Good Bye, Shenandoah. Hello, Blue Ridge Parkway!

After finishing the Bear Mountain Rock Scramble hike, we continued heading South on Skyline Drive. We stopped at several scenic overlooks before leaving the park.

Before starting our trek down the Blue Ridge Parkway, we stopped in Waynesboro, Virginia, to get gas and stock up on groceries. In order to maximize the amount of time we could spend enjoying the Blue Ridge Parkway, we decided to go car-camping for two nights during our drive south. We made reservations well in advance of our trip for the campgrounds — one night at the Peaks of Otter campground and one night at the Linville Falls Campground. Prior to the trip, we planned out which hikes we thought we’d like to do, so that enabled us to figure out how many miles we thought we’d be able to drive along the parkway each day, which helped us choose what campgrounds to make reservations for. We ended up arriving to both of our campgrounds after dark, but we felt that that helped us to make the most of our daylight hours.

We entered the Blue Ridge Parkway via the North entrance near Waynesboro. Our first stop was a mile marker 5.8, the Humpback Rocks Visitor Center.

After getting a magnet and sticker from the visitor’s center, we made a couple of PB&J sandwiches (to eat while hiking) and set out on our first hike of the Blue Ridge Parkway leg of our trip — Humpback Rocks. The hike was a short one, only 1.6 miles out and back, but the steep grade made it a bit more challenging than we expected. The views from the top were totally worth it!

After completing the hike, we continued driving south along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Our next stop was White Rock Falls. It was an easy-to-moderate 2.5 mile hike that began at the Slacks Overlook parking lot. The falls were rather unimpressive but could definitely be lovely in a different time of day (we were there in the afternoon) or with a larger volume of water (maybe in the spring time).