After months of planning our road trip to all 51 National Parks in an electric car, we launched our adventure from our home in Alexandria on the morning of April 8th.
We packed our Tesla Model Y, Elliot, with six months of equipment for our electric road trip to all 51 National Parks in the Lower 48 States.
We packed our Tesla Model Y, Elliot, with six months of clothes and supplies, hiking and camping gear, and snorkeling equipment, leaving some room to transport our sons when each one joins us at a park later in the year.
Shenandoah, established in 1935, with about 1.4 million annual visitors, features Skyline Drive.
Our first stop was Virginia’s own park, Shenandoah. Established in 1935, with about 1.4 million visitors each year, the park features the 105-mile Skyline Drive along the Blue Ridge Mountains, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.
As our “home” park, one we have visited many times, Shenandoah needed only a brief visit for this trip to get in a hike and a stamp in our National Parks Passport booklet.
Our hike to Little Stony Man Mountain featured some sun, some graupel, and great views of the Shenandoah Valley below.
Arriving in the mid-afternoon, we had just the right amount of time for a 4-mile hike up Little Stony Man Mountain. Our hike featured the full range of mountain weather, from sun to clouds to graupel, and some great views of the Shenandoah Valley below.
Lodging
We spent our one night in Shenandoah at the Skyland Lodge at milepost 42 on Skyline Drive. This is the place to stay in the north end of the park, with beautiful views of the valley below. Our visit was on opening day of the lodge, a date that determined the start of our entire trip schedule.
Skyland Lodge features rustic but pleasant cabins with great views, a convenient location, and electric vehicle chargers.
Skyland rooms are in cabins that look rustic on the outside but are quite pleasant on the inside, though the bathrooms could use renovation. Our cabin was about a five-minute walk from the main lodge. After a hearty dinner in the restaurant, we awoke the next morning to a pleasant surprise: a beautiful dusting of snow.
Charging
A major plus for Skyland as a place to stay is its Tesla Destination Charger in the parking lot at the main lodge. It also has a second standard (J1772) Level 2 charger for other electric cars, which our Tesla could have used with its adaptor plug if the Destination Charger had been used by another Tesla vehicle. Like most Destination Chargers, Skyland provides a charge at no cost.
We plugged into the Destination Charger after unloading overnight luggage at our cabin, and Elliot greeted us in the morning with a full “tank,” ready to start the next leg of our trip.
Hiking Trails and Other Activities in the Park
Little Stony Man Loop 4.0 miles
Total Hiking Miles 4.0 miles
Impressions
Although Shenandoah’s highlights usually come during the fall foliage season, we enjoyed a beautiful dusting of snow on the trees during our 23-mile drive south on Skyline Drive to our I-81 exit. As an added bonus, the drive down from the mountain ridge allowed Elliot to regain some range through the use of regenerative braking, which recaptures energy to the battery, rather than wasting it as heat. As an additional advantage of electric vehicles, regenerative braking also minimizes the use of brakes, extending their life and reducing the need for replacement.
Following our descent from Skyline Drive, we headed southwest via I-81 and I-64 for our journey to the next National Park, New River Gorge in West Virginia.