Limberlost Trail

The Limberlost Trail is in the Central Section of Shenandoah National Park, near Skylands, and is perhaps the easiest path in the entire park.  It forms a gentle loop of 1.3 miles on a broad and level pathway.  It used to run through a forest of huge eastern hemlocks, but these massive trees have almost all been killed by a tiny insect, the woolly adelgid.  A couple of weekends ago, Mary and I went up to the park for the afternoon.  I am going to be leading three weeks of hikes for Road Scholar this summer in the park, and wanted to get some field guides for Shenandoah natural history.  We spent some time in the park gift shop where I bought several books.  Then, in the museum, we watched a film about the making of the park - and the eviction of poor mountain families from their land - and also toured the museum.  We ended our time by hiking on the Limberlost Trail.

Here are a few photos from the trail.

On the trail....

This hemlock has somehow managed to evade the invasive insect that has killed most of its ilk.

There are nice benches every few hundred feet or so.

Yellow birch are a northerly tree, but are sometime found at higher elevations in Virginia.

This is a columnar jointing, the remains of an ancient lava flow that cooled and solidified into columns.

This forest used to be mostly eastern hemlock.  Look at it now.  In addition to the adelgid, storms have knocked down many of the trees of other kinds.  It is a young and open forest now, with lots of sunlight coming in.  Eventually, a mature forest will cover the area again, and shade the forest floor.

Hard to believe that such a large living thing could be killed by a tiny insect.

Could this tiny hemlock somehow survive and grow, and live to shade the forest someday?

If you are in the park and want a little leg stretcher with minimal effort, this is the hike for you!