Shenandoah Valley Floor

Author's Comments

The river does something here that rivers rarely do. It bends back on itself seven times in the space you can hold in a single frame, and from the top of Massanutten the whole impossible geometry of it is laid out below you like a lesson in how water moves through time. The Shenandoah does not hurry. It has been making these loops for longer than the mountains have had their current names. The hike is two miles and honest. The tower at the top is old iron and the views from it are unobstructed in a way that overlooks on Skyline Drive rarely are. I came up here one October morning before sunrise and stood in the dark listening to the valley wake up below me. When the light finally arrived it came low and lateral across the bends, and the mist was still in the hollows between them. Seven distinct curves of silver catching the early sun. It is one of the few landscapes in this region where I have felt the land doing something genuinely unusual. Spring is quieter than fall but has its own argument. The new green comes into the valley unevenly, the bends dark with water and the fields between them just beginning to show color. Arrive at first light either way. The mist burns off quickly once the sun clears the ridge, and the window between mist and full light is short and worth every minute of the climb.

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