I don't recall what time we got up Sunday morning, but it was before a lot of other campers except for the group next to us. Our son had a grand time running around as I a tried to dress and feed him breakfast. Eventually we jumped back on Skyline drive and headed north to Fort Windham Rocks stopping at some of the pull offs to shoot the views that were not overgrown. It was to be another cloudy but hot and hazy day! Thanks to a book I bought last year on shorter hiking trails in Shenandoah National Park Fort Windham Rocks was easy to find. The hike is very short and easy (when your child is cooperative)! My husband had fun climbing around on the rocks and encouraging our child's climbing abilities too. I had to keep close watch of our 2 year old as there were many gaps to fall through in the rocks. After play time was over we headed over to Luray Caverns, a National Natural Landmark for an other worldly experience! A little advice for visiting Luray Caverns, if you don't want to wait in line for several hours out in dreadful heat arrive before the doors open in the morning! They took groups of 100 people about every 15 minutes. There was a huge array of people from all around the world! In line behind us was a couple from India also with (a very well behaved) two year old boy, ahead of us was a couple from Russia. I could hear southern accents, Chinese, Korean and many other languages which was quite an amazing experience. Once inside we were able to disperse and move at our own pace. The long wait was worth it! I can't describe it but the air was different and I found myself humming as I looked around in awe and wonder. Our son spent most of his time in a pack on my back. We did let him out for a short time. At first he seemed scared to move but after we showed him it was okay he ran about like a crazy man. When they played the "pipe organ," we were asked to be quiet so everyone could hear. Yup not my son, he ran around in circles singing a constant "weeeeeeeeee" the whole time. To my amazement no one said a word about it. A little further down in the cavern he found water on the the floor and ran through it several times before I could grab him! Someone commented that he had just ran through water that was 4 million years old." Yup back into the pack protesting he went! Photography in the cavern was a challenge with it's weird orange lighting, crowds of people plus one moving about on my back. I put the white balance into auto, ISO at 3200 and put the camera in Av mode at 6.3 to soak all the light possible! I did some tweaking in photo-shop but the results are....well you be the judge! Click on each image! After Luray Caverns we took a rest, and had dinner. After dinner we drove to Jeremy's Lookout to do a little night photography. It was hard not to laugh at some of the conversations we overheard. One group of guys stopped to look at the stars and milky way for quite a while. They were far from quiet. I did not take a lot of photos during that stop but I am quite pleased with the few I did take! Monday morning we packed up and made the mistake of hiking the "Traces trail" which was a nice walk in the woods passed a few collapsed foundations. My husband really wanted to get an early start but we misread the last trail marker heading towards "Matthew's Arm" instead of Matthew's Arm Campground by a little over a mile! Not a good situation and boy was I relived that we didn't have to retrace all of our steps! We left the campground at about 9:30am and got home around 7:30pm! We ran into delays on I-81 in Pennsylvania and had a tough time finding our way back on when we stopped for gas! Below are a few last shots at some of the overlooks! We did see a Bob cat, black bear and an eagle during our adventure but never when our cameras were ready! Hope you enjoyed your mini tour! Feed back is appreciated! Labor day weekend I got a little excited about a three day weekend and begged my husband to go to Shenandoah National Park. I did a little research ahead of time. The way the website read Matthews Arm Campground was going to be closed so we traveled down to the Thorton Gap entrance in hopes to get a walk in site at Big Meadows! Surprise, it was full and Matthews Arm was indeed open and had a couple of sites open. We arrived around midnight. We settled for the first site we found, right in front of the bathrooms. We set camp up quickly, our son slept in the car til we were done. In the morning we paid up our bills for the campsite (there was no one around when we arrived). Then set off to try to find the Stony Man trail to meet up with a ranger for a hike. We didn't find it in time and hiked from the Little Stony Man Trail which afforded some spectacular views and rock formations to play with. Eventually the Little Stony Man Trail intersected with Stony Man which was much more crowded. Sometimes mistakes or mishaps can be blessings! Be sure to click on each photo to see it in full glory! We spent the rest of the day jumping in and out of the car photographing the views which seemed endless. Eventually to me it began to feel boring as if we kept looking at the same seen over and over. I tried to incorporate flowers, trees and or rocks in the foreground to make each shot feel different. None of the views were exactly the same but all similar overlooking the Shenandoah Valley. We don't normally concentrate on roadside shots but with time limited and toddler in tow it really was best use of our time. We loved it as sunset approached and subtle colors grew into landscape. I was really hoping to capture a great sunset over the mountains and get in some night sky photography. We ran late and wound up cooking in the dark and eating dinner by lantern. Little man was also eager to be out of the car and running amuck. Unfortunately I did not label each pull off and can only remember the names of a couple. We turned around when we reach Loft Mountain Overlook so we did not shoot the whole length of the Skyline Drive It was almost pitch black when I took this shot (left) which is a longer exposure with a flash! I love it! If you click on this photo you will able to see an old fence running along the edge of the woods! I started experimenting with flash for sunsets and night sky photography last year at Cuyahoga National Park. It seems I have also inspired my husband to give the technique a try too for those of you who know him. Below are two more sunset shots from that evening. Hopefully I leave you eagerly waiting for part 2 of Shenandoah National park and an afternoon at Luray Caverns! Goodnight! |
Julie MetottNature Photographer, wife, mother, lover of outdoor adventure! Archives
November 2022
Categories
|