Sunday morning I had planned a hike up in Shenandoah National Park, thinking I’d go where ever the mood hit me to go using my Easy Day Hikes book as a guide. It turned out that I had left the book in Alexandria, so I referred to my “Hikes to Peaks and Vistas” book, from the Shenandoah National Park Association (quick link to the book: http://www.snpbooks.org/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SNPBOOKS&Product_Code=P%26V&Category_Code=BK) and picked the Hightop Mountain Summit. 
The short Heatwole guide description of this trail says it climbs about 935 feet and is about 3 miles round trip, following the Appalachian Trail the whole route. That makes it a bit steeper than Mary’s Rock, so I was expecting a workout. I guess the walking I’ve been doing lately, since my office moved downtown, is helping and this wasn’t so bad for me. The first two photos are of the trailhead sign and some large bolders near the start of the hike.
Besides the possibility of views on this hike, I was hoping to catch a view of some trilliums, since I knew as May advanced they were probably already past peak. There were quite a few wildflowers blooming, and I did find a few red trilliums scattered around ¾ of the way to the summit. I plan to post a few of the wildflowers I saw in a writeup tomorrow or Friday – I also have a “Tech-watch Geek” post coming.
Heatwole goes on to mention some history associated with this area of the Park, and the 3,585 foot summit of the mountain (the views are actually from ledges just below the summit):
“On March 18, 1669, the explorer John Lederer first reached the crest of the Blue Ridge. The ledge you’re standing on may be the point from which he first saw the Shenandoah Valley.”
When I started my hike, it was sunny at the trailhead, but I could see that low clouds were swirling partway up the mountain, obscuring the summit. So I knew the views might be limited from the top – and that’s what I found. However, I do like the experience of being up on the summit in the clouds, which these two photos show (click on them and they will open in a window for a larger view).
There is also a spring and an AT hut near here, so I walked the additional half mile or so to the spring. I looked around for a trail leading to the shelter but couldn’t find a trace of it, so I turned back and spent some more time enjoying the views into the clouds from the cliff.
I met two thru-hikers when I got back to the trailhead. I didn’t have anything to share with them, or I would have…they’d both been on the Trail for about 10 weeks. While they were close by each other in this stretch, they weren’t hiking together – I encountered them about 5 minutes apart while I was taking off my pack and putting away my hiking poles. I didn’t catch their trail names.
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