The King headed to the heart of the Shenandoah National Park to mark his last stop in Virginia and wrap up his state visit to the US.
His Majesty heard about the importance of the National Park system and the work of Rangers and visitors to protect their natural environments and wildlife for future generations.
Charles was made an honorary Junior Ranger and given a “passport” and stamps.
The park, one of America’s 63 national parks, was formally established in 1935 and today spans 200,000 acres across Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains and the larger Appalachian Highlands.
Charles also met members of the area’s indigenous communities, the Monacan Indian Nation, whose ancestral lands covered much of Western Virginia.
The monarch heard about their history and their environmental conservation and climate work.
With approximately 2,000 registered members, the Monacan Indian Nation is one of the only a few tribes in America that occupies land in their ancestral homeland.
Charles then joined a ‘swearing in ceremony’ for a group of Junior Rangers and stamp a Park Passport, which every visitor to America’s National Parks receives, with a stamp specially commissioned for the occasion.
The Blue Ridge Mountains, which the site overlooks, are among the oldest in the world and the Appalachian range to which they belong was once connected to the Cairngorms in the Scottish Highlands.
To mark the King and Queen’s state visit, the Cairngorms and the Shenandoah National Park were twinned in a new partnership, and Charles unveiled two commemorative stones, one from Balmoral and another from the Appalachian Mountains, to symbolise it.