Shenandoah National Park
A Virginia national park depicting a hiker who has reached the summit of the Stony Man trail.
Shenandoah National Park is a national park that stretches long along the Blue Ridge Mountains in the state of Virginia. With its gentle ridges and valleys, waterfalls, and forests all connected, it is a place that people from big cities such as Washington, D.C. love to visit in search of nature.
The reverse of the coin depicts a hiker who has reached the summit of the Stony Man Trail. In a scene of a person standing at the top of the trail gazing at the landscape spread out before them, it captures both the sense of achievement of one who climbs the mountain and the wide-open view.
Stony Man is one of the highest peaks in Shenandoah, and from its summit ridges and valleys unfold in layer upon layer. This design, which puts forward the person gazing at it rather than the scenery itself, emphasizes the joy of encountering nature by walking and climbing it directly.
This park was approved for establishment on May 22, 1926. Because it is a park made so that the many people of the East could easily come and enjoy nature, it is still loved today as a hiking spot for families.
This coin in the America the Beautiful series carries in the hand the joy of nature met not by gazing from afar but by climbing directly on one’s own two feet.