I had set the alarm for 5 AM because I wanted to go to the South District for a hike. It was pouring out so I went back to sleep. When I got up later I saw from the Doppler radar that the rain was passing the Shenandoahs. So I quickly got my stuff together and went to the North District to pick up the Thornton River Trail. Although the guidebook says to park at the junction of 612 and 653, I managed to find a spot further up 612 just before the "No Parking Beyond This Point" sign. What a fabulous day it turned out to be: clear and crisp with a full river next to me.
The Thornton River Trail is another one of those scenic river trails so special to the Shenandoahs. This trail and river is right up there with Nicholson Hollow in terms of beauty and ease of access. It has lots of potential dunking spots and even a few holes big enough to submerge in. It was also wonderful to be back hiking. Unfortunately, my camera battery died (I had snatched the little camera that I hadn't recently recharged) so I tried to take some photos with my phone (the 2nd and 3rd photos below) but I couldn't see the screen well enough to take decent photos.
The Thornton River trail rises gently and steadily to Skyline Drive. There were a number of blowdowns en route. Beyond Skyline Drive the trail rises steeply to meet the Appalachian Trail. There I had lunch in the sun. It was chilly enough for me to be wearing three shirts and mittens. I walked down the AT as far as the Beahms Gap cutoff (having already taken the side trail to Byrds Nest 4 and now wanting to maximize my AT miles). There was no snow to be seen (but the trail only lightly grazed the 2500 altitude mark). At Beahms Gap I had to walk north on Skyline Drive for a short stretch (I never found the connector to the Byrds Nest fire road (described in guidebook and on map) but that was ok because I logged more AT miles. Then I took the final section I needed to complete the Hull School Trail, a pleasant but unremarkable piece of gentle trail. Once again I encountered some blowdowns. Then I repeated the last 1.8 miles of Thornton River Trail to get back to the car. Two additional trails and 7.4 additional new miles on side trails. I have to go back to old hikes to document all my AT miles since it looks like I won't get to my AT backpacking trip.
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| Lower Thornton River Trail |
| Cascades on upper Thornton River trail |
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| Old car skeleton, Thornton River Trail |
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