Kurt's Hikes Has Moved!

Kurt's Hikes can now be found on Blue Ridge Country's newly redesigned website:

http://www.blueridgecountry.com/blogs/kurts-hikes/

The blog has gone on to win second place in web writing at the national level from the National Federation of Press Women, a continuation of competition from his first-place win announced below.

At BRC.com, you'll also find RidgeLines, a new blog written by Blue Ridge Country's editor Cara Ellen Modisett:

http://www.blueridgecountry.com/blogs/blue-ridge

...and coming soon will be Word & Image, a blog written by the following guest contributors:

novelist Sharyn McCrumb
Gerry Bishop, retired editor of Ranger Rick magazine
author Su Clauson-Wicker
BRC contributing editor Deborah Huso
BRC environmental reporter Cathryn McCue, on staff with the Southern Environmental Law Center
BRC food columnist Fred Sauceman
BRC contributor Marla Milling
author Jeanne Mozier
photographer Rebecca Armstrong
photographer Frank Ceravalo
photographer Joe Rossbach
writer Lynn Seldon
writer Peter Slavin
writing/photography team Phyllis Speidell and John Sheally

See you at BlueRidgeCountry.com!

Kurt's Hikes is Moving!

First of all, congratulations to Kurt Rheinheimer - this blog has won first place for web writing in the Virginia Press Women's annual competition, and goes on to national competition (results to be announced in the fall).

In addition, Kurt's Hikes is migrating to BlueRidgeCountry.com - we are in the process of launching our new web design, including this blog and others. You can find future entries here:

http://www.blueridgecountry.com/blogs/kurts-hikes

So be sure to follow Kurt and Gail's continuing adventures on the trail.

Thanks for reading!

The First Short-Sleeves Day of the Year... Without a Map

April 18, 2009. Hoop Hole upper and lower loops. 9.0 miles.

With guest-dog Fluff along in addition to puppy Cookie, we returned to a hike in Botetourt County not too far from where Fluff would lie his head for the night. The Hoop Hole trails, east of Eagle Rock and with multiple stream crossings, are a favorite of dogs, both because of the water and, especially before the leaves return, the openness of the forest - allowing for occasional stops to peer for deer.

For the human hikers, it was the first shorts-and-short-sleeves day of the year, and with the streams in good flow and the sky mostly blue, it was truly all good. Well, except for maybe the 2,400-foot climb, the pesky narrowness of the trail along several steep-slope spots and that false-summit of Pine Mountain that we'd both forgotten, about a half mile before you reach the true peak, at 3,700 feet. And a bunch of big-gnat type flyers who didn't bite or sting, but sure loved to crawl around on things and seemed to want to share our lunch spot on the summit.

Then too there was the reiteration of one of the basic tenets of any hike: Take the map! Even on a most-familiar hike! Our failure to do so led us maybe half a mile down the side trail toward Roaring Run before we returned to our senses and went back up the hill to the main trail, grumbling to each other about our collective stupidity. It's odd: You're out there to walk (and walk and walk), but stick in an accidental mile extra and big bad hikers get cranky with themselves. The dogs, on the other hand, didn't mind a bit.

And they loved the many more easy stream crossings on the way down to the car.

Summiting Terrapin Mountain, and Rock-hopping with a Nervous Puppy

April 11, 2009. Terrapin Mountain Trail/Reed Creek Trail loop. 9 miles.

We'd been trying to get back to this hike – done years ago and only vaguely remembered – for weeks, owing to Gail's hope to pass by the old homeplace of a friend/co-worker who grew up on the side of Terrapin Mountain, in Bedford County. Alas, the little piece of paper with the directions to it were remembered only after some miles of driving into Bedford County, so we'll get to go back to this pesky down-up hike again sometime before too long.

Actually the walk starts up, for perhaps a quarter mile, to reach the summit of Terrapin Mountain before beginning a long, rocky, occasionally steep descent. At the end of the nearly three mile drop, the Terrapin Mountain Trail intersects with the Reed Creek Trail, and things get considerably easier; the trail makes its away gently along near the bottom of the mountain, curling its way around and into ravines on its way to Reed Creek.

We ate along one of the bends, in the semi-sunshine on a rock. (And found out, a day or so later, what we have had to relearn every daggone year in the woods: It gets to be April? And warm? You need to get the trusty ground cover out and sit on it for lunch, or else – come Sunday or Monday – you'll have these big ol' itchy welts on your backside. Duh.)

It was at the first crossing of Reed Creek, on this spring day when the water was spilling furiously over the rocks, that we had our adventure for the day. Gail and I had to walk upstream a good ways to find a set of rocks, boulders and logs that were close enough together to let us hop across. But alas, puppy Cookie – seven and a half months old and a fine leaper on dry land – wanted no part of the last boulder-to-rock jump. And so we scouted farther up but to no avail, with the dog yelping more and more desperately with each passing, separated-from-momma moment. At last, back where the trail crosses on small rocks at lower water levels, The Greatest Puppy Helper took off her shoes to wade the dog across. Halfway, with the woman yelping from the cold and the dog from fright, Cookie wrestled her way out of her collar rather than go into water well onto her belly. The second try, with the collar tighter, was a success, and the little half-hour challenge was done.

The trail turns, a half mile or so up, across the stream again. And while we did have to scout a bit again, we soon found a crossing all three could readily make. From there, it was on up the rest of the mountain back to the starting point, on what is, despite its climb-at-the-wrong-time, a nifty walk.

Honoring Wilderness, and Audie Murphy

April 4, 2009. Appalachian Trail, Va. 620 to Audie Murphy Monument and back. 7.6 miles.

We picked this walk on this day in honor the signing by the president of the omnibus outdoors bill, which includes the creation of a new designated wilderness along its route – Brush Mountain East. The new protected area is one of seven new wildernesses bought into being by the Virginia Ridge and Valley Act, which protects 43,000 acres as wilderness, and also creates more than 10,000 acres in two new National Scenic Areas in Virginia. That bill, versions of which go back as far as 2004, was sponsored by both Senators Webb and Warner in the Senate and had sponsorship or contributions from Representatives Goodlatte and Boucher in the House.

The good climb up from the low point at Trout Creek along 620 was of course no less steep by virtue of the new designation, but the approach from this direction does get you on the ridge line sooner than from the other way up, allowing for a pleasant and easy second half of the walk to lunch.

The monument to the fallen war hero is more decorated every time we visit it, with more and more intricate cairn work off to the side, and more and more flowers (artificial for sturdiness), flags and other leave-behinds all around the stone marker. We scouted around for the perfect lunch spot on both the east and west sides of the ridge and ended up, as is The Day Hiker's wont, on the east – in the sun and not in the wind. Frisky puppy Cookie was tired enough to allow us a brief nap before we started back through the woods with just a touch of new meaning to them.

Following in Thomas Jefferson's Footsteps

March 29, 2009. From Blue Ridge Parkway milepost 83.1: Fallingwater Cascades Trail loop and Flat Top Mountain up and back. 7.2 miles.

This two-walk walk is a good one for an early-spring, post-rain trek, given the presence of falling water, moist spots for early wildflowers and the open, pre-leaf views going up 4,001-foot Flat Top.

All three perspectives provided at least some reward on this brisk, increasingly blue-sky day. The falls had a healthy, noisy flow. The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All paused maybe 20 times during the walk to move leaves, inspect new shoots and occasionally quiz her hiking companion, who was maybe-two-of five on identifying. And on the way up, views onto Harkening Hill to the west and out onto the piedmont to the east were frequent.

The walk up the mountain that the AT guidebook talks about Thomas Jefferson climbing at age 72 is a rewarding one – nicely switch-backed till near the top, where things get rocky and steep, and where there are several faux summits before you reach the terrific views from both the western and eastern rock outcrops at the true summit. One of those false summits was recommended to us pre-hike by son Carl, whose propensity toward photographic memory for hikes manifested itself with the advice to look out for Pinnacle Rock and its gnarly old evergreen, which we did find.

At the true summit, The Day Hiker and her rock-rookie puppy headed immediately for the eastern overlook; I took a quick view westward before joining them on the eastern overlook, where we were surprised to have the big rock to ourselves on this pretty day. Cookie explored it to every edge and precipice, causing her mistress to reach the edge of panic several times.

The air was sufficiently clear to see the city of Bedford fairly clearly. The Bedford reservoir is the most immediate and prominent feature of the view. To the north, Apple Orchard Mountain is prominent, and to the south, Sharp Top's sharp, rocky top is clear and imposing (though about 125 feet shorter in elevation than Flat Top).

On the walk back down, six-month-old Cookie confirmed her readiness for full-distance hikes with a sustained friskiness that manifested itself in off-trail runs and explorations, and in a half-mile or so of repeated taking of Gail's hiking pole into her mouth, to the extent that for many steps at a time, the pole served as sort of a stiff, voluntary leash for the wacky puppy.

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.