Imagine a place just a couple hours away from the Baltimore-Washington DC metro area, where wild animals seem almost tame, where you’ll find over 500 miles of well marked hiking trails leading to waterfalls and trickling streams, with beautiful rustic cabins that help you connect with nature. You can even stay the night and awaken in the beauty of a mountain with boulders estimated at a billion years old…. that place is Shenandoah National Park.
Established in the early 1930’s, this natural wonderland has everything needed to whisk you away from the hustle and bustle of daily living, returning you and your family back to nature, leaving gaming consoles far behind. At this park kids have the opportunity to be kids and climb boulders, watch deer spar, and if you’re lucky, catch a glimpse at a black bear cub crossing the trail head with her momma.
Shenandoah has a rich history and long before being declared a National Park by President Roosevelt, this mountain was home to people that dotted the hillside with personal gardens outside of their houses, collecting their water from natural running streams, that foraged the woods for their dinner each night before being displaced to turn what we now know as Shenandoah National Park into what you and I see today. If you are a history buff be sure to make a pit stop at the Byrd Visitors center, which I highly recommend! You’ll find gifts and souvenirs to commemorate your time in the mountains at the gift shop, but you’ll also find the story of Shenandoah, including those young men that built the park stone by stone, as well as those that were evicted from the mountain so that we could make a new history with our families and families all over the world. This park is alive in every way imaginable.
There are unique rustic one of a kind cabins, campgrounds, and hiking trails that tell another story for my family. This story is rich in tradition 3 generations old and is now passed along to my kids. Shenandoah is a place with a living energy that keeps families returning year after year. Annually, my father in his old F150, taking as many kids as his truck would hold, would drive us kids to Old Rag Mountain and back pack through one of the Sky Line Drive’s most popular hikes. These years are so long past that we didn’t have a foot bridge to cross like visitors do now when they come upon a stream. You’ll find some improvements to the park like the upgrade in the bathrooms of the rustic accommodations, or the footbridge and increased signage for trails across the park, but for the most part, all of the natural beauty I remember as a child is still in it’s original glory and that is what keeps us coming back.
There’s just something that connects visitors from all over the world when they encounter the park and you’ll see that when you sign the guest book or make a note at the wildlife they spotted in the Big Meadows family room book. We spent 3 days and 2 nights engulfed in nature leaving the rest of the world behind. See the video that my daughter created above (YouTuber Grow with Samantha)and start your own family traditions of outdoor fun!
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