each had under 10 pounds, which was significantly lighter than their backpacks for school. A benefit of backpacking is that the food weight decreases over time, so we were able to slowly lessen our load as we worked through all of our planned meals. Much of what we ate was premade dehydrated meals, oatmeal, protein bars, hard salami, and other good snacks.

On Day 1, we found parking, checked the weather one last time and loaded up our packs. The weather was overcast and cool, perfect for hiking. We set into our standard hiking order: Mary, Quincy, Leona, Sean. Along the first 5 miles that day, we probably saw about 4 other people. The peacefulness was amazing. We had to crawl through some felled trees due to the storms and bushwhack a bit, but not too much. We also encountered some stream crossings that required Mary and I to take off our boots and shuttle the kids across the streams. Water was usually shin to knee high and made it fun to start the hike. After checking where we were on the All Trails app, we made a plan to finish all of the stream crossings on Day 1, then found a nice campsite just past the last crossing. We set up the tent and relaxed. Then the rain started. It wasn’t supposed to come until later in the evening, but started around 5pm. We ended up making dinner just outside the tent, ate in the tent while it poured and then got settled in for the night.

Day 2 started with breakfast (oatmeal, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and dehydrated eggs) and filtering water in the stream. We packed up quickly and started hiking uphill to get back to Skyline Drive where we would cross the road and start hiking back downhill. We started encountering more hikers on the trail and the respect given to the girls for their effort and work was great. People showing their excitement to see young kids on the trail never gets old and is something that we hope the girls appreciate as well. We had lunch at a small picnic area where we laid out our tent and rainfly to dry it off from the rain. After lunch, we hit a popular stretch of trail and hiked with tons of people and dogs, which were allowed at this park. We hiked past the Jones River Falls, Lower Doyles River Falls, Upper Doyles River Falls, logging around 10-11 miles on day 2. Finding a campsite for the second night was a bit trickier. We were looking for spots off the trail, but the terrain wasn’t the flattest. We found a spot just above the last water fall and set up camp. Dinner that night was a memorable one. We sat near a small pool below a waterfall. We had the whole place to ourselves as the dayhikers had retreated back to their cars and campgrounds for the day. It was a great reminder of the benefits of putting in the hard work to backpack – the special moments like this.

Day 3 had us eat, break down camp, and hike the final 4 miles to the parking lot. We got up to the highest elevation for the day and then enjoyed a few flat miles to the car weaving through some high grasses, brush and trees. Mary walked right past a deer and didn’t even notice it. The girls were in shock that they were within ten feet of it. We kept moving, but it was a reminder of how close animals can be without us knowing. As we hit the final stretch, we came up to the Loft Mountain Campground, which has one of the best amphitheaters we’ve ever seen. The views overlooking the mountains and valley were incredible. They likely have some incredible night sky viewing parties there.

Once back to the car, we did the most important things: we had a celebratory beer and changed into some clean clothes before our drive home. Nothing better than peeling off some sweaty socks and letting the toes breathe.

Each park leaves a memory with us. Here is what we liked the best:

Mary: The dinner on the second night at the base of the Upper Doyles River Falls was a really special one, with just the four of us hanging out and relaxing.

Quincy: I liked the waterfalls that we hiked past and the river crossings were fun being carried by mom and dad.

Leona: I missed sleeping in a tent, so that was fun. And the waterfalls were cool to see.

Sean:I was glad we were able to backpack this park and explore it in a more intimate way. I know many drive Skyline Drive and explore it via the lookout points, so it was nice to have some more solitude in the backcountry.