Category: Landscapes

It’s notoriously hard to get a good weather forecast for Shenandoah National Park. The park is over 100 miles long and the closest cities and towns are at least 1,000′ lower than the ridge line.

I checked the weather before leaving home. The forecast for a nearby town was for partly cloudy skies with temperatures in the upper 70’s. There was a slight chance of rain so I grabbed my rain jacket on the way out the door.

As I reached the foothills of the mountains it began to rain. “Not to worry,” I thought. I had my rain gear and the trailhead is 20 miles north of the entrance station. The weather there could be completely different.

I entered the park in a steady rain with temperatures 15 degrees lower than I expected. The drive to the trailhead was mostly inside clouds intent on shedding their moisture as they crossed the Appalachian Mountains.

When I arrived at the trailhead the rain was slow but steady. Having already driven over two hours to hike this trail, I decided to don my rain gear and make the best of it. As they say “there’s no bad weather, only bad gear.”

About 15 minutes into my hike the clouds still enshrouded the mountains but the rain had stopped. The vistas I came to see were clouded in but it was still a good day and left me with a reason to come back another time.

There weren’t many dramatic views that day but the weather gave the mountains a peaceful and mysterious quality.