Capital idea: Make short trek to Sky Meadows State Park

The people who created the Snowden Trail in Northern Virginia's Sky Meadows State Park knew their target audience: urban and suburbanites looking for a little breathing space.

Snowden Trail is an interpretive trail, with signs along the one-mile forested loop explaining what visitors are seeing and what they should look for throughout the park. The sign writers get their messages across by appealing to what their audience knows - city life.

This is "Nature's Neighborhood," the sign says. The stream valley in that part of the park is likened to "Main Street." Deer have a "Front Porch View" from a wooded hillside. A dead tree is part of an "Urban Renewal Project."

Sky Meadows is 60 miles west of our nation's capital and much closer to its sprawling suburbs. The park offers a respite, in ways often surprising and sometimes stunning, from the encroaching roar of humanity.

First impressions can be deceiving at many state parks in Virginia's system. What makes a park unique is not always apparent right away. That's not the case at the aptly named Sky Meadows. My wife and I and our two dogs recently joined a D.C.-area friend and her dog for a day of hiking and exploring at Sky Meadows. Not 100 yards after entering, the road climbed a small hill, and we were greeted with expansive views of rolling fields and foothills.

The 1,862-acre park cascades down into the Crooked Run valley from the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The northernmost park in the state system, Sky Meadows is not far from the northern terminus of Shenandoah National Park. And as in Shenandoah NP, the Appalachian Trail runs through Sky Meadows. It's the only state park that can make that boast.

After leashing up our dogs and getting our bearings, we decided to head up the mountain toward the AT. We stopped off at the Snowden Trail. The hike through mature hardwoods isn't difficult, and it's a great way to get introduced to the flora and fauna in the park. As if to welcome us to the neighborhood - "Nature's Neighborhood" - a whitetail deer flitted across the path behind us and out of sight.

With plenty of water to offset the thick humidity, we headed up Gap Run Trail toward the AT. Gap Run starts in fields of wildflowers, but quickly enters the forest. Here, the park constructed 12 primitive camping sites. There are pit toilets and fire rings but no potable water. You've got to hike in and out anything you want with you. Camping at Sky Meadows isn't much different than when George Washington owned a piece of what is now the park in the late 1700s.

Gap Run Trail grew steeper and soon merged with North Ridge Trail. We crossed numerous creek beds left bone dry by the summer drought conditions. The dogs took this especially hard, and we ended up giving them most of our water. Less than half a mile from the AT, we found a serendipitously placed bench along the trail and stopped to rest.

The water nearly was gone. We had a decision to make: Press on up the steep slope to say we made it to the world's most famous footpath or hightail it back to the visitor center where blissfully cold well water awaited.

We didn't deliberate long. The South Ridge Trail took us the 2.1 miles back to watery salvation. The dogs would have sprinted it if we had let them. Luckily, we didn't, because this trail shouldn't be missed. It started in forest, but quickly gave way to open fields and views of the valleys and mountains in the distance. Despite our parched state, we stopped frequently to take it in - sky and meadows reaching out to touch each other in all directions.

We made it down, eventually, slaked our thirst and headed to Washington for dinner with friends. It wasn't until this point - as rural routes quickly turned to interstate and farms to subdivisions - that I realized the true escapist value of a place such as Sky Meadows State Park. There are just 60 miles between the park and Washington, but at least for now, they are still worlds apart.