Chasing Ghosts on Skyline Drive to Shenandoah National Park
September 9th, 2020
I drive alone on black roads coiling like a snake ‘round misty blue mountains, rendered flat by haze, with nothing and no one for company but the blissful expanse of nature. I emerge from my parked vessel to stand in the middle of it and stare down a long, echoing tunnel that splits the cliff, tempting fate as the tremendous roar of an oncoming car reaches my ears. As I sprint to safety, the sound fades into the distant calls of crows and miniature waterfalls trickling down the mountain’s face.
The sweet sound of Gregory Alan Isakov’s sultry voice floats from my rolled down windows: “Fumbling ‘round in the smoke / Spending time chasing ghosts,” but the ghosts are chasing me. White clouds move like spirits on their way to the afterlife across the sleeping mounds of green, until all sign of land disappears.
Lest my visibility escape me, I escape the fog’s long, wispy fingers, ever stalking just behind me as I weave my way through Skyline Drive. It chases me to jagged stones that erupt in frozen waves between the trees, overlooking tiny toy houses on green pastures far below. It chases me to where the gentle wind sends quivers through cricket-filled grasses with a lover’s caress. To where snow-like patches of baby’s breath tickle my ankles under towering evergreens and twisting Halloween trees, whose balding limbs betray the first signs of fall.
The ghostly mist catches up with me as I reach the Appalachian Trail that cuts through Shenandoah National Park. No longer running, I watch as it envelops me in its cold, humid embrace, absorbing all sound save for the crunching of my feet on the root-ridden trail. I hold my breath in reverence for the eerie silence. Yellow flowers, mossy stones, red vines, are all veiled in opaque white, the unknown distance drawing me deeper into the heart of the woods. I cannot see beyond my arm’s reach in this peaceful grave—not forward, nor behind me. I am only here, I am only now.
Each step reveals new wonders: an inception of miniature mountain ranges; beards of moss hanging down lichen-covered boulders; layered red bark of fallen timber hollowed out like a giant straw; peach and purple mushrooms, splitting to reveal white underbellies; and a draping lace spiderweb adorned with dew pearls.
As I climb, the elevation crushes my lungs. Dirt cakes beneath my fingernails as I clamper up a steep slope of loose stone and wooden log stairs around the face of a sheer cliff, whose peak disappears into the mist. Through it, hazy treetops that had been overhead just minutes before, now peer up at me from below. At the ledge’s edge, a floor of fog floats at my feet, giving me a false sense of security as it promises solid purchase beyond the veil; but I know it hides a drop of death should I misstep. My stomach squirms.
It begins to rain. Yet again, I am chased away, down into the dark wilderness. Coated in sticky sweat, dew, and drizzle, I briskly descend the mountain, pausing to look straight up at the canopy above me. The treetops converge in a spiral, faded jade like a vintage photograph. A droplet pecks my cheek, watering the wildflowers I gather along my way. I am an intruder here, stealing beauty off Nature’s shoulders, unnoticed within the ebb and flow of her breath. She will not wait for me; I must return to my kind.
Experienced During
The Appalachian Way Home
Points of interest:
Shenandoah National Park
Thornton entrance of Skyline Drive
Tunnel parking overlook
Hazel mountain overlook
Jewell Hollow Overlook
Little Stony Man via Appalachian Trail hike
