Shenandoah. National Park. Where, when, and how to discover the best photography in America. Updated - August Published since 1989

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1 Updated - August Where, when, and how to discover the best photography in America Published since 1989 Rain dripped from the visor of my hat. Water poured down the moss-covered canyon walls above the trail I was following. Below me the Dark Hollow Falls dropped several hundred feet in a series of cascades, the highest of which was seventy feet. The trail was muddy and slippery. It was difficult to find a level spot to set up a tripod on the rocks along the stream. When I reached the bottom of the trail, I set up my tripod on the metal bridge over the stream. A sign pointed out that I was photographing the Hogcamp Branch of the Rose River a poetic caption for my composition. As I was finished shooting, the rain eased up. I looked around for something more to photograph. I noticed that the trail did not end at the bridge but zigged fifty feet up the other side of the canyon and then continued downstream. I spent the rest of the morning exploring and discovering more cascades and waterfalls. Hopcamp Branch of the Rose River Shenandoah National Park There are two ways to visit Shenandoah National Park. Most visitors drive through in a few hours and photograph the views from the scenic overlooks along the edge of Skyline Drive. To photograph the real beauty of this place, you must get off the paved roads and walk into the woods.

2 issue 47 - page 2 The Park is 75 miles long. The Skyline Drive is 105 miles long. Those extra 30 miles are all twists and turns in the pavement. The farmlands along the bottom of the Shenandoah Valley, just west of the Park, are rich and fertile. This valley was known as the Breadbasket of the Confederate Army. Shenandoah National Park is located in the northwest corner of the State of Virginia, eighty miles west of Washington D.C. From north to south, this park is seventy-five miles long. Shenandoah National Park is very long and very narrow. It varies in width from less than a mile to thirteen miles wide. It straddles the crest of Virginia s Blue Ridge Mountains. Looking to the east or to the west from overlooks along the Skyline Drive, visitors see a patchwork of woods, farmlands, and orchards far below. Homes and barns plus a few small towns are visible in the distance. For most of its length, the Park boundary is halfway up the mountain slope. There are a few overlooks where you can photograph nothing but forest-covered hills receding into The main entrance the distance. Most of the sixty-six overlooks offer panoramas dotted with some evidence of the hand of Man. Unlike most national parks, Shenandoah is a place where people have lived for a long time. This Park was patched together from worn-out farmlands where generations of hard working, poor mountain people made a subsistence living by hunting, trapping, and trying to raise their crops on thin, rocky hillsides. The Blue Ridge Mountains have been logged and re-logged several times since the early 1700s. To create this recycled national park, the Commonwealth of Virginia had to acquire thousands of privately-owned tracts of land and donate them to the Federal Government. It took years of condemnations, title searches, law suits, and the relocation of several thousand mountain people before the government of Virginia had clear title to these 250 square miles of the Blue Ridge Mountains. While all this was happening, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was created. In anticipation of the opening of a new national park, one of the CCC s first tasks was to clear a hundred-foot-wide roadway for the building of the hundred-mile-long Skyline Drive. Franklin D. Roosevelt accepted the land as a gift to the people of the United States on July 3, 1936, in a ceremony held at Big Meadows in the center of the park. When to visit The majority of visitors arrive in Shenandoah National Park during the month of October. The peak of the autumn color usually occurs between the 10th and the 25th of the month. Few visitors travel through the Park during the middle of the winter. Most facilities close on November 1st. Skyline Drive is open year-round, although the road is sometimes closed until ice and snow can be plowed from the pavement. Summer can find the Park filled with vacationing families trying to escape the heat of the lower valleys. By late summer, springs along the summit of the Blue Ridge Mountains are running dry and waterfalls become mere trickles. Spring is when the waterfalls are at their best. A great variety of wildflowers can be found beginning in April. May is probably the most prolific month for trillium that bloom along the road between Big Meadows and the South River Overlook. Ask for a free copy of the Wildflower Calendar at any of the Park s Visitor Centers. The calendar is a chart showing the blooming dates of the Park s more common wildflowers. It lists about seventyfive native wildflowers, their color, and the months that they bloom. May is the month to find these wildflowers in Shenandoah: vernal iris flowering dogwood phlox jack-in-the pulpit anemone wild strawberry azaleas golden ragwort buttercups pink and yellow lady slipper

3 issue 47 - page 3 Over sixteen hundred species of plants grow in this Park. The dominant vegetation is the deciduous hardwood forest that covers most of the park. The American chestnut was once the dominant tree in these forests. The chestnut blight, a fungus bark disease imported from Asia in the early 1900s, wiped them all out. Living and feeding on the rotting vegetation are the fungi. Wild mushrooms and the strangely-shaped patterns of turkey-tail fungus grow on rotting logs. How to get there Early this summer, I flew into Washington/Dulles International Airport with all my camera gear. I picked up a rental car, and headed west on Interstate 66. It took an hour to reach the small town of Front Royal, Virginia, where I found a motel near the north entrance to Shenandoah National Park. This town has all the conveniences a visitor may need. Front Royal has motels, restaurants, markets, and a K-Mart. There are at least six other towns just outside the Park boundaries where visitors can find overnight accommodations. Because of the great length of this Park, it s most convenient to stay in one of the three locations where lodgings are available inside the Park. Great sunrise and sunset shots are easier to photograph from the deck of your own cabin inside the Park. You may want to find lodgings outside the Park for your first and last nights in the area. After paying the entrance fee at the gate, one of the first things that visitors notice after entering the Park are the concrete posts with black numbers marking each mile of the Skyline drive. These start at the Park s northern entrance near Front Royal and continue to Mile 105 at the Park s southern entrance at Rockfish Gap. Just beyond the Park s southern entrance is the beginning of the Blue Ridge Parkway. This 469-mile drive connects Shenandoah National Park with the Great Copyright 1997 Robert Hitchman

4 issue 47 - page 4 Smoky Mountains National Park. This is one of America s most scenic drives. The Blue Ridge Parkway crosses into North Carolina and ends just outside the town of Cherokee, NC. This two-day trip is best taken in the middle of October, at the peak of autumn color. Skyline Drive in Autumn Shenandoah National Park is broken into three sections. The long, narrow Park is crossed by two east/west highways at low gaps in the mountain range. The northern section, stretches from Front Royal to Thornton Gap (mile 31.5). The middle section, from Thornton Gap to Swift Run Gap (65.7), has most of the park facilities, most of the trails, most of the waterfalls, and has the highest point in the Park on Hawksbill Mountain. The southern section, from Swift Run Gap to Rockfish Gap is lower in elevation and drier than the central and northern sections. To save driving time, leave and enter the Park at Thornton Gap on U.S. Highway 211 or at Swift Run Gap on U.S. Highway 33. If you are staying just outside the Park in the towns of Luray, Sperryville, Stanardsville, or Elkton, you will want to use these more convenient Park entrances. There are several Visitor Centers inside the park. Driving down the Skyline Drive, from the north, the Dicky Ridge Visitor Center is the first place where visitors can find trail maps, guide books, and someone to answer questions. At the Dicky Ridge Visitor Center, I found several trail maps and a few useful guide books. The ranger at the desk recommended the Guide to Shenandoah National Park and Skyline Drive by Henry Heatwole. Published by the Shenandoah Natural History Association, ISBN Two other guide books available in the Park visitor centers are Short Hikes in Shenandoah National Park and Hikes to Waterfalls in Shenandoah National Park. Even some of the short hikes may be too ambitious for heavily-loaded photographers who don t enjoy a strenuous hike. Neither of these books mention the elevation changes on these hikes. Some of the hikes can drop over a thousand feet from the parking areas at the edge of the Skyline Drive. All the hikes in Henry Heatwole s more complete Guide to Shenandoah National Park have their elevation gains and losses noted. You can drive the entire 105-mile length of the Skyline Drive at the 35 mph speed limit in three hours. That leaves no time for stopping at any of the scenic viewpoints along the route. Many of the viewpoints offer great vistas while a few have been blocked by the regrowth of the forest. A week is not long enough to hike more than a few of the best trails and photograph several of the most photogenic waterfalls. During my seven day photo exploration of Shenandoah, I parked my car, hiked some of the five-hundred miles of trails, and found some great locations for nature photography. Getting off the Skyline Drive The Fox Hollow Trail starts just across the road, at the Dicky Ridge Visitor Center (mile 4.6). There are no great waterfalls along the trail, but it s a good place to start exploring the Park. The loop trail is just over a mile in length. Like most of the trails that start from the edge of Skyline Drive, the Fox Hollow Trail heads downhill, down an easy, gradual slope.

5 issue 47- page 5 Remember that you ll have to walk back up. Take your time and carry a lightened load. For my hikes in the Park, I only carried my camera on a tripod, a few lenses, and a canteen of water in a small day pack. Along the trail, I photographed fragrant white flowers of the wildrose and the pink and white blossoms of mountain laurel. In many places, the forest floor was covered with the tiny white blossoms of the partridge berry. The small red berries had all been eaten by forest creatures. A few clouds began to cross the sun and soften the light. The filters I carried were orange, red, and green. To darken a blue sky and bring out any cloud details, I use an orange filter. A red filter will darken blue even more and can create a strong and moody cloud-filled sky. From the overlooks along Skyline Drive, my photographs were usually made with an orange filter because a red filter will darken green trees and may increase the lighting range between a light, cloud-filled sky and the dark woods below. When I want to create the impression of a more sunny and open forest with more details in the trees, I use a green filter. Using black and white film, all colored filters will lighten a subject of the same color and will darken the complimentary color. A yellow filter will darken a true blue sky. Most skies are a washed-out cyan. It takes a red filter to effectively darken most skies. If the foreground of your scene is a green forest, your red filter will also darken that. That s why I use a green filter on most of my forest scenes. solidly with ferns. These ferns were so thin and delicate that it was difficult to focus on them. The slightest breeze moved the entire forest floor. Shafts of light from brief openings in the clouds illuminated bands of light between the shadows of the backlit trees. Shenandoah Trails Roughly following the Skyline Drive, sometimes on the east side and sometimes on the west side, is ninety miles of the Appalachian Trail. This world-class trail starts at Mt. Katahdin in the State of Maine and winds south for two-thousand miles to Springer Mountain in Georgia. Visitors driving through Shenandoah may catch a glimpse of the trail in a few spots. If you want to try a few of the trails in the Park but want to avoid the steeper trails, look for the small white blazes painted on the trees and follow a short section of the Appalachian Trail. It is well-marked, graded, and rarely steep. A few miles farther down the Skyline Drive at the Hogback Overlook (mile 21.1), the forest floor around was covered solidly with ferns. The Appalachian Trail crosses the Drive at this point. I set up my tripod a few feet off the trail and photographed hikers loaded with backpacking gear walking through knee-deep ferns. Then I moved back, away from the edge of the forest, with a longer lens. I was trying to compress the perspective and create the impression of a denser forest of yellow poplars. The forest floor was covered The blue-blazed trails are the Park trails. They usually start at the edge of Skyline Drive and drop into the canyons and hollows. They follow steep, fast-flowing streams and often lead to waterfalls and other great things to photograph. Trailside details

6 issue 47 - page 6 George Corbin was an in-law of the Nicholson family. The Nicholsons called this valley Freestate Hollow and considered themselves independent of the State of Virginia and not subject to its laws or taxes. Their neighbors considered them to be squatters who had no legal rights to the land. It s very easy to walk downhill following the Park s blue-blazed trails, but you may find that it s very difficult to climb back up to your car. Start with shorter, easier hikes and, in a few days, you ll be ready for the more difficult treks. Yellow-blazed trails are horse trails. Hikers can use these trails but must step off the trail and yield the right-of-way to passing horses and riders. Fire roads are also used by horses and riders and are also marked with yellow blazes. A doubleblaze, two patches of any color, means that the trail is about to change direction. After the Fox Hollow Trail, I was ready for something a bit more strenuous. The map I purchased was marked with a series of small cascades named Lands Run Falls. I found the trailhead parking area on the west side of Skyline Drive at mile 9.2. I walked around the gate across the fire road and walked downhill a half-mile to a spot where the stream called Lands Run flows under the road. A trail to the right follows the steep cascades that drop about eighty-feet into a narrow canyon. There are several places along the trail where I set up my tripod. Morning light did not strike the north-facing falls while they were in the shadow of the mountain. By noon, when I climbed back up from the bottom of the falls, the trees at the top of the falls were strongly back-lit. I made a few more images of the scene in this more contrasty light. I began the slow climb back to the parking lot. It took ten minutes to walk down to the falls and twenty minutes to walk back up. I chalked up the Lands Run Falls as the second of my warm-up hikes. I was ready for something more serious. The Corbin Cabin The park ranger at the Byrd Visitor Center pointed out the location of the Corbin Cabin on his map. This cabin was built in 1909 by George Corbin down in Nicholson Hollow. My trail map showed that the shortest route was down the Corbin Cabin Cutoff Trail. The trail starts across the Skyline Drive from a small parking area at mile Like most of the Park s trails, the 1.5 mile Corbin Cabin Trail drops steeply. For the first half-mile, the narrow trail passes through dense groves of mountain laurel. Shenandoah s mountain laurel blooms in June. By the tenth of the month, about half of the blossoms were opened. The mountain laurel groves near the top of the rocky trail are open and exposed to the sun. As I descended, the forest canopy grew higher and denser. By the time I reached the The Corbin Cabin bottom of the hollow, an hour later, I was in the bottom of a dark, cool forest. My toes were hot and blistered. I pulled off my boots and cooled my feet in the Hughes River. The stream was too wide and the water level was too high to safely cross by rock-hopping. With my pant legs rolled up and my boots in my pack, I waded the icy stream. The cabin sits in the woods only a hundred feet beyond the stream.

7 issue 47 - page 7 The soft light from the overcast sky was the perfect illumination for the Corbin Cabin. The front door faces the east. In strong and direct morning light, most of the details across the front of the building would be lost in the shadows from an overhanging roof. In the afternoon, the cabin is backlit and the front will again be in the shade. Morning light on an overcast day is best for photographing this cabin. After an hour of photographing the cabin, the stream, and a small family graveyard, I started up the blue-blazed Nicholson Hollow Trail. It took one hour to walk down but twice as long to climb the 1.5 mile trail (with a 1350 foot elevation gain) back to the Skyline Drive. The trail wasn t too steep, but I stopped often to rest and look for things to photograph. Behind the cabin, there was turkey feather fungus growing on dead and rotting logs. A small group of yellow lady slippers was growing in the woods along the Nicholson Hollow Trail. The trail sides were running with cold water flowing from several ice-cold springs flowing from the mountain side. I photographed large clusters of pink azalea, close-ups of millipedes and a large wild tom turkey that crossed the trail in front of me. The air buzzed with the sound of large, yellow bees working the mountain laurel, and woodpeckers drilling the rotting trunks of still-standing dead hardwoods. From the Corbin Cabin, hikers can follow the Nicholson Hollow Trail in the other direction, to the east and cross the Park boundary. The elevation loss is about a hundred feet between the cabin and a remote parking area located on private land outside the Park at the end of a narrow road. This road can be reached from Highway 522 on the east side of the Park. The directions are given in The Guide. There are several places around Shenandoah where hikers can enter or leave the Park by following trails to back roads that cross private land and lead into the hollows at the base of these mountains. Some of Ferns along the trail these roads climb as far up as the boundaries of the Park to end at trailheads. These turnarounds and parking areas are difficult to find and most are on private property. Parking a second car outside the Park can eliminate a steep climb back to the Skyline Drive. Your hike will be all downhill but the distances can be much greater. I wouldn t hike outside the Park boundaries during hunting season. Sunrises and sunsets Some of the overlooks along the Skyline Drive face the east and some face the west. Several had trees with overhanging branches that could be used to frame a sunrise or sunset, My favorite was at the Naked Creek Overlook. Several hiking trails in the Park lead to remote overlooks with great views. There were plenty of overlooks that could be reached by car. Dark Hollow Falls The guide books point out that the easiest waterfall to reach and the one closest to the Skyline Drive is Dark Hollow Falls. The trailhead is located at mile 50.7.

8 issue 47 - page 8 This is very close to the Big Meadows area in the center of the Park. From the auto parking area, the round trip hike is listed as 1.4 miles with an elevation gain (the hike back up from the bottom) of 440 feet. The first part of the trail drops slowly for the first half-mile then descends steeply down a section of rock that is slippery when it s wet. There are no good views from the top of the falls. Overall Run 93 ft Mile miles 1850 ft Whiteoak Canyon. 86 ft Mile miles 1040 ft Cedar Run 34 ft Mile miles 1556 ft Rose River 67 ft Mile miles 1720 ft Dark Hollow 70 ft Mile miles 1440 ft Lewis Falls 81 ft Mile miles 1795 ft South River 83 ft Mile miles 1850 ft Doyles River #1 28 ft Mile miles 1850 ft Doyles River #2 63 ft Mile miles 1050 ft Jones Run 42 ft Mile miles 1915 ft Signs along the trail request that hikers stay behind the handrail, stay on the trail, and don t climb on the slippery rocks at the top or bottom of the falls. The waterfall is impressive the longest drop is seventy feet. There are better falls farther down the trail. Below the falls, the trail continues another 300 yards, dropping another 145 feet to the Rose River fire road. Another good view of more cascades is from the bridge at the bottom. I noticed that the trail did not end at the bridge but zigged about fifty feet up the other side of the canyon and then continued downstream. I spent the rest of the morning exploring and discovering more cascades and waterfalls. The morning drizzle became a steady rain, so I climbed back up the Dark Hollow Falls Trail. When I reached the car, I spent some time with the guide book to find my next destination. The book revealed that the best place to find wildflowers in the park was along the trail to a swamp near the Big Meadows Campground. The trail to the swamp began across the road from the Dark Hollow Falls parking lot. I crossed over to the west side of the Skyline Drive, and followed the paved trail past the junction with the marked horse trail. The next trail to the right is unmarked and abandoned. Logs and stones have been piled across the trail. Starting in April and lasting through the summer, a great variety of wildflowers grow here because of the steady supply of water and plenty of sunlight reaching through the sparse growth of trees around the swamp. If you take the wrong turn and continue west on the nature trail, you will soon reach the paved road to the campground. Go back and try again. There are about fifteen waterfalls in the Park that can be reached by trail. More falls are inaccessible and a few are dry throughout most of the year. None of the waterfalls are easy to reach. Here is a list that includes the height of the waterfall, the location of the trailhead, the roundtrip hiking distance, and the elevation gain (how much of a climb is required). Hopcamp Branch of the Rose River Rose River Falls On my third day in Shenandoah, I parked in the large parking area at mile 49.4 the Fishers Gap Overlook. Leaving the north entrance of the lot, I crossed the Skyline

9 issue 47 - page 9 Drive and walked a hundred feet down the fire road to the trail. From this point, my guide book told me that this would be a round trip of three miles with a total climb (back up the hill) of over nine hundred feet. I stopped several times to photograph different kinds of mushrooms. A half-mile after passing the junction of a marked horse trail, the hemlock forest got denser and cooler. The Rose River appeared, dropping down the mountain side to the left of the trail. For the next quarter-mile, the trail follows a series of small waterfalls that drop into reflecting pools. At the falls and pools where a good composition could be found, I scrambled down the steep slope to the water s edge. In some places, this meant finding footholds on loose and slippery rocks while hanging onto the exposed roots of trees. In other places, there were short, well-worn spur trails that led to the best spot for a tripod. Every time I set up my tripod at the base of a great cascade of water, I had to wait only a few moments for the light to change. I didn t want to photograph the high contrast of direct sunlight and I didn t want the flat look of a totally overcast sky. The clouds were blowing over so rapidly that I was able to make most of my exposures just as the sun was beginning to appear or disappear from behind the clouds. The instant I could see the light on each scene begin to glow in my viewfinder, I pressed the cable release. As I followed the trail, the cascades got better and better. After passing more than a dozen medium-sized waterfalls, I spotted the highest waterfall on the stream. The Rose River dropped about twenty feet into a wide pool. It was at least a hundred feet down to the water s edge. It took me a halfhour to climb down, make the exposures, and start back up. Ascending the steep stream bank, I looked up and saw two black bears watching me from the trail. By the time I got to the top, they were gone. In some places along the Rose River, the trail drops to the water s edge. In other places, it climbs a hundred feet above the stream. After what seemed to be a mile of this, the trail crossed a small side stream, turned to the right and left the Rose River. I continued through a forest of hemlock, passed the remains of an old (1845) copper mine, and eventually reached a metal bridge that crossed the Rose River. I crossed to the east side of the stream. I checked the location on my map and found that I had crossed a different stream the Hogcamp Branch of the Rose River. The junction of the two streams was hidden on the far edge of the hemlock grove I passed. From the bridge across the Hogcamp Branch to the fire road that led back uphill to the parking area at the top of the climb was at least one mile on my map. The trail climbed uphill along one of the most beautiful streams I d ever seen. There were hundreds of cascades and falls. For a distance, the stream flowed down a long slick stone apron and then dropped over a wide stone lip and dropped in a stair-step cascade. This section of trail is one of the most beautiful I ve ever seen. The view from the Naked Creek Overlook A 28 mm lens is not adequate to capture the great panoramas from the overlooks. For those compositions and the impressive sweep of a forest at the peak of autumn color, pack at least a 20 mm lens. My 17 mm super-wide was well used on my recent trip as well as my 55 mm and 105 mm macro lenses.

10 issue 47 - page 10 Whitetail deer on Big Meadows More good news The top of the Hogback Branch Trail meets the bottom of the Dark Hollow Trail at a wide metal bridge where a fire road crosses the stream. From this point, the walk to the top follows the easy, gradual slope of the wide, graded fire road that returns to the Fishers Gap Overlook parking area. Walk down this road, turn left about thirty feet beyond the metal bridge and you ll be on the Hogback Branch Falls Trail. My favorite overlook in the Park is called Naked Creek Overlook. This spot is a few miles south of Big Meadows at mile By working at the north end of the parking area, I made several photographs on different days, in different light, all framed by the long overhanging branch of a single oak tree. Naked creek is less than a mile away, down the mountain side, but is hidden behind Long Ridge. My map shows a waterfall on Naked Creek but there is no trail to the falls. Wildlife During a week of driving back and forth along Skyline Drive, I counted four black bears, and hundreds of white-tail deer, some with small fawns. I braked for several large black rat snakes, at least a thousand squirrels, three wild turkeys, and a few groundhogs crossing the Drive. Large white-tailed bucks sometimes leap from the woods and cross the Drive in two bounds. Sometimes they see you coming, stop in the middle of the road, turn around, and leap back off the pavement. Be alert for anything to happen along this road. Large groups of white-tailed deer can be photographed in the early morning while feeding along the road between the Skyline Drive and the Big Meadows Lodge. Millipedes are seen everywhere in the woods and on the trails. In mid-june, an incredible number of three-inch-long millipedes cross the Skyline Drive, in both directions, looking for a meal. It s hard to drive and avoid running over the dark-brown creatures. Just south of the Big Meadows is a parking area at the end of a trail and a fire road. A half-hour s walk, around the southern edge of the meadow can be rewarding. On an evening walk along this trail, I photographed six white-tail deer. The sky was opening after a rain to reveal patches of blue sky. I crossed the meadow and photographed fields of yellow ragwort. This five-square-mile plateau has been cleared since ancient times by lighting and fires. It is believed that Indians burned the meadows to use as a campground and hunting area. Early settlers expanded the clearing to grow crops and graze cattle. There is some poison ivy along the trails. It s easy to spot. Two poisonous snakes in the Park are timber rattlers and copperheads. They are more often spotted along the trails on cool days in the spring and autumn. Snakes stay under cover on hot summer days. Carry a flashlight at night. Snakes are nocturnal and you don t want to step on one in the dark. Bears can be a problem if you store food in your campsite. Lodging in Shenandoah Following mountain top ridges, Skyline Drive twists and turns for a hundred and five miles and connects the North Entrance to the South Entrance. Halfway down the length of the park s drive, at milepost 51, is Big Meadows Lodge. That s where I stayed for a week while I explored the trails, hiked to waterfalls, and photographed Shenandoah National Park.

11 issue 47 - page 11 Inside the park, only three locations offer overnight lodging Skyland, Big Meadows, and Lewis Mountain. All three are located near the center of the park. At mile 41.7 is Skyland Resort, established in 1888, with 177 rustic guest cabins. Ten miles south at mile 51.3 is the Big Meadows Lodge with twenty rooms in the historic lodge building plus seventy-two cabins and motel-type facilities scattered through the woods. Lewis Mountain Cabins, another five miles south at mile 57.5, are seven furnished rustic cabins with private baths. At the north end of the park, a large selection of lodgings is available in the town of Front Royal on Highway 340. A few miles west of the southern end of Shenandoah National Park is the town of Waynesboro, also located on Highway 340, where a good selection of lodgings can be found. Most of the national chains are located just outside the park in these towns. Weather The weather forecast is posted on the bulletin board in front of the Byrd Visitor Center. The forecast can t predict the arrival of fog. Each morning in Shenandoah, I awoke to see dense fog outside my window. It was beautiful! The woods were dripping. I wrapped my camera in a plastic bag and walked the trails. Wildflowers, ferns, and leaves glistened with rain drops. Driving the Skyline Drive in dense fog was tricky. I found that the dense fog created beautiful images at every turn in the road. In the fog, a few tree trunks would frame a foggy composition that mysteriously faded off into gray mists. To capture the effect I wanted, I increased the exposures my meter was indicating by two-thirds of a stop. The Shenandoah guide books describe an event that only happens every few months when an atmospheric inversion fills the lower valleys with fog while the mountaintops are clear. This ocean of fog sometimes rises and flows like water through the gaps in the Blue Ridge Mountains. On the morning of my last day in Shenandoah, I awoke to the buzz of my alarm clock and pulled back the curtains to check the sunrise. The sky was completely clear. There were no clouds and only a slight pinkish glow in the sky. A great day for hiking but not for photography. I wanted to explore a few more waterfalls on my list. I enjoyed that last day in the Park by doing the hikes but didn t photograph the waterfalls. The light was too hard and contrasty. It was a great day for hiking in Shenandoah National Park. A foggy morning along Skyline Drive Have a great trip and send me a postcard!

12 Internet Resources U. S. NATIONAL PARKS / STATE PARKS Shenandoah National Park: Blue Ridge Parkway: LODGING Big Meadows Lodge shenandoah-big-meadows-lodge/ Skyland Resort shenandoah-skyland-resort/ Lewis Mountain Cabins shenandoah-lewis-mountain-cabins/ Shenandoah River Cabins CAR RENTALS WEATHER CONDITIONS The Weather Channel: The National Weather Service: SPECIALTY CLOTHING CAMERA EQUIPMENT My life-long career in photography began at San Jose State University in After college, I enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, serving as a photographer and darkroom technician. In Germany, my skills and experience with equipment and lab work were developed and polished. I took the opportunity to photograph the beauty of nature in the Black Forest. Returning to California in 1965, I produced industrial and military training films for Raytheon Electronics and began showing my color nature prints. From 1969 through 1981, my photography was exhibited and sold in West Coast galleries. During the early 1980 s, I taught color darkroom workshops, then expanded to include field trips. Former customers, who had purchased my framed photographs, wanted to learn photography. My Pacific Image Photography Workshops offered adventures to the Pacific Coast, the Southwest deserts, national parks, Hawaii, New England, Canada, England, and the South Pacific. The workshops evolved into writing and sharing my adventures with others. Photograph America Newsletter provides information on where, when, and how to discover the best nature photography in North America. Photograph America Newsletter is published quarterly (four issues/year) by Robert Hitchman assisted by technical associate/wife, Katherine Post Office Box 86, Novato, CA All contents of this newsletter copyright Robert Hitchman Please don t make copies for your friends. This is a violation of Federal copyright laws. This newsletter survives on subscriptions.