Shenandoah National Park: Compton Peak

I rose early on my final morning in Shenandoah National Park, planning to get in a hike to Compton Peak before making the four-hour drive to Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

The morning was quite foggy, which made for a lovely atmospheric scene in the trees.

Early morning is when the wildlife was active, including a pair of Wild Turkeys ...

... and a White-Tailed Deer doe.

... the view from the summit of Compton Peak was slightly underwhelming.  Nature is like that sometimes!

I actually found the view from the summit back down the trail more striking.

There's another trail heading away from the summit that leads to "columnar jointing of basalt and greenstone, the result of molten lava squeezing through cracks in the earth and drying in astonishing geometric patterns" as described by OutdoorProject.com.

The formations are very similar to the hexagons at Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, which I'd been fortunate enough to see in person six years ago.

I believe that the universe tends to move towards chaos.  So when I see something in nature as orderly as these rocks or a Nautilus shell, I'm always amazed.

The hike covered just under three miles and took me almost exactly 90 minutes.  And with my early start, I was on the road to Ohio by 8 a.m. after a wonderful inaugural visit to Shenandoah National Park!