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Happy
Trails to You:
Virginia’s
Unbeaten Paths
It
bills itself “Trail City U.S.A.,” and each May
thousands of trekkers descend on tiny Damascus, Va.,
during its annual “Trail Days” festival (Damascus
VA). The Washington County town is the first bit
of civilization north-bound Appalachian Trail hikers
encounter after they cross the border into the Old
Dominion. The week-long celebration culminates with
the “Hiker’s Parade” down the main stretch
after days of continuous bluegrass, gospel or
country music and good eating.
More
than a quarter of the 2,174-mile-long Appalachian
Trail follows the ridges and valleys of the
Commonwealth. The A.T., as it is known to its
enthusiasts, is considered the brainchild of an
early 20th-century forester named Benton MacKaye,
who published an article in 1921, "An
Appalachian Trail: A Project in Regional Planning,"
in the Journal of the American Institute of
Architects.
A
visionary, MacKaye saw the A.T. as a way “to
reduce the day’s drudgery. The toil and chore of
life should, as labor saving devices increase, form
a diminishing proportion of the average day and
year. Leisure and the higher pursuits will thereby
come to form an increasing portion of our lives.”
It took another 16 years, but the A.T. opened as a
continuous trail through 14 states from Maine to
Florida in 1937.
In
Virginia, the 544 miles of the trail wind north from
Damascus over Mt. Rogers, our highest peak at 5,729
feet, pass near Blacksburg, up through Rockfish Gap,
into Shenandoah National Park, through Snicker’s
Gap near Berryville and cross into West Virginia
briefly at Harper’s Ferry before continuing on
through Maryland. Nine different organizations
maintain the trail as it meanders through the state,
from the Mt. Rogers Appalachian Trail Club in the
south to the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club up
north.
It
probably depends on one’s point of view whether
hiking the A.T. is a “leisure activity” as
MacKaye hoped. The number of diehards or “thru
hikers” in A.T. vernacular, has increased
exponentially in recent years. Between 1936 and
1969, only 69 hikers had completed a thru trip,
hiking the entire 2,000-plus miles in one season. In
the 1970s that number jumped to 743 and in the past
six years, 3,502 hardy souls have completed the trek
(Appalachian
Trail Conservancy).
Those
who attempt the endeavor usually allow six months.
The Virginia portion of the A.T. can take six weeks
or more. In 2003, thru-hiker Whitney Kemper, a
Tennessee resident who posted his A.T. journal to
the Nashville City Paper reached Damascus on April
28, Waynesboro by May 19 and was in Pennsylvania by
June 2, a fairly rapid journey (Nashville
City Paper -- Whitney Kemper A.T. Journal).
Overall, Kemper reported he hiked about 1,153 hours
on his entire trip, an average of 8.94 hours a day
and 1.88 miles per hour.
The
A.T. hikers are a breed apart and probably only a
small percentage of those who enjoy the Old
Dominion’s trails. Even Damascus boasts its
proximity to not only the Appalachian Trail, but the
Virginia Creeper Trail, a 35-mile hiking, mountain
biking and horseback riding trail that follows an
old railroad bed. Its name supposedly derives either
from the speed of the trains as they negotiated the
mountain curves or the foliage that bordered the
track. A portion of the trail is maintained by the
U.S. Forest Service as a National Recreation Trail.
In
addition to such federally maintained trails,
including 500 miles of trails in Shenandoah National
Park and 900 in George Washington National Forest,
the commonwealth offers 450 miles of trails in its
70 parks, natural areas and historic sites. Almost
seven million people visited our state parks in 2005, many
taking to the trails. By comparison, it’s
estimated only three to four million people hiked portions
of the Appalachian Trail along its entire East Coast
route last year.
Virginia
introduced its state park system about the same time
that the Appalachian Trail came into being in the
mid-1930s. The commonwealth opened six parks on the
same day – June 15, 1936 – the only state in the
U.S. to open an entire system at one time. The six
parks still exist today: Douthat, which straddles
Bath and Alleghany Counties; First Landing near
Virginia Beach; Fairy Stone in Patrick County;
Staunton River near South Boston; Hungry Mother in
Smyth County; and Westmoreland in its namesake
county.
There
are a little over 80 miles of trails in these six
original parks, many built by Roosevelt’s
Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps. The
remaining trail miles developed over the next 70
years. The state’s newest parks, James River in
Buckingham County; Andy B. Guest Shenandoah River in
Warren County, Wilderness Road in Lee County and
Belle Isle in Lancaster County were all purchased
with funds from the 1992 natural area bonds
referendum. They added a bit more than 30 miles of
trails to the state system.
Who
hikes Virginia’s rustic byways? All ages. All
sizes and shapes. Some, such as the A.T. regulars
test themselves. Others are more leisurely birders
or wild flower enthusiasts. Some pedal mountain
bikes; others go on horseback. Some even negotiate
the trails in wheelchairs.
Perhaps
one of the more unusual trekkers was the shoeless
hiker that writer Maryalice Yakutchik ran into on a
rocky ledge in the Shenandoah Mountains more than a
decade ago. She finally asked him why he hiked
barefoot and here’s how she described his answer:
“freedom summed it up best: freedom from
dependence on equipment, freedom from competition
with oneself or with others. His goal wasn’t to
bag Old Rag, wasn’t to check it off some list,
wasn’t to brag ‘Been there, done that.’
Conquering the mountain had little allure. He was
out to find the new in the ordinary. That, he said,
is the essence of creativity.” It seems that
philosophers also travel our trails.
NEXT:
After Monticello: Modern Architecture in Virginia
--
April 3, 2006
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