Week 5
Week 5
Friday-Tuesday The Shenandoah Valley For a little over 100M of the trail in Virginia, thru hikers get to experience the Shenandoah National Park. The park originated in 1935 and encompasses almost 80,000 acres of rolling hills, forests, and countryside.
There is an old Americana feel to the entire park. The signs and the architecture of all the old resorts and buildings make you feel like you are in a different era. I can't remember the last time I saw this little cell phone use and so much actual human interaction. Watching all the families hiking and camping together, spending their Summer vacay in the great outdoors, and enjoying each other's company has been both pleasant and refreshing.
Seeing all of the families around the park made me think of my own family. Family and childhood come up constantly as factors to what might have led someone down the path toward addiction at a young age. What went wrong? What went right? What should and could have happened in my childhood to prevent such a hard path? Did I go to the wrong school? Are my parents to blame? The "how's" and "why's" of addiction are constantly being asked. We ourselves, and society as a whole, are simply looking for reasons to make sense of the chaos that is addiction. While this questioning can lead to growth and prevention of repeated mistakes, it also tends to lead toward blame and regret. Blaming others or blaming yourself will not solve the problem. Forgiving others and taking ownership of your issues will solve the problem. For example, if tomorrow you called your parents, or boss, or partner and confronted them with every mistake they made, what would happen? Would you feel better? Would they feel better? Would all your problems be solved and your addictive past disappear? No. They would tell you, "They did their best" and that would be the end of the conversation. No issues resolved. Instead, accept your parents, you boss, your partner, or whoever it is that has wronged you in the past. Make peace with them. For me, this usually entails simply accepting them for who they are, forgiving them, and loving them. Sometimes this loving is done at a distance, but nonetheless it is love. As far as the future is concerned, they are probably not going to change, but you can change. You can set boundaries for yourself. You can take ownership of your own mistakes. You can keep your side of the street clean, and use rigorous honesty as a constant policy in your life. When wrong, promptly admit it, and keep wisdom in your practice. Remember: "Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power." -Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching
The park is filled with all kinds of picnic areas, resorts, campsites, waysides, and and restaurants. You can ride horses, rock climb, hike, or simply take a ride in a car down the Skyline Drive. No matter how you get around this place, the views are constantly breathtaking, and the vibes are completely serene.
My cohorts and I were blessed with perfect weather during our entire adventure in The Shennys. We ate real food at three different waysides and destroyed a breakfast buffet at the Skyland Resort. We also each got our own famous blackberry milkshake.
Blackberry ice cream (and milkshakes) are a Shenandoah staple, and hikers constantly speak of their legendary greatness. The shakes held up to their reputation and were both delicious and overpriced.
The wildlife in the park was also wonderful. It was your standard squirrels, rabbits, deer, hawks etc., but the animals would come up so close. We literally had to shew a rabbit off the trail just to get by him and continue hiking. The deer would come up so close, I could almost pet them. It was strange. I'm so use to animals darting away. We also had a bear prowling around our campsite one night, but luckily we shewed it away before it got too close for comfort. Overall, my favorite aspect of the park was the constant views. The AT is full of what David "AWOL" Miller (author of the guidebook) calls PUDS (Pointless Ups & Downs). This is where you go up and down repeatedly with no views. This was not the case for the Blue Ridge mountains of the Shenandoah. Every time we climbed a mountain, we were presented with one breathtaking view after another. We even hiked about 10M of the Skyline Drive one day, just to get a few more views than we would have on trail.
Today we nearoed into Front Royal, VA where we will resupply food and prepare for our next stint in the woods. We have Harper's Ferry, West Virginia as our next destination, which is the town considered to be the halfway point of the entire trail. They also have the "half-gallon challenge" in Harper's Ferry where hikers get to try and eat a half gallon of ice cream in one sitting. Yum!
I am excited about finally leaving Virginia and conquering some new states. West Virginia and Maryland are the next two coming up, and the trail goes through both very briefly. I hope to talk to you all from Maryland for my next update. Happy Summer!
