The Story Behind the Image: Shenandoah Spring

In mid-April, I spent parts of six days at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. It was an interesting experience, impacted significantly, as always, by the extant conditions. I was a bit worried, shortly before arrival in the park on April 14, that I would be too early for the sort of spring growth that I hoped to experience, and I was, to some degree correct. Allow me to briefly explain the wishy-washy statement.

For those unfamiliar with Shenandoah, it’s a long (north-to south) property–more than 100 miles from one end to the other–but is not very wide (east-to-west). There is one road, and one road only, that traverses the park: Skyline Drive more or less rides a mountain ridge from Mount Royal at the north end to Waynesboro at the south end. The elevation of the road varies from roughly 2000 feet above sea level near the northern and southern ends to approximately 3500 feet above sea level at its highest point, near mile marker 41. (The mile markers start at zero at the northern end of the road.) But the elevations are quite variable between these two extremes and the altitude of the road ebbs and flows regularly throughout its route.

There was already a decent amount of budding on trees near the lowest elevations when I arrived, but there was almost nothing yet growing at the higher elevations. (And note that, while the road tops out at approximately 3500 feet above sea level, the summits of the tallest accessible mountains in the park reach at least 1000 feet higher.) But the weather was warm, with plenty of sunshine, so budding and leafing steadily developed, and slowly climbed up the hillsides and mountainsides while I was at the park. While there was no more than early budding at the higher elevations even when I left on April 19, by that point, elevations up to 2500 feet were fully leafed out and mid-level elevations (up to, say, 3000 feet) were beginning to show significant development.

I traversed almost the entire length of Skyline Drive twice while I was in the park. I first made the drive to the southern part of Shenandoah (I got a bit past mile marker 90, but didn’t go all the way to the southern entrance) on my first full day in the park (April 15). When I returned, just two days later, the extent of the additional development in foliage was palpable.

As I was making the drive back north on April 17, somewhere around mile marker 85, I spotted an intriguing redbud tree just off the side of the road. There are innumerable overlooks on both sides of the twisting Skyline Drive, throughout its length, but there was no pull-off near the tree. The closest overlook was about a quarter of a mile further north, and I pulled in. I parked my car and then, atop the stone wall that serves as a kind of guard rail on the fall-off side of the drive, I walked, without my photographic equipment, back down the road to see if the tree I had glimpsed was a worthy subject. Walking on the wall allowed me to safely traverse the quarter mile without having to worry about dodging traffic (though, as it turned out, there was no traffic that needed to be dodged). When I arrived at the scene I determined fairly quickly that, yes, this would make a very nice subject. So, I turned around walked back uphill (on the wall) to the car, collected my camera and tripod, and headed back to the tree. This time, I walked on the road, prepared to jump up on the wall if a vehicle appeared, but that turned out not to be necessary.

I did jump back on the wall when I got back to the redbud, as I didn’t want to have to worry about moving in case of traffic (and, indeed, while I was composing the image below, two vehicles did drive by). I placed the redbud, which was leaning to the left, on the right-hand side of the frame and left the fully leafed, but fresh green of the mountainside trees in the background. The just budding set of oaks filled the rest of the frame on the left. The color contrasts of spring serve as the image’s center of interest.

Satisfied, I completed the mile of walking between the scene and the nearest overlook and continued the journey northward, my eyes ever peeled for additional quintessential Blue Ridge Mountains images.

Redbud Mountainside, Skyline Drive, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia