Attack of the Black Bears

Great fun hiking this past weekend. I'd never been to Shenandoah National Park before and it certainly lived up to its reputation. Michael and I were oriented around North Skyline Drive and car camped in Big Meadows Friday night. Saturday we started at Milam Gap and hiked Mill Prong Trail to Camp Hoover, which I had never even heard about before seeing it on the map Friday night.
Between Milam Gap and Camp Hoover we took some time to enjoy Big Rock Falls. At the falls, we met a former park ranger out for a hike with his eight year old daughter. They were kind to take our picture.

From Camp Hoover we went South along Laurel Prong Trail up to The Sag, then followed the horse trail to the Staunton River and the Staunton River Trail to Bear Church Rock.We enjoyed taking lunch after crossing the Staunton River. Shortly before lunch, we met some volunteers with the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club improving the Staunton River and the Jones Mountain Cabin Trails.

BCR had dramatic views of Fork and Doubletop Mountains, and was a comfy spot to rest in the sun after a pretty rigorous hike.

We originally decided to camp at BCR, but on second thought decided to finish the hike to Bootens Gap. That afforded us the chance to see some great scenery and wildlife, including a black bear that we spotted near Laurel Gap about 50 yards off the trail. The bear was apparently just as startled as we were and bolted about as fast as I can imagine a bear going. It was the first time I had ever seen a bear in the wild and was surprised that it wasn't as big as I expected (perhaps a generous four feet tall when standing on all fours), and about the size of a very large dog. The bear moved too fast for me to take a picture.

Speaking of black bears, one of the best parts of the trip was the anticipation of black bear sightings, and then the investigation of suspiciously undiscernable dark masses or unusual sounds in the forest. We constantly inspected our periphery for stalking black bears. This picture, for example, captures a section of just one side of the trail with five potential bears.
We of course assumed all suspicious masses and noises were bears until proven otherwise (or disclaimed by Michael as simply an aggressively uttered burp).

All around, it was an awesome trip. There weren't a lot of specific views to remember, but the trails themselves were so lush with ferns and these really tall flowers that seemed to be out of a King Kong move or something because they were so tall. As best we can estimate, we got in between 14-15 miles Saturday within a 1,500 ft. elevation band. No ascent was more than ~1,000 ft, and we did a half dozen or so ascent-descent pairs, making my estimate ~4,500 ft of ascent.

We car camped again at Big Meadows Saturday night and enjoyed the chance to pop some Advil before our old bones seized up. Michael got hit on by Hazel the park ranger - I was pretty scared for him after noticing all of the guns in her Ranger truck. She gave him her badge later, so I guess all's well that ends well.

The trip home was really long, in large part because I tried to take shortcut through the park. What I didn't internalize was that I was trading 80 miles of 70-mile-per-hour Interstate for 60 miles of 25-mile-per-hour Skyline Drive. No one ever accused me of being the sharpest tack in the box, though I wouldn't have gotten this picture of a bear from my car if I'd taken the faster route.