In Search of a Tunnel

March 21, 2009. Carvins Cove Boat Launch Lot to Tinker Creek tunnel and beyond on the fire road on the northern side of the reservoir, and back. 8 miles.

This walk was occasioned by the previous week's, when we crossed Tinker Creek on the Appalachian Trail just south of U. S. 220 at Daleville. The creek, fed by the weekend rains, was fuller than we'd ever seen it, rushing its way south toward Roanoke and into the Roanoke River.

The next day in the Roanoke paper was a piece on the status of area reservoirs, in which an official from the Western Virginia Water Authority talked about Tinker Creek continuing to help replenish Carvins Cove. I was puzzled enough to get out the topo map and verify that Tinker Creek flows along one side of formidable Tinker Mountain, and Carvins Cove is on the other, with no visible connection whatsoever to Tinker Creek.

The explanation, with specifics courtesy of Sarah Baumgardner at the water authority: a 6,528-foot, six-foot-diameter tunnel through the mountain.

So our goal for this hiking day became a walk to see where "Tinker Creek" spills into Carvins Cove.

The Brogan tunnel was completed in 1966 and is operational as a reservoir-filler only when Tinker Creek has reached a specified level of flow; thus the continued strong rush of water – far downstream from the tunnel – that we saw where the creek passes under the AT, even as water was being diverted into Carvins Cove as well.

The walk to the mouth of the tunnel is along the fire road. We've done this stretch several times on bicycles – on the way to the Sawmill Branch Trail up to the AT – and agreed it is much more pleasant on foot; its climbs are clearly minor when you walk – think of a climb up Tinker Mountain on the AT or on the Andy Lane, for example, versus little hills along Carvins Cove. (We threatened, on our last ride of the road, to chuck the bikes into the reservoir upon finishing.)

With new-hiker Cookie the five-and-half-month-old puppy in tow, we made good time on the approximately 1.7-mile walk to the point in the road where there is a left to head down to the water. It is at the end of this road – less than a quarter mile – that the tunnel empties into a semi-circle-shaped concrete bowl that creates a short falls as the water spills over and on into Carvins Cove. At this spot as well as at smaller feeder streams along the way, the reservoir was taking on serious water, apparently replenishing still, a week after the rains.

There are suggestions of a trail along the perimeter of Carvins Cove, and we walked along those and at times along the bank created by low water until we found a good sunny spot for lunch. From there, we followed a small stream up from the edge of the reservoir, back to the road and back to the parking lot.

Tiny Trail Magic

March 15, 2009. Appalachian Trail from U.S. 220 southbound to first full viewpoint of Carvins Cove and back. 6 miles.

With rain all weekend and grandkid commitments here and there, we snuck in an old favorite and got lucky not to catch any drops during the two hours we were out; this was late Sunday afternoon and the first two dry hours all weekend.

Not that there weren't good evidences of all the rain that had fallen. The lower part of this trail section seems always to be muddy, and on this day it served in spots as a little brook bed. And Tinker Creek, usually languid where the trail crosses it, was in a discolored rush on its way toward Roanoke and the Roanoke River. Higher up, just prior to where the trail attains the ridge line, we heard the sound of water off to the left, over on another piece of Tinker Mountain. A little farther along, we were able to see where the sound was coming from – a 40-foot rain-fed waterfall over an outcropping. In perhaps a dozen walks on this section over the years, we'd never seen nor heard water over there.

At the ridge line, we entered the light fog of cloud cover, but could still see down to the surface of Carvins Cove when we got to the outcropping of "Hey" Rock (not Hay Rock, but the one where you go, "Hey, there's Carvins Cove"). Even though this was a good weekend for the drought-ridden reservoir, the broad band of tan around it was still starkly evident through the mist.

After we were back down the mountain and back to real life, showers returned, and we counted ourselves lucky to have been visited by yet another, albeit tiny, piece of trail magic.

The Puppy's First Hike

March 7, 2009. In Carvins Cove Preserve, up the Hi-Dee-Hoe Trail to Brushy Mountain Trail to Carvins Cove overlook and back. About 7 miles.

We'd planned for something longer, but with no sitter for puppy Cookie, the five-month-old lab/boxer/pest mix, we opted to make this day's walk both shorter and also Cookie's first genuine walk in the woods.

The Carvins Cove trail system, with its ski-style signage for the bikers, is nothing less than a terrific near-urban resource, and on this summer-like day, there were ample members of all three user populations – cyclists, horse riders and hikers – out and about on the land. We went in from the Va. 311 side, where you have to stop for your hall pass ($2 per day or $20 per year) at the Just The Right Gear bicycle shop before you park in the lot along Bennett Springs Road.

The Hi-Dee-Hoe begins innocently enough, crossing a feeder stream and meandering briefly in the woods before heading up the mountain with a series of climbs and switchbacks, tightening to steeper gradations as you near the top – to the extent that the trail carries a black diamond and a caution on the map about climbs. Still, the puppy, The Day Hiker and I made the climb – a mile and a half or a little more? – with relative ease, with Cookie pausing for quick snowcones at spots on northern faces as we neared the top.

The Brushy Mountain Trail into which the Hi-Dee-Hoe Ts is a wide old forest road that at this pre-leaf, pre-weed time of year looks like a dirt-track thoroughfare compared to a traditional trail. The three walkers could spread out every which way across it, save for the occasional meeting of cyclists or other hikers. One such meeting included the presence of a seven-month-old puppy; attraction and play were immediate and the older dog got the first take-down in the brief wrestlin match there in the dust.

We ate lunch on a knob with a semi-view down onto Carvins Cove, which continues to be seriously tan-rimmed in the ongoing drought. The dog did some preliminary sniffing, scouting and woofing as if to secure the space and after we ate, there ensued an uncharacteristic hour: The dog, just a puppy, and the big kids, both mildly under the weather at the start, all lay down on the woods floor and took a nap, another factor in which may well have been the first shirt-sleeve day in many months.

We joked that the puppy's bones might turn to jello before we got back down, with this walk about double her previous single-walk distance. But Cookie had more energy than even The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All on the easy, if long-for-its-mileage return walk.

Snow Day!

March 1, 2009. Appalachian Trail from Va. 620 northward onto Cove Mountain and back, including a stop at Pickle Branch Shelter. About 6.5 miles.

We set out on this day of impending snow to try to find some actual snow to walk in before its predicted arrival in Roanoke-proper long after dark. We wanted a western-facing ridge to walk on, and chose an Appalachian Trail section west of Roanoke. We parked where Va. 620 crosses the trail, heading for the Audie Murphy Memorial 3.8 miles southbound. But as seems to have befallen us once before at this spot, we realized, once we saw the distance sign maybe an eighth of a mile in, that – duh – we were headed the wrong way. Still, Dragon's Tooth at 4.0 miles away, seemed equally fine, and we HAD gone that eighth of a mile, so we continued southbound.

Snow began falling – lightly – after perhaps a quarter mile in. And as we continued to climb, it got stronger and steadier, to the point that by the time we passed the Pickle Branch Shelter spur at about a mile, the forest was quickly filling with white, and visibility was decreasing delightfully. The Day Hiker paused us here and there to look at tracks in the snow – everything from little-bunny hops to big-deer leaps. By the time we reached the ridge line of Cove Mountain, the snow came still stronger, and at times with an almost fully horizontal angle, as the openness to the west that we had sought did indeed serve to deliver the weather. And views to the east and west off the ridge were – well, they were a gray-white wall perhaps 50 feet out.

Our hopes to walk to Dragon's Tooth soon got buried in the wind and snow: Even with good layers, several sets of gloves and hats, we realized that lunch was going to present a challenge in terms of comfort and shelter from the storm, even amid all the big rocks – the "false teeth" along the ridge before the primary formation. And so, after a few pauses and decisions to push on, conditions finally turned us around – sending us back down the mountain and toward the shelter for lunch.

We'd never been to Pickle Branch Shelter before, as its one-mile-in-from-parking rendered it a too-early or too-late stop. But on this day it provided the perfect spot to pull off wet top layers, change socks and gloves, and settle into a comfortable lunch looking out into a forest filling with snow. It's easy to forget, when it's been so long, how quiet and white and peaceful a real snowfall is. And while we have walked through fallen snow many times before over the five years that we've been heading out, this was our first full falling-snow hike.

The snow tailed off as we drove down out of the mountains. But back in Roanoke was evidence of an inch or two that had fallen while we'd been out. The real snow in the city came after midnight, and we awakened to a total of six inches or so, making for more opportunities to walk in the white, albeit urban ones.

Wilderness in the Afternoon, Fred Eaglesmith in the Evening

February 21, 2009. St. Mary's Wilderness along the river to the falls and on the St. Mary's Trail to the Mine Bank Creek Trail and back. 8.4 miles.

St. Mary's shares with Dolly Sods, Ramseys Draft and many other Virginia/West Virginia designated Wilderness areas the prominent, central feature of a narrow river gorge prone to flooding, and all of the rearranging of the surrounding area brought on by by the occasional too much water at one time. The sign at the trailhead for St. Mary's talks about Hurricane Isabelle having moved things around a bit back in 2003 and that those effects remain. Combine that with the lack of blazes on trails in Wilderness areas, and you have a walk where you get to pretend a little that you're really out in the wild. The trail along the river does get faint or seem to go in several directions at some points, a situation that creates uncertainty about where or if you need to cross the St. Mary's River, which on this day was apparently a bit lower than usual; some of the guidebooks talk about having to wade across several times, and we never did.

We did, however, at just about the same moment but at different crossing spots on our first rock-hop, both stick a shoe into the water, and both protested to the other about the total lack of necessity of it all. I had made my most difficult step when my pack hit a limb, throwing me off to the side a little and into the drink halfway up one shin. The Day Hiker didn't go in as far, but soaked a shoe when she also got a little overconfident and took her eye off the rocks for a second.

Nonetheless, the river hopping was fun, as was keeping up with the trail till we got to the falls which, while not spectacular, are a pleasing little sight at an equally pleasing site. Back down from that half-mile spur, we got back on the main trail and ascended gently through pretty forest and past several old mining sites and their slag mounds to the intersection of the St. Mary's Trail and the Mine Bank Creek Trail. With an open spot and good sun, we spread out lunch, shared a fresh pair of socks, set single shoes in the sun to dry a little and ate.

On a day forecast to get into the 50s, the air felt like it remained in the 30s even in the sunshine, and The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All added to her reputation as a result, with an all-out assault on the trail back down – just to get warm, of course. No, we did not repeat the half-mile spur to the falls on the way down, but even with the rock hops and the slow, narrow and rocky spots on the trail, she had us back down in half the time it took us to get up.

Another reason for the hurry down was to get on to Harrisonburg, where we needed to find a room, get a shower and make our way to Clementine's in time to get a table for dinner and the ensuing live music from the incomparable, ever-touring, hardest-working man in the Americana music biz, Fred Eaglesmith, who is, by the way, Canadian. He'd been in Greenville, S.C. the night before, in Nags Head the previous night and Asheville the night before that. His hard-drivin', hard-travelin' four-piece band knocked out many of the Fred classics, including The Day Hiker's requested favorite, "Spookin' The Horses," and mine too – "Water in the Fuel." The star told his usual share of awful jokes as well, including this one:

It's late at night – like 10:30 – and a guy walks into a dentist's office and tells the dentist he's got a problem.
"Well, what is it?" the dentist asks.
"Well, I feel like I'm a moth," the guy says.
"You feel like a moth?" the dentist says. "You need a psychiatrist, not a dentist. Why in the world would you come in here?"
"Well," the guy says, "your light was on."