Over 100 miles from Front Royal to Waynesboro, the Appalachian Trail passes through the entirety of the Shenandoah National Park closely following Skyline Drive.  We spent 9 days hiking through the park and water was extremely scarce along the AT.  After 9 days, we crossed Skyline Drive 28 times, we stayed at 1 campground, 5 shelters with water and 2 without, and had one scary bear encounter.  The Shenandoah National Park is a beautiful but narrow park.  There are many highlights in the park, such as Old Rag and White Oak Canyon, neither of which are along the AT.  In fact, the AT follows the ridge and Skyline drive a little too closely. 

Given that this was an unusually dry summer, we had limited access to water.  We were forced to tank up at the picnic areas and waysides located along Skyline Drive.  We started each day with an excess of 3 liters of water at least.  The fall colors were just beginning to come out through the hills.  We were about 2-3 weeks before peek viewing.  Sadly, since it had been extremely dry, the leaves were tending to curl up and drop rather than change colors.  We found ourselves shuffling through piles of dead leaves sometimes.

We were about 7 days into the park when we passed a really nice flowing spring.  The perfect place to stop for a snack.  While sitting and eating, we could hear something moving behind us, thinking it was a deer, I turned around to find a bear standing just a couple of yards away.  Ok, time to stuff the rest of my food in my face, we both jumped up, grabbed gear and backed down the trail trying to snap pictures.  The bear had not a care in the world, and totally ignored us in spite of us clacking our poles and yelling at it to move on.  We waited at least 10 minutes before it finally was away from the trail then hustled out of the area. The animals in the park are extremely habituated to people and it can be very unnerving sometimes.