Dispatches From the Parks: Blue Ridge Parkway
In 2021, 297.1 million people visited a unit of the National Park Service. While the easy thinking would be that one of the big-name parks such as Grand Canyon or Yellowstone would be the biggest contributor to this number, it was actually Blue Ridge Parkway with 15.9 million visitors that was the most visited park. The Blue Ridge Parkway is a road that travels through the Blue Ridge Mountains as it connects Shenandoah National Park at the northern terminus with Great Smoky Mountains National Park at the southern terminus. On its way it crosses through mountain passes and lake filled valleys as it showcases old southern lifestyles and beautiful landscapes. My first visit to the Parkway just happened to be earlier this month on my trip to Virginia.
My father and I started our journey on the Parkway just north of Roanoke, Virginia (there was construction on the part of the parkway directly adjacent to Roanoke) with a final destination of Shenandoah National Park as we had rented a cabin there. It turned out early April was a few weeks before the offseason for the park ended. The higher elevations are still quite cold so there really weren’t many crowds despite being the country’s most popular national park site. In fact, in about the three hours that we drove on the parkway there was maybe once or twice where we had a car behind us or in front of us. We started our journey by stopping at a few overlooks (and there are many). The overlooks have quite similar views to the ones at Shenandoah National Park (vast views of Virginia countryside with towns littered in between and other mountain chains way off in the distance) so stopping at the overlooks can get quite repetitive especially considering our final destination was Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. My favorite one was the Great Valley Overlook, which was one of our first introductions to the Parkway and intersected with the famed Appalachian Trail.
Our main destination while on Blue Ridge Parkway was Sharp Top Mountain. This distinctly carved mountain is part of a series of summits known as the Peaks of Otter. At 3.5 miles in length, the trail is on the shorter side, but don’t let that fool you as there’s quite an elevation gain on the way to the top and is rigorous for non-regular hikers. The majority of it takes place on a steep but forested trail, but the hike gets rather interesting once you get into the final section. As you reach the col between Sharp Top and Buzzards Roost (a small detour to a large and interesting placed boulder structure), the hike quickly turns into a rock scramble. Unlike the rock scrambles in nearby places (such as Shenandoah’s Old Rag), this one is much more influenced by man. Numerous sets of well-crafted stairs make the hike through the scrambles a little easier and as you get towards the skyline, you will find a hiker hut. The views from the top of this steep summit are immense and a little frightening as the drops just go straight down on multiple sides. The trip to the top is well worth it though.
From Sharp Top Mountain, we continued past the Peaks of Otter area towards Shenandoah and Skyline Drive stopping at more overlooks along the way. Eventually we descended from the mountains into a valley, which ended up being one of my favorite parts of the drive as the temperature rose from wintertime temperatures to a more spring-like feeling. We passed the James River and drove right next to a beautiful lake with a dam on the side that released a stunning waterfall. We, of course, had to stop here and enjoy the view. At this point, I thought we would continue with the springtime feeling for a while, but after stopping to have a picnic lunch I realized that we had gained in elevation again and really wouldn’t feel springtime temperatures again until we left Shenandoah National Park the next day. As the temperatures dropped the wind picked up, and that’s unfortunately when we probably got to the most difficult portion of the drive as the road turned and turned and debris from the wind and recent storms started to litter the roadway. We eventually made it to Skyline Drive, though, and had a great time doing it.
Being a few weeks before the busy season for the park made this an interesting trip. There wasn’t much wildlife out and about and the visitor centers and restaurants were all closed. However, there were no crowds and it felt like we had the park all to ourselves giving us much more freedom to do whatever we wanted. I really enjoyed this trip to Blue Ridge Parkway, but I do want to go back to experience the park when everything is up and running.
