BLUE RIDGE BLISSSounds like typical marketing hooey, doesn’t

it? But picture this — first, two gorgeous national parks of high mountains, deep leafy

forests, and short hiking trails to misty glens that will have you thinking of that Daniel Day–Lewis/

Madeline Stowe movie The Last of the Mohicans (minus the bloody battle scenes).

Next put those parks in states of fascinating his-tory. Picture one in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a title (at the top of the state’s official webpage)

Story and photos by Dennis Coello

that brings images of tricorner hats and the Brits at Yorktown, and where it’s tough to ride any-where and not be reminded, by statue or monu-ment or chance conversation, of our murderous Civil War.

Place the other park in North Carolina, an underappreciated visual gem of 200 waterfalls amid countless tree-covered mountains, more than a million acres of forestland, and among its many rivers the oldest river in America (second oldest

in the world) – called the New River, of course. People here have a real sense of humor.

Add to North Carolina’s appeal the Virginia-like past of our Revolution and Civil War, but toss in, amazingly, the final ship-deck struggle of Blackbeard the pirate! Before I rode this route in its entirety late one fall and spent those chilly early dark hours reading about the Tar Heel state in my tent at night, I’d always thought pirates conducted their jolly-roger depredations in the

There is no ribbon of highway more ideal for bicycling than the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

— Elizabeth & Charlie Skinner, Bicycling the Blue Ridge

adventure cyclist march 2009 adventurecycling.org12 adventure cyclist march 2009 adventurecycling.org 13

Caribbean. But Blackbeard made his home in North Carolina for a time, time enough to marry his fourteenth wife before engag-ing in his last ship-deck battle just off Ocracoke on the Outer Banks. Tough cookie to the end, it took “five shot in him and twenty dismal cuts” before his lifeless body was tossed overboard. Well, most of his body, for the head was hung beneath the bowsprit and sailed that way to Williamsburg, Virginia.

It’s nice to know that these two states

have been connected for centuries, and nicer still that one of today’s more civi-lized links is an “ideal-for-cyclists” wind-ing two-lane mountain road running from one national park to the other. This ribbon of highway (1) allows no commercial traffic (goodbye, trucks!), (2) prohibits billboards (hello, scenery!), and (3) allows us to pedal for almost 600 scenic continuous miles through these wildly interesting states. It’s a biker’s bliss.

And that’s not all. This route is a climber’s delight. Saddle up next to the Civil War monument in the small northern Virginia

town of Front Royal (elevation 567 feet, only 70 miles from DC), ride to the nearby entrance of Shenandoah National Park, and begin pedal-ing up Skyline Drive. Before you reach Great Smoky Mountains National Park at the southern end, you’ll have ridden 575 miles, reached an elevation high point of over 6,000 feet, and climbed a whopping total of nearly 58,000 feet in doing so. Add a sweet five-mile spur and another 1,390 feet to your total and you can pedal to the highest point east of the Mississippi, Mount Mitchell (6,684 feet). By the time you get to that turnoff, you won’t even notice another uphill.

In addition to climbing, it would be good if you’re also partial to trees, wildlife, mountain streams, short hikes to roaring waterfalls, colorful wildflowers, scenic overlooks (there are 75 in the first 105 miles of your ride alone), slower traffic (maximum speed limit of only 35 miles per hour for the first hundred miles, 45 miles per hour thereafter), and fellow humans not in a hurry to get anywhere.

From personal experience, I know it’s real easy to get mixed up when new to the names of moun-tain chains, parks, and parkways in these parts, so let me pro-

vide some help: Blue Ridge Mountains – that grand,

often mist-enshrouded “eastern rampart of the Appalachian Mountains extending from southern Pennsylvania to northern Georgia” (cribbed from the single most essential item in a Skyline/Blue Ridge biker’s handlebar bag – Skinner’s Bicycling the Blue Ridge — see Nuts & Bolts). But why blue, when all the mountains here are lovingly

smothered with green trees? The answer is the soft blue haze of humid air that hovers over the forest.

Skyline Drive – the 105-mile-long two-lane road running north to south through the narrow Shenandoah National Park, from Front Royal to Rockfish Gap near Waynesboro, Virginia. The name comes from

the loca-tion of the route

– way up there (when viewed from the

valleys below) along the “sky line.” Blue Ridge Parkway – the

469-mile-long two-lane road con-necting the southern terminus of

the Skyline Drive with Great Smoky Mountains National Park (half the park

lies in North Carolina, half in Tennessee). The name is usually shortened to “the

Parkway,” less often to “BRP.” Not to quibble, but just so you’ll know, the total distance now is 470 miles due to the long

curving road addi-

tion of Linn Cove Viaduct.

However, the final welcome mile-

post you’ll see at the parkway’s end still

reads 469.The Smokies – the

name applied to the high range of mountains mostly

within and very near Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

They’re part of the Blue Ridge Mountain eastern rampart of

the larger, wider Appalachian Mountain group. The Cherokee (who ruled a multi-state swath of land for centuries here, prior to their forced removal via the Trail of Tears in the early 1800s) are supposed to have described these heights, according to the National Park Service, as “shacon-age” – meaning “blue, like smoke.” Today’s town of Cherokee, which you’ll pedal into if you make a left at the bottom of your final mountain descent on the parkway, is the sovereign nation of the descendants of those tribal members who managed not to be pushed west. The tribe’s website states

that their long-ago name for this area was “Land of the Blue Smoke.”

Shenandoah – the name of the national park, of course, but depending upon the speaker and context, it might refer to the famed river you’ll see running through the valley west of Skyline Drive. Or it might refer to the lovely, fertile valley itself, which during the Civil War was known as the “breadbasket of the Confederacy.” You will be riding several “gaps” – low points between mountains – that were used by Confederate forces to haul food across the mountains.

All right, now you won’t be confused by the terminology when, I hope, you consider doing this ride and begin gath-ering all the free information available from the parks and states. But what’s the best way to experience this great route? Pannier-less out-and-back day rides for the easiest cycling? A fully loaded thru-tour? A group of friends with a van and alter-nating drivers? Or forget the bike, strap on a 50-pound pack, and trek the parallel

Appalachian National Scenic Trail instead? (You’ll likely see some of these hardy hik-ers as they tromp this leg of the premier, Georgia-to-Maine 2,200-mile trail, often

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called simply “the AT.”)Well, since the mid 1980s, I’ve had the

pleasure of doing the parkway and Skyline Drive in all these ways (except the last,

for no matter all the pieces I’ve walked in five different states, I’ve still got about 2,150 miles to go). And I have loved every way that I’ve pedaled it – even my thru-ride a half dozen years ago that ended in

snowflakes on November 10. I got a late start, but the honest reason was that I dawdled. Wait till you find yourself meet-ing interesting, fun people at almost every

viewpoint, or pull up alongside a fellow rider who tells you he’s doing 60 miles that day because it’s his sixtieth birthday, that he “does his birthday years” annually, and then proceeds to apologize if he’s riding too

slowly and explains that he lost his heels to frostbite at Chosin Reservoir (a tough battle during the Korean War). We rode together to where we had lunch with his wife and talked bikes and history for another hour afterward. It’s that kind of place.

Know before you go that services along Skyline Drive and the parkway were designed for motorists – not us – and thus are too far apart for riding without forethought. It’s simple to pack more food and water, but get caught stealth camp-ing (sleeping outside a campground) and you’re in real trouble. The Park Service works hard at preserving these routes, plus the gorgeous country surrounding them, in the face of massive visitation by a usually appreciative populace. Do your bit to help them out.

The rangers are also adamant about bike lights and reflectors front and rear. Don’t roll your eyes for in addition to fog there are tunnels – some of them long, all of them dark. And they’re numer-ous. Skyline has only one, but you’ll ride through 27 on the Parkway.

Traffic can be considerable, and peak-color weekend fall traffic is said to be heaviest of all. But I managed somehow to begin my thru-ride on a splendid

Saturday morning in October – which I later learned had been deemed “peak-color weekend” by the Washington Post – and I swear I enjoyed the crowd and wasn’t honked at maliciously even once. (Oddly, I can’t say the same for a few sum-mer Yellowstone rides I’ve taken, another reason to avail oneself of the few-but-cool off-road routes when there on busy days.)

There are no white lines delineating shoul-ders on either Skyline or BRP, but the two lanes are wide enough for cars to pass easily, if carefully, and the lower speed limits help greatly to reduce everyone’s perceived need to go fast.

The benefits of mountain scenery and the lovely otherworldly look and feel of foggy days bring with them a require-

ment of raingear and warm attire even in mid-summer. All the climbing means wonderful zooms downhill as well, but go unprepared and you’ll be freezing, especially if it’s wet. Watch out for acorns when taking downhill curves in fall, dou-bly so if it’s foggy – and think too about flying around a curve and possibly into the fauna you’d prefer to see at a distance.

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For example, there are black bears (though they’re reported as “plentiful,” I’ve seen only two in all my years of riding these routes, and only one of those was uncom-fortably close) and bobcats (I’ve spotted only one, too far away for concern and too fast for my camera). And there are those stately, staring, acorn-chomping deer that somehow manage, at three in the morning right outside my tent, to sound like an approaching hungry bear. I bet I’ve seen a thousand of these slender whitetail beau-ties, and you will too.

You’ll encounter elk only very far south along the parkway (or at least that’s been my experience), and I had to go looking for them. But on both Skyline and the BRP, you’re very likely (if you break camp early or keep riding late) to race around a tight blind turn and into a flock of turkeys. They’re a wonderful sight, and the experi-ence is a fun memory, but no matter how often it’s happened, I’m always scared wit-less. Growing up, I wanted to be as tough as Kirk Douglas and as cool as Sal Mineo. It’s rough to be reminded – by a bunch of birds – that I didn’t make the grade.

The lack of ugly billboards is a big plus, but it nevertheless leaves you clue-less about what services might lie hidden

by the trees a short distance away. Even a minor investigation often means hurtling down steep grades and thus up them on the return. Again, consider the Skinner guide. I’ve never met the authors and they

aren’t in-laws or friends, but I’m plugging their book for having saved me many a useless, hungry ride off-route only to find more trees.

However you do your riding on this long, superb route, build in time for the working mountain farms (replete with

park interpreters in gingham dresses and overalls), for visitor center displays on the Indians who were here before them (and who in some places, like the Cherokee, still are), for being able to handle a layover day

or two or three if fog (especially preva-lent in summer) becomes too thick, and for dropping down to some of the valley towns for a change of scenery and to learn their history. (Just four of my small-town favorites – Front Royal and Lexington in Virginia, Mount Airy and Cherokee in North Carolina. Then there’s the lively city life of Asheville, very close to the Parkway, if you’re feeling an urban itch.)

And a quick final suggestion: take a hike. That’s right, get out of the saddle, lock your bike at a visitor center or other very public place, and hit one of the many trails heading off into these resplendent woods. A half-hour of walking will likely alter your entire notion of distance, of the massive scale of the world, of how fast we bikers travel in comparison and, we have to admit it, all that we miss while enjoying the speed and ease of rubber on the road.

Weather: Spring is an iffy proposition on all mountains and it may decide to stay for good much later than we’d wish. It’s this way on Skyline Drive, and even more so on the higher park-way. I don’t live close enough to hope I’ll hit one of the occasional blue-sky, lime-green group of days which do happen before each summer, and so I wait, along with all the other eager riders, for June. But know that the summer months, while they bring the remarkable flower dis-plays of rhododendron, mountain laurel, azalea, and many others, are also the foggiest of months. Leaf color in late September and October is hard to beat, but be prepared for early tastes of Old Man Winter’s chill – and the too-early closing of some services. In all honesty, I miss the summer’s press of people at such times.

Websites: Start by calling up the excellent National Park System site of www.nps.gov. Tap on the states and go from there to photos, natural history, the story of how these routes were created, and contact information to request three NPS fold-up brochures (the ones perfectly sized for handlebar bag map win-dows) – Shenandoah National Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Note: traffic in Great Smoky Mountains National Park can be far rougher than on Skyline and the BRP, but don’t miss the Heintooga Round Bottom Road if you’ve got a mountain bike or the absolutely perfect Cades Cove pavement ride. Check for specific start and stop dates and times, for this can change from year to year, but from May through September,

Cades Cove is open only to bikes and pedestrians on Wednesday and Saturday mornings till 10 a.m. Ask too about full-moon rides.) Do a search for “visit Virginia” and “visit North Carolina” for more tourist information and free mailings than you’ll prob-ably end up reading. Try www.blueridgeparkway.org for general and detailed information about the BRP (including downloadable maps and free mailings).

Information: Prefer to avoid the computer? Then write or call:Shenandoah National Park

3655 Hwy 211 EastLuray, VA 22835 (540) 999-3500

Blue Ridge Parkway199 Hemphill Knob RoadAsheville, NC 28803 (828)298-0398

Great Smoky Mnts. Nat. Park

107 Park Headquarters RoadGatlinburg, TN 37738 (865) 436-1200

Books: For all the reasons I’ve mentioned above – Bicycling the Blue Ridge: A Guide to the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway (4th edition), by Elizabeth & Charlie Skinner. And the immensely entertaining and informative A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. It’s his tale of tackling the Appalachian Trail (not by bicycle), and at first glance, it might seem out of place. But for part of the time, he parallels the routes you’ll be bik-ing and conveys the spirit of the Appalachian Mountains (includ-ing the Blue Ridge) as expertly as anything I’ve read – and more poetically than all others.

Nuts & Bolts: Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive

Appalachian history. Cyclists visit a historic cabin in Shenandoah National Park.

adventure cyclist march 2009 adventurecycling.org adventure cyclist march 2009 adventurecycling.org16 17

You’re very likely (if you break camp early or keep riding late) to race around a tight blind turn and into a flock of turkeys.

adventure cyclist march 2009 adventurecycling.org18

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The quiet, the solitude, the look and smell of the woods, it’s all ours for the price of just a few minutes.

While in Shenandoah National Park, you can buy thin hiking guides for $2, each light enough for a handlebar bag or pannier. One covers hikes to water-falls, another to peaks and vistas, but my favorite is Easy Hikes on the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. It’s always a kick for me to come upon the white blazes painted

on trees and rocks to guide these stoic folk across the continent, to walk a little of their route and imagine how they might have felt when eyeing the very same blaze, wondering if they’d begun in Maine or in Georgia, if they’d had run-ins with bears – or if, like us, they’re thru-hikers or day hikers or doing the trail over a series of years, one section at a time.

But the far bigger kick is to turn around after an hour, head back to my

bike, and know that even if I’m “fully loaded,” I’m not wearing my panniers on my back.

Dennis Coello is a bicycle-touring veteran and a long-time writer and photographer for Adventure Cyclist. His photography has appeared in Outside, Backpacker, Outdoor Photographer, and the catalogs of Patagonia and numerous other outdoor companies. He has also worked with many other cycling companies, including Austin-Lehman Adventures, Backroads, Bike Vermont, Butterfield & Robinson, and VBT. For more informa-tion about Dennis, visit www.denniscoello.com.

Groping greenery. A misty morning envelops cyclists riding through the Skyline Drive’s lush hardwood forests.

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