For much of the year, Shenandoah National Park is a gorgeously overgrown place. The underbrush sneaks over the trails, threatening to erase them. Off-trail, the views are densely wooded in every direction, tangled in Virginia creeper and prickly greenbrier.
This is why you come in December, to search for things that are obscured when the park’s hollows and hillsides are green. Winter is bushwhacking season. This is when you might wander off-trail in the backcountry, discover concealed relics and still find your way back.
Most of Shenandoah is so wild and overgrown that it is easy to imagine that it was always that way. The park, about two hours west of the nation’s capitol, draws 1.2 million visitors a year for scenic overlooks off Skyline Drive or day trips on the Appalachian Trail through scenes that seem as untouched by man as any place in the Mid-Atlantic. Running along a ridgeline, the park seems far removed from development in the valley below.
All around are large rock piles, stacked decades ago by farmers picking over their fields. Stone walls suddenly visible from the trails mark boundary lines and fences that are no longer needed. The trails were roads connecting families here long before they became hiking paths for nature-lovers from the city.
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I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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