April 23-25, 2024
Sherando Lake National Recreation Area is located about 10 miles south of Waynesboro, Virginia and just west of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The drive here from Babcock State Park turned out to be nice, very scenic. Initially, Google Maps routed me through the mountains on some narrow, twisting roads with significant elevation changes. I was not too thrilled with that, not after the route Google took me in arriving at Babcock, which had many steep grades on twisting roads. Steep grades with twisting roads and curves, that’s a recipe I like for bicycling, not for my van. This time, I did not depend on Google. I opted to use my Rand McNally (never leave home without it) and take a longer route that was on roads that I assumed would be more to my liking. RT 19 is a double-lane roadway going south for about twenty miles, where I would pick up I-64, which in turn would connect to I-81 in Virginia. It added about 40 miles and 55 minutes to the drive, but it was a nice drive. The last 10 miles or so, after exiting I-81, were on normal single lane roads. I arrived at Sherando Lake and backed into my campsite comfortably right around 1PM.
A campground host, Dorothy, soon arrived and said hello, welcoming me in a way that was unusually nice. We talked about ten minutes. She and her husband, Dan, have been hosting here for a number of years. I met Dan later in the day when he brought over a map of local trails. He was really nice, too.
I looked over my Rand McNally, and I could see that the Blue Ridge was very close to Sherando, maybe a ride of about 7-8 miles on my bike. After I got settled, off I went. It’s two and a half miles from the campground back out to RT 664, then it was only three miles or so to the Parkway. It had the “steepest half mile” I have ridden in a long time, with that steep part coming at the end of a two-mile climb overall. That half mile gained about 400 feet, and the two-mile climb gained 900 feet. It took me about twenty-five minutes. My Garmin registered a high of 21% gradient, while most was in the 15%-17% range. It had several blind turns where, as you approach, you see that up ahead it does not relent, it looks both terrible and challenging. Anyway, it was work. I loved it, in a weird way. Bike riding is fun. It creates a good feeling, a satisfaction.
The next day, I took the “longer” route, which meant about four and a half miles to reach similar elevation as the “short route,” around 2650 feet. It was still work, but the maximum gradient was only 11%. Once on the blue Ridge, I did a thirteen mile out and back ride. It was a rolling ride with wide turns, reaching 3,200 feet on two climbs, then coming back down to around 2,500 feet each time, ending up with 3,500 feet of hills all day. The scenery was fantastic, sweeping panoramas of the valleys below and more mountain ranges, crisscrossing in every direction, on a mostly sunny day with temps in the low 60s. The ride downhill on my return to the campground was screaming. I held off using my brakes until I hit 40 mph. That was fast enough ...
Later, I took a walk, and I met a couple with a new low-profile, tear-drop camper. They’ve been doing short trips of 2-3 days. This is their fourth trip out with it. They live about 15 miles away from here. This is a perfect “test case” for checking things out about their new toy.
On my first day there, at sunset, I walked west on the campground road. I noticed a set of stairs going up a very green, grass-covered hill that topped out on a flat piece of land. I headed for the stairs. They were wood, placed into the dirt in a pattern that curved as it ascended. There were seventy-five steps. I was not alone, for as I neared the top, I met up with a large turtle. It hissed at me, as I must have come too close before noticing it. I talked with it, saying I had not meant to startle it. I took some photos, then continued to the top. To my significant surprise, there was another lake there! The “hill” was an Earthen dam, about half a mile long. The dam was of the type I had seen at Army Corp of Engineer campgrounds, except they were always made of stone. If there were stones utilized here, they were now all covered with dirt-earth, as both sides and the top had a thick layer of grass. The top was about twenty yards wide. I Googled the dam and learned that Lower Sherando Lake was built in the mid-1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and Upper Sherando Lake in 1958 by the US Soil Conservation Service. Both are flood control measures.
I walked up to the dam several times in my three days there. It is a beautiful setting, with steep hills climbing on the left and right of the lake, young leaves developing on the plentiful trees. The area is all part of George Washington National Forest (USDA).
On one trip to the dam, I met a family of four. A woman, who was wearing a light pink hajib, was taking photos of a man and two children. I approached and offered to take a photo with the four of them. They were happy to have that. I asked where they were from. The husband answered, “From Gaza.” It turns out his wife is from Gaza. They had been there for a month in September, leaving just before the Hamas attack and all the subsequent carnage. She has lost several family members in the bombing and fighting that has taken place in Gaza. We talked about this for several minutes. We also talked about things like the need for kindness, compassion, and the need to communicate when there is conflict. I had the impression he was from the US. They live in Virginia, though not locally.
Dorothy and Dan both told me there was a woman camping at one site who was a cyclist. One evening, I walked over to her site and introduced myself. We talked quite about cycling and other things. She is from Canada. She came here to be away from Canada in April, which she said can be a funny month regarding fitness activities. She does cross country skiing through the winter, but conditions in April are not good for it, yet the conditions are not good for cycling either, as it can still be cold and snowy. She comes to Virgina to begin her cycling season and will soon return to Canada. I think that’s a good idea for a few reasons. I like the idea of travel, of course. I think it’s great to travel places so one can continue a fitness level, and it sounded like April in Canada could be a deterrent to that. Of course, travel generally brings new environments and new people into one’s sphere, and that can be enlightening. We talked a lot, a few times, about fitness and travel, in a way that interlaced our humanity, thoughts and feelings, into the discussion.
She was familiar with the climbs up to the Blue Ridge that I had just done, having done them herself in previous years. It appeared to me she was a fit person, one who liked the joys and appreciated the pains of hard workouts. She had also been a climber in her younger days. She said she lived in Boulder, back in the 80s for a few years, that being where she began climbing. She had an adventurous spirit.
She had a small four-cylinder car with a lightweight trailer (300 pounds), and she set up a tent-like structure around it that provided shelter for her as well as a table and chair, a stove, a powered cooler (she has solar and batteries in the trailer.) She was a thoughtful traveler.
Before I left on Friday morning, I talked briefly with Dorothy again. Previously, she had told me she thought this might be their last time volunteering here at Sherando. They were advancing in years, in their 80s, and it might be time to stop. I told her if that was the case, I thanked her on behalf of all the campers who had been here, over the several years they had volunteered, and we were lucky to have such welcoming and kindly people as hosts. I told her they did a good thing, a good job all these years. She gave me a hug and thanked me, happy tears in my eyes.
I had not known a three-day visit, to a place I stumbled upon kind of at the last minute, would be so much fun. There are good people all over the country. There are good places to travel, to spend time, meet new people, do new things, have new experiences, to live new …
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