ROANOKE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 23, 1992                   TAG: 9202240229
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: C15   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium


NEW TRAIL TO PROVIDE A SHORTCUT TO BEAUTY

For many people, hiking means parking atop Catawba Mountain on Virginia 311 and following the white two-by-six blazes of the famous Appalachian Trail northward to McAfee Knob.

It is an elementary trip, 3.3 miles, far enough to let you know you've been on a hike, yet not over taxing. It has all the elements that go with a first-rate hike, a well-built trail, gobs of scenery and a panoramic overlook that will take your breath with its Godlike view.

Another 5.1 miles out the trail is Tinker Cliffs, a second upheaval of Silurian sandstone with visual gulps of Catawba Valley that rival those of McAfee Knob. But the pathway here sees less use because . . . well, it is another 5.1 miles out the trail.

You can come south to Tinker Cliffs, parking your vehicle in Daleville and climbing to the twisted backbone of Tinker Ridge, where embracing views of crescent-shaped Carvins Cove can be savored from Hay Rock, still another upheaval of the Paleozoic era. That's a 10.8-mile trip.

There is a shortcut, a 2 1/2-mile, mostly straight-up the ridge climb from Virginia 779 to Scorched Earth Gap, then a mile south on the AT to Tinker Cliffs.

This access is rough, over a trail that is so poorly built and lightly maintained that it often is avoided, but that is about to change.

The Roanoke Cement Co., owned by Tarmac, has given the Appalachian Trail Conference the use of a permanent corridor over its property in Botetourt County, which will allow the building of a first-class pathway from 779 to the AT. It also will improve the link between the AT and the Jefferson National Forest North Mountain Trail, thus providing an uninterrupted 25-to-30 mile loop for adventurous hikers.

"What is important here, they have given us a very generous, wide easement to the top," said Dr. Bill Gordge, land management supervisor for the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club. "What we are now going to be able to do, because of what they have given us, we are going to be able to put in quiet a nice trail with respectable sort of grades that are more up to the usual trail standards."

The project, to be carried out by trail club members, will involve building two bridges over the forks of Catawba Creek, then taking the trail up the mountain over numerous switchbacks, said Charles Parry, the club's trail supervisor.

There is an opportunity for a parking lot at 779, either on forest service or Tarmac property, said Gordge.

Trail club members hope to get one of the bridges over Catawba Creek started this spring, but completion of the entrie project is a year or two, or more, in the future, said Parry. Members currently are heavily involved in trail construction at Fulhardt Knob, north of Roanoke, and at Brushy Mountain, in Bland County. In both spots, efforts are under way to relocate the trail from public roadways.

The Roanoke Cement Co. has scheduled a ceremony Saturday at 10:30 a.m. near where the trail will leave 779, said Farnum Gray, a company spokesman. Company officials are expected to join trail club officers and representatives of the U.S. Forest Service in recgnition of the easement, which will be recorded in the Roanoke County Court House.

Gordge sees the new trail as giving important access to the popular 20-mile Catawba Appalachian Trail corridor. This stretch is so popular that the National Park Service parking lot on Virginia 311 often overflows on spring and fall weekends.

"You will be able to take an afternoon and walk up the the cliffs," said Gordge.

Hikers also will have the option of breaking up the laborious 20-mile hike from 311 to Daleville, by leaving a vehicle at 779, he said.

In addition, there will be a smoother linkage of the AT with the North Mountain Trail.

"A loop is nice, compared to leaving a car at both ends, which always is a pain in the neck," said Parry.

The loop will provide a challenging weekend backpack trip, he said. A hiker might want to leave 311 on a Friday afternoon and travel north to a Catawba Mountain shelter for the night. From there he or she could hike to a spring on North Mountain for a Saturday night camping spot, then back to 311 on Sunday.

For nine years, the Appalachian Trail was rerouted along North Mountain, after landowners on Catawba Mountain posted their property. It was returned to Catawba in early March 1987 when the sweat of volunteers and the money of Congress merged to create what many see as a miniature national park.



by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB