The Blue Ridge and the Long Green Tunnel

The mountains that wall in Front Royal to the east and south are the Blue Ridge, the long narrow range that gives Shenandoah National Park its spine. Their soft blue haze, the color that names them, comes from the forests themselves, which release tiny organic molecules into the air that scatter blue light across the ridgelines. Threading along that crest, and passing close to Front Royal, is the Appalachian Trail, the legendary footpath that runs roughly two thousand two hundred miles from Georgia to Maine.

Through Shenandoah National Park the trail shadows Skyline Drive for over a hundred miles, weaving in and out of the roadway, so a hiker and a driver can travel the same ridge, one on foot in the forest and one behind glass at an overlook. Front Royal is a familiar name to long distance hikers, a resupply town where thru hikers walking the entire trail come down off the mountain to shower, eat, and restock before climbing back up. Smithsonian scientists based just outside town have used trail cameras, with help from Appalachian Trail volunteers, to study how the presence of hikers shifts the movements of the bears, bobcats, and deer that share these woods.

Whether you drive the ridge or walk it, the Blue Ridge around Front Royal offers the same reward, a green corridor of oak and pine rolling south as far as the eye can follow.