Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 25, 1990 TAG: 9003262204
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
On a recent day, Layne was laboring with fellow club members, putting the finishing touches to the 2 1/2-year Brush Mountain relocation project.
Jolly and gentle, Layne is forever telling stories, stopping to set aside his pick and to shove a pair of protective goggles up onto his forehead, which is shaded by a clump of snow-white hair.
The yarns go like this:
"Had to give up booze, women and salt. Not necessarily in that order. Miss salt the most."
"We used to think Andy just enjoyed telling stories," said one club member. "Then we realized he told them because he needed a rest."
Layne, a retired electrician, is nearing 80.
Even so, he is trim and strong, and when he calls a halt to tell a story, most everyone listens, not just for a chuckle, but because they, too, need a breather.
The Appalachian Trail is more than 50 years old, yet, like an adolescent, it is ever changing, as trail club members hone it here, polish it there and move it over yonder, causing it to leap from ridge top to ridge top with just a bit more grace and grandeur.
That's the case for the Brush Mountain relocation.
The trail comes off Sinking Creek Mountain, along the Craig-Montgomery county line, crosses tranquil Craig Creek Valley, then heads northward across 3,000-foot Brush Mountain into Roanoke County.
Fifteen years ago, it was moved off the road to a course along the lower, northwest side of Brush, poking its way in and out of 33 often steep and always shale-covered hollows.
"The way the trail went, in and out of the folds at the bottom of the mountain, was just a laborious trip," said Bob Peckman, club president.
It was a section that hikers wanted to put at their back and out of their mind as quickly as possibly when headed northward to heavyweight attractions like Dragon's Tooth and McAfee Knob.
Not only was the trail boring, it also was difficult to maintain. The shale soil would sluff off easily and the print of the foot path would disappear, sometimes into Craig Creek.
"We were reluctant to move it again, but the trail had some problems and no matter what you did to correct them it was a second-rate trail," said Charles Parry, the club's trail superintendent.
So in August, 1987, the relocation was begun. Through the months some 130 different club members showed up to help, accumulating 5,000 work hours, according to the astute calculations of Parry, a math professor at Virginia Tech. It was opened to hikers on a recent March day when the sun shined like a searchlight through the bare branches of hardwoods.
The 7-mile relocation follows the benches and ridge top of Brush Mountain, from Craig Creek at Virginia 621 to Trout Creek at Virginia 620.
Traveling through the Jefferson National Forest, the hiker going northward can look backward to pleasant views of Craig Creek Valley and Sinking Creek Mountain and forward to Dragon's Tooth and Catawba Valley.
Brush Mountain is not another visual gulp like Dragon's Tooth or McAfee Knob, said Parry, but the 2,000-mile AT has been enhanced measurably by the relocation.
"I would just as soon it didn't match Dragon's Tooth or McAfee Knob, frankly," said Parry. "I like to get on the trail to get away from people."
Halfway through the new section, hikers pass a memorial erected to Audie Murphy, who was killed in late May, 1971, when his charter plane crashed near the top of Brush Mountain. Murphy was the nation's most decorated soldier of World War II and the star of the movie "To Hell and Back," an autobiographical account of his war deeds. He also appeared in a number of other movies, many of them westerns.
"It is far more scenic up there," said Mike Dawson of the relocation. He is a field representative of the Appalachian Trail Conference. "It will allow us to pick up what we feel is a new, significant feature, which is the Audie Murphy memorial. It will substantially improve the trail experience here."
With the Brush Mountain relocation completed, club members headed off toward other projects, Andy Layne taking his tools and stories with him.
TRAIL NOTES: The new Brush Mountain section of the Appalachian Trail is located between Virginia 621 and Virginia 620. It can be reached from Virginia 311 by turning left (west) on Virginia 621 north of Catawba, or by traveling east on Virginia 621 from U.S. 460 west of Blacksburg. The Audie Murphy memorial is at the halfway point. A blue-blazed trail to an overlook is near the memorial. Hiking time for the 7-mile relocation is approximately 4 hours. No drinking water is available.
by CNB