Shenandoah National Park

Parks Directory of the United States / US National Parks / National Parks

Address:3655 US Hwy 211E
Luray, VA 22835
Phone:540-999-3500
Fax:540-999-3601
Web: www.nps.gov/shen/
Size: 199,074 acres.
Established: Authorized on May 22, 1926; fully established on December 26, 1935. Wilderness designated on October 20, 1976 and September 1, 1978.
Location:Headquarters is 3 miles west of Thornton Gap and 4 miles east of Luray on US 211 in Virginia. Four entrances to the park are at I-66 and US 340 to the north entrance at Front Royal, US 211 to the central entrance at Thornton Gap, US 33 to Swift Run Gap, and I-64 to the Rockfish Gap entrance at the southern end of the park and the northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Facilities:Campground (é), picnic area, rest rooms (é), cabin rental, lodging, groceries, restaurant/snacks, visitor centers (é), museum/exhibit, self-guided tour/trail. Entrance fee required.
Activities:Camping, hiking, horseback riding, fishing, wildlife viewing, bicycling, auto touring, ranger-led walks, interpretive programs.
Special Features:Skyline Drive, a 105-mile road, winds through hardwood forests along the crest of this outstanding portion of the Blue Ridge Mountains, with spectacular vistas of the Shenandoah Valley and the Piedmont. Park features more than 500 miles of trails, including 101 miles of the Appalachian Trail (see separate entry in national trails section).

See other parks in Virginia.

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

Caption: Becker playing at the summit of Hawksbill Mountain in Shenandoah National Park

A Hornist in the American Wild

Entrance to the Shenandoah National Park will be complimentary on June 25, 2011, while other free days at the park are April 16 to 24, June 21, September 24 and November 11 to 13, 2011.

-Aramark Parks and Destinations Announces Shenandoah National Park Anniversary Promotions

national parks, which were carved out of public lands, Shenandoah National Park was in part created through the condemnation of private lands held by more than 500 families, many of which had been on their land for generations.

"Answer at once"; letters of mountain families in Shenandoah National Park, 1934-1938

Birds of Shenandoah National Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park

"As our national population grows by a few million citizens each year, it becomes and ever-bigger challenge to ensure that visitors can enjoy their national parks without overwhelming them with traffic, damaging their health and diminishing their uniqueness," said CNPSR executive council chair and former Shenandoah National Park superintendent Bill Wade.

CNPSR Honors Firms for Helping Improve Yellowstone Air Quality

Yet that didn't end the region's bear poaching, notes Skip Wissinger, a Park Service special agent in the Shenandoah National Park's Elkton, Va., office.

A galling business: the inhumane exploitation of bears for traditional Asian medicine

Doubling the number of trucks will certainly alter this peaceful, rural valley, which runs parallel to the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah National Park. Local environmentalists are alarmed by the plan to pave thousands of acres of land.

Road to perdition: are smog-belching "truck tollways" a congestion solution?

Shenandoah National Park in Virginia recently eliminated 79 percent of its seasonal maintenance staff.

Parks in crisis

Horning pinpoints the 1930s as a pivotal era in which the work projects of the New Deal aided in the construction of a Jamestown without a hint of failure and a Shenandoah National Park that idealized the rural past even as its creators displaced physical evidence of that past from the landscape.

Myth, Memory, and the Making of the American Landscape

The beautiful Shenandoah National Park begins in northern Virginia and runs southwesterly through the state.

Chapter 3 Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. the Mid-Atlantic Medley

This one-level structure is nestled in a beautiful secluded wooded setting, minutes from the Shenandoah National Park, Skyline Drive, and attractions in Luray, Va.

Cool escape. (Travel Tips)

Friedman's point is illustrated by a recent article in The Washington Post by Peter Whoriskey about the Shenandoah National Park: "Budget constraints have been shrinking what visitors can find at the park." Indeed, what is needed is not less money, but more funds for park operations--money to better monitor air pollution that is "stunting forest growth and pocking leaves with black spots," to catch poachers who are slaughtering the park's black bears, to eradicate invasive pests that are decimating the park's hemlock trees, and to study and control the effects of acid rain, which is killing young black trout.

Tilting at Windmills