High Falutin'

A stretch of Blue Ridge you've never heard of offers blue-ribbon views with no waiting.

The feds got it wrong.

As we stood atop Mount Pleasant, entranced by the incomparable view, we began to realize that when they selected the site for Shenandoah National Park, they missed by about 30 miles. This wilderness, a half-hour south of the weekend crowds, is the kind of Appalachian ideal they had in mind.

A boulder-topped mountain with a panoramic view is such a rarity in the Blue Ridge that a spot like Shenandoah's Old Rag draws standing-room-only crowds. Yet we were alone on this unheralded 4,000-foot peak. The wild and rugged scene made me feel as if I were John Lederer, the first European to cross the Blue Ridge and gaze in amazement upon pristine Appalachia.

Sometimes you just don't know what's in your own back yard. That sort of ignorance had cost us lots of hours and dollars -- driving hundreds of miles north to the Adirondacks or south to Virginia's far western corner for hikes in high and wild mountains -- until a merciful soul told us about these remote and rugged wilderness peaks with take-your-breath-away views, the Glenwood-Pedlar District of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest. To hikers, it's just the Pedlar.

Mount Pleasant was the second 4,000-footer we'd bagged that day. The 6.7-mile circuit hike also crosses Pompey Mountain, which has a rocky outcrop just off the trail with its own dramatic views. Both of these peaks are in the Mount Pleasant National Scenic Area, protected from the logger's ax just because it's so pretty to look at. This scenic area, and the Pedlar District that surrounds it, is more spectacular than anything Shenandoah has to offer.

The evidence? Consider two mountain-assessment criteria:

First, height: In Shenandoah Park's 100-mile length, there are two peaks higher than 4,000 feet. The Pedlar District boasts eight. That's not only more than Shenandoah, it's three more than Vermont.

Second, views: This area of the Blue Ridge offers pure wilderness vistas from open summits unmarred by civilization's blotches. So many of Shenandoah's viewpoints feature the Piedmont's farms and fields or the Shenandoah Valley's growing number of houses, smokestacks and turkey motels. Yet here we looked out on waves upon waves of mountains -- from forest green to shades of blue dissolving to distant purple. Such wilderness loftiness equals chicken soup for the urban soul.

After our descent from Mount Pleasant to our parking spot at the Hog Camp Gap trailhead, we debated our next move. Had we exerted enough energy to merit stopping for the "Best Pizza in the Northeast" or should we take in one last vista? Virtue triumphed over gluttony -- at least temporarily -- and we opted to climb Cole Mountain, an easy two-mile nightcap to the day's hiking.

The Appalachian Trail crosses Cole and we picked it up at a trailhead just down the road from the Pompey-Pleasant loop. After a short hike up through the woods we broke out into a high open meadow, reminiscent of the Great Smoky Mountain "balds." No rocky summit here, just a gentle ridge with grasses and flowers on another 4,000-foot summit with another big-sky, out-in-the-open vista. We were loath to leave the colors warming under a pinkening sunset sky. But hunger now mixed with salivating imagination and we hurried down.

Route 151 runs parallel to the Blue Ridge south of I-64, and it's a lovely little "blue highway" nestled in the Rockfish Valley in the shadow of the mountains. It's a good choice for its intimate views of foothills life, but we'd heard of another reason to head this way. In a little shopping center in the crossroads of Nellysford, there's Jim and Stu's Bistro 151, proud winners of Pizza Today magazine's "Best Pizza in the Northeast" title two years running.

This spot draws not only the upscale crowd from nearby Wintergreen resort but tattooed local bikers and rumpled, sweaty hikers like us as well. We went for the most exotic combinations on their imaginative brick-oven pizza menu: I chose He Crab -- -a crab spread plus smoked Gouda, mandarin oranges, dill Dijon sauce, fresh spinach and walnuts. My husband settled on Lucky Duck, with Cajun duck medallions, lingonberry sauce, caramelized red onion and scallions.