Hiking the Highlands
Hints of Autumn on Falls Branch Trail
Written by Lesley Eaton In the left hand corner of a small parking lot off the side of a curvy mountain highway sits a trailhead, an entrance into another world of sorts. A few feet after stepping off the pavement and onto the trail, I close my eyes to thoroughly take in my new surroundings.…
Read MoreGET Going–Trekking the Great Eastern Trail
Story by Derek Speranza It is only fitting that poet Robert Frost took “the road less traveled by” in his poetry collection entitled Mountain Interval – and now long distance hikers everywhere have a new opportunity to do exactly that. The Great Eastern Trail is to be a 2,000-mile alternative to the well-worn Appalachian Trail,…
Read MoreHiking the Highlands
A collaborative piece by Maureen Halsema, Kristina Tarsan of Southern Appalachia Highlands Conservancy, and Joseph Gatins of Georgia Forest Watch Neither Cold nor Snow nor Sleet (nor Ice and Driving Winds!) Can Keep These Hikers Down The crunch beneath your boots, a calming sense of solitude, a familiar landscape transformed. The world of winter hiking is…
Read MoreAppalachian Trail: “A Great Trail from Maine to Georgia!”
Story by Stephen Otis If you were to somehow locate a New York Evening Post, circa 1922, you would read this same headline. Penned by Raymond H. Torrey at the behest of William Welch, director of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, the article dared to imagine, as Benton MacKaye had one year prior, a grand…
Read MoreOn Pilot Mountain
Story by Joe Tennis Ask any fan of “The Andy Griffith Show” what mountain they remember hearing about most, and they’ll say Mount Pilot. Why, Andy Taylor and Barney Fife talked about going to Mount Pilot practically all the time. But where is it? Well, if we assume that Andy Griffith’s hometown of Mount Airy,…
Read MoreRail-trail leads along Piney River near Virginia’s Blue Ridge
Story by Joe Tennis Easing along the Piney River, the Virginia Blue Ridge Railway Trail chugs along a historical path, crisscrossing the Amherst-Nelson county line. This easy to moderate rail trail, at five miles in length, was once the path of the Virginia Blue Ridge Railway. Trains stopped rolling in 1981, and that’s when Popie…
Read MoreComers Rock and Hale Lake
Story by Joe Tennis Ah, the view: That’s what makes Comers Rock such a jewel. But shhh! Don’t tell everybody: Let this jewel of southwest Virginia remain hidden. Comers Rock sits on the Grayson-Wythe county line at an ear-popping 4,102-foot elevation. It’s a place listed on all Virginia state maps. But the trouble, for the…
Read MoreWalk to a Waterfall in Southwest Virginia
By Joe Tennis Come spring, long before trees see leaves sprout again, the waters flow on Phillips Creek. Blasting, gushing, pouring down a stone embankment like a shower, the waterfall of the Phillips Creek Recreation Area feeds the rocky Phillips Creek as it courses its way beyond the remnants of a moonshine still, the memories…
Read MoreWar Spur Trail at Mountain Lake Wilderness
Story by Joe Tennis Call this a place of highlands and headwaters—an old growth forest where solitude and breathtaking vistas are unmatched—a getaway in southwest Virginia’s Jefferson National Forest. Here, in the Mountain Lake Wilderness Area of Giles County, Va., lies the Eastern Continental Divide. Streams in this region flow into either the New River,…
Read MoreHiking the Highlands: Hanging Out in Hanging Rock State Park
/images/AppalachianVoices/AV_08dec/hangingrock.jpg Among the picturesque plains of the North Carolina Piedmont, the Sauratown Mountains rise north of Winston-Salem. Capped by cliffs, these peaks on the east side of the Blue Ridge are known locally as the “mountains away from the mountains,” and take their name from the Saura Indians, who lived in this area as early…
Read More