Date: 2013-05-16
From: Pearisburg

To: Damascus (Trail Days)
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Hired vehicle (2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee!) and drove back to Damascus for Trail Days with IM and AA. Dropped Mother T at Erwin to catch a ride with relative and be a surprise guest at her sons party Friday night."Blog" entry....The TrailThe AT is proving to be much harder than I had anticipated, despite the fact I knew it would be much harder than the Bibbulmun.One distinct difference worthy of note is just how much of the trail is foot trail, i.e. 12 to 18 inch wide trail clearly only used for foot travel. Many parts of the Bibbulmun travel on old forest roads and logging rail formations. This is quite rare on the AT.The trail generally is one of two types, following ridgelines or winding on the sides of hills. The winding type can be very pleasant with gentle grades and is generally speaking, the easiest trail to walk. It is mostly smooth with little evidence of the thousands of feet that walk it. To gain altitude on higher climbs this sort of trail often ¢switchbacks¢ to zigzag up hills. Switchbacks can be gentle or quite steep, depending on the size of the climb or descent.Ridgelines are usually quite different. The amount of rise and fall and the gradients are determined by the ridgeline, not the trail creators. Because ridgelines are less likely to be re-routed they also can show significant wear from the volume of foot travel (e.g. the Smokys) and can involve trail that is almost trenchlike for small sections. Despite this some of the ridgelines are amazingly scenic and even exciting. Walking on a mountain with literally steep drops on both sides within a few feet or even inches, gives incredible views and rewards for the effort you have made to get to them. The section after crossing Watauga Dam was one of the most scenic I have ever walked anywhere. Both types are at their worst when rocks are a dominant feature. The Appalachians seem to be made of a granite type rock but unlike the granite at home the rock has a sedimentary nature to it. For the most part the rock seems to be layered with the layers between a couple of inches to a foot thick. This makes the smaller rocks as they break up generally quite flattish on at least one surface. I have found that my youth growing up on Mt Clarence in Albany more useful ¢preparation¢ for the hike than my 600 mile hike of the Bibbulmun as I have a good eye for walking on these rocks and this is the terrain where I walk much faster than most, and where Army Ant comments that I walk much faster than him. The rock also means that the soil layer is very shallow and the trees have a very shallow root system. This contributes to a high number of blowdowns as many trees are very large (they are not karris but they grow quite tall) and in stormy weather the lack of a tap root system leaves them vulnerable to being blown over.It is very much a trail of constant up and downs. When we reached Damascus Invisible Man did some additions on daily rise and fall figures and we had in the first 460 odd miles climbed about three Mt Everests from sea level to summit. However, vegetation and wildlife are a disappointment.While we have gone from winter to spring and this has involved the change from a ¢dead¢ environment to green spring growth, there is a sameness to the vegetation that becomes quite boring. The forest is made up of essentially the same trees and plants all the way so far and the view you have when there is no gap is of being in the same forest we have been in since Georgia.So far Virginia is proving to be "easier" (NOT easy) and as the mountains seem to be in fewer ridges (i.e. the mountain range is essentially narrower), the views over farmland are more frequent. The section through Atkins was essentially a walk down off a line of mountains that was ending, across some farmland, and up into another ridge of mountains. This ridge appears to continue until after the Shenandoah National Park and promises some of the straighter trail so far.On this note, anyone looking at the length of trail we have done so far may doubt we have done over a 1/4 of the trail but the section we have done so far includes some of the most meandering that the trail does. At points we were walking south, despite being northbounders.