Secret Vistas – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, Va. — The American west is on fire again with wildfires burning in 11 states. Temperatures are setting records with highs in the 120 degree range. A heat dome hovers over the region, and the devastating drought continues unabated.

New Orleans and the states along the Gulf of Mexico just dodged major damage from the first tropical storm of the summer hurricane season, Claudette, which has now moved out to sea in the Atlantic.

Meanwhile in the mountains of Virginia, campers are enjoying a dreamy long spring in May and June in the campgrounds of Shenandoah National Park, although we hit the longest day of the year on Sunday with the Summer Solstice, so summer is now here.

It’s also been nice at times in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland, although the state parks are experiencing a record number of campers, making it hard to find an open campsite to reserve.

To find out more about the numbers and trends, I talked to Tim Hamilton, the Business and Marketing Manager for the Maryland Park Service under the state Department of Natural Resources.

He said the parks were already on the upswing in 2019 with about 14 million visitors a year, up from an average of about 7 million in previous years. But in the COVID year of 2020, the visitation and camping skyrocketed to about 21 million visitors.

“We didn’t just set a record,” he said in a telephone interview. “We shattered it.”

“People found the parks,” he said, both national and state parks. “We’re being loved to death.”

It was something people could do to get out of the house during the COVID-19 pandemic stay at home orders and social distancing lockdowns, and the Academy Award-winning movie “Nomadland” sparked the imaginations of people across the country.

“We’re glad people have discovered us,” he said, although many of the new campers are not as familiar with the rules of the road and that has sometimes caused problems for staff and the more regular, experienced campers.

He said many state and national park officials thought the 2020 numbers would be an anomaly with an asterisk.

But when I asked if he thought there might be a post-COVID lull once people are able to do other things now that the health numbers are getting better with the number of cases dropping and close to 70 percent of Americans getting vaccinated, and once it gets hot after the Fourth of July Independence Day Holiday, he said no way.

“I just don’t see it slowing up,” he said.

Normally things slow down after Labor Day, he said, but that was not the case last year.

“We kept busy right up through November,” he said, until many campgrounds closed down for the winter months.

So far, year-to-date, he said, the numbers are actually slightly ahead of last year’s visitation numbers.

“Had Memorial Day Weekend not been a complete bust, weather-wise, we would actually be around a million visitors OVER last year’s numbers at this point,” he said in an email followup interview. “So it looks like we are mirroring the national trend when it comes to public parks of all sizes with dramatically increased visitation numbers that appears to be the new normal. We have been discovered by people who did not know that we existed and, now that they know that we are here, they are taking advantage of our facilities, while exploring other parks around the state.”

Maryland’s winters are relatively short and mild, he said, so Maryland has a long camping season.

“Usually, that season peaks between Memorial and Labor Days, but last year, the crowds kept coming clear through November and even into December,” he said. “The number of day-use areas that had to be closed in 2020 after capacity was reached was double that of 2019 and, again, 2021 is pacing last year with the number of closures.”

With Greenbelt National Park near D.C. still closed down for a major road and bridge repair and paving project, we’ve had to resort to camping in Shenandoah more than we planned. While it’s an amazingly beautiful place, there are no electric power hookups for campers and cell phone service and internet access are spotty at best. When Greenbelt reopens, it could relieve some of the pressure on other parks in the D.C. Metro area.

The federal parks keep some first come, first serve sights available, and the rates can’t be beat for seniors with a Lifetime America the Beautiful Pass.

In a recent stay in Cunningham Falls State Park, I managed to get a video of a timber rattlesnake in the campground being tracked by a couple of wood thrushes.

Timber rattler vs. wood thrush

I reported the sighting to the campground host, who called the duty ranger, and a wildlife ranger came in about 15 minutes and captured the snake to relocate in the park away from the campground.

Ranger captures rattle snake for relocation

On recent trips to Shenandoah, I’ve spent time trying to photograph the migrating birds, including gold finches, cat birds, and a scarlet tanager (see below).

More Photos

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