NOTE: Dates given for accommodations areas vary with weather conditions from season to season.

Mile Point of Interest Elevation, Feet
0.0 Junction with US. 340 595
0.6 North Entrance Station 705
2.8 Shenandoah Valley Overlook. First important view of the valley 900 ft. below. Directly opposite is Signal Knob. Civil War communications post, on Massanutten Mountain 1,390
4.6 Dickey Ridge Visitor Center. Exhibits and programs to explain park. Information, bookstore, maps. Restrooms. Picnic grounds nearby. Telephone. Open daily Apr. through Oct.
17.1 Range View Overlook. Piedmont Plateau; Blue Ridge peaks 2,810
20.1 Hogback Overlook. Eleven bends in Shenandoah River visible on clear day 3,385
24.1 Elkwallow. Picnic grounds. Lunch, souvenirs, gasoline. May through Oct. 2,445
31.5 Panorama (Thornton Gap Entrance Station). Intersection with U.S. 211. Dining room, lunch counter, gift shop, service station. Open all year. Trail to Marys Rock. Park headquarters 4 miles west on U.S. 211; 8 miles to Luray 2,300
32.4 Marys Rock Tunnel cut through 700 feet of rock (13-foot clearance) 2,545
36.7 Pinnacles. Picnic grounds 3,550
37.4 Pinnacles Ranger Station 3,215

SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK
VIRGINIA

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Mile Point of Interest Elevation, Feet
37.4 Pinnacles Ranger Station 3,215
39.2 Little Stony Man Parking Area. 1½-mile-round-trip trail to sweeping view of Shenandoah Valley 3,210
41.8 Entrance to Skyland. Lodge rooms, cottages, dining room, coffeeshop, gift shop, riding horses. Accommodations for 350. May through Oct. Stony Man Nature Trail Parking Area 3,680
42.6 Whiteoak Canyon Parking Area. 5-mile-round-trip trail to falls 3,510
44.5 Crescent Rock Overlook. Best view of Hawksbill Mountain, highest in park 3,550
46.6 Upper Hawksbill Gap Parking Area. 2-mile-round-trip trail to summit of Hawksbill 3,400
50.5 Dark Hollow Falls Parking Area. 1½-mile-round-trip trail to falls 3,070
51.3 Big Meadows Wayside. Coffeeshop, gift shop, service station, campers’ store. Apr. through Oct. 3,500
Entrance to Big Meadows. Lodge, dining room, hotel rooms, and cottages. Gift shop, riding horses. Accommodations for 250. Apr. through Oct. Camp and trailer sites, picnic grounds. Showers and automatic laundry. Big Meadows Nature Trail. Ranger station.
57.6 Lewis Mountain. Coffeeshop, cabin accommodations for 24, Apr. through Oct. Camp and trailer sites, picnic grounds 3,390
62.9 South River. Picnic grounds; 2½-mile-round-trip trail to falls 2,940
65.7 Swift Run Gap. Intersection with U.S. 33. Dining room, gift shop, service station. Apr. to mid-Nov. 2,365
73.2 Simmons Gap Ranger Station 2,245
78.2 Rockytop Overlook. Big Run watershed, wild canyon scenery, trails 2,860
90.1 Calvary Rocks Parking Area. 2-mile-round-trip trail 2,730
104.6 South Entrance Station 2,070
105.4 Rockfish Gap; intersection with US. 250; 5 miles to Humpback Rocks Visitor Center—Blue Ridge Parkway 1,910

The mountains of the Blue Ridge are rounded by ages of erosion.

GEOLOGY

Geologists tell us how the rounded, forest-covered mountains of the Blue Ridge record more than a billion years of the earth’s history. The two types of granitic basement rocks are the oldest. These rocks were formed many thousands of feet beneath the surface of the earth, as large masses of magma (molten rock) cooled and crystallized very slowly. One type of granitic rock (hypersthene granodiorite) is exposed at Marys Rock Tunnel, and along the crest and on the western flank of the Blue Ridge. The other type is a much coarser grained granite. It is named Old Rag granite for exposures found on that mountain and in the area east of the crest of the Blue Ridge. Both of these granitic rocks were changed by heat and pressure (metamorphism), which accounts for their layered or laminated (gneissic) textures at many locations.