Roaring Fork

The Appalachian Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine, some 2180 miles. There are roughly 250 three sided shelters erected for hikers along its length, and Thru-Hikers (many of whom adopt nick-names such as 'Thunder Chicken' or 'The Eternal Optimist' while making the six month trek from Springer Mountain to Kathadin ) sleep in these and along its length in their own tents and shelters. On Saturday, I completed my first stage - 1.7 miles of the Vermont Long Trail, from the Molly Stark Trail (Route Nine) to the summit of Harmon Hill - 2325ft (something less that 1/1000th of the trail length) . We started at 1360ft and climbed almost all of the 900 odd feet to the summit in the first half mile. My host in Vermont, Jeff, had warned me that we'd be climbing stairs for the first half mile.

Stairs, I thought. I can handle those.

What I didn't realise is the trail is maintained by groups of volunteers, who move along its length on foot, carrying all their tools on their back - axes, crowbars, miniature chainsaws, even planks... there's simply no other way to move the material to the trail. So when Jeff said stairs, what he actually meant was that over the course of a hundred years or so, rockfall and boulders on the densely wooded sixty degree slope have been heaved into 'stairs' up the hill. It's more scrambling than hiking.

"You okay there Ed?" Jeff asked me, as he led the way up the slope. At least, I think that's what he said - it was hard to hear him over the pounding of blood in my ears.

I have a lot of respect for the trail volunteers - they manage to keep the trail clear enough to follow, provided you keep an eye out. It is marked by 'flashing' on the trees - a six by two splash of paint on trees and rocks, and a double dash (one above the other) where the trail tacks back on itself. The thing is, these are far enough apart from each other that if you take maybe three steps off the trail, perhaps the first man ever to set foot on that particular bit of ground, you can't see the trail.

Let me just be clear on that - you are in a wooded area the size of Wales with maybe four roads passing through it (plus maybe half as many logging tracks), and if you step off the trail by four feet, you are lost. More to the point, your friends won't know where you stepped off, and even if they follow along the trail ten minutes behind you, they won't see where you stepped off.

So you are now in a wooded area the size of Wales, you are lost, your friends can't find you (or more likely don't know you're lost in the first place), there is no cell phone coverage to call the rescue services and the wood is full of bears.

It took several internal monologues on the way up to remind myself why I was doing this.

At the summit, se opened the little trail box with the book in for hikers to sign and leave messages in (both a memento and a safety measure - it can help narrow down the section of trail a hiker is in). I signed it Ed Bilson and Jeff Leake, 27/08, to which Jeff added Big Storm on its way - time to head into Bennington (off the trail a ways).

When we returned to the car, we followed the trail maybe a hundred yards the other way, to see the footbridge over the Roaring Fork (a tributary of the local river that makes its way into the Hudson). As we drove back into town, we passed a small water treatment plant, a smaller trailer park, and drove the rest of Route Nine into the town.

The bridge is now gone.

The water plant is now gone.

Sections of the road are simply missing.

Parts of the trailer park have been spotted lodged against bridges in downtown Woodford and Bennington, before the water took them away completely.

Up on our mountain, the house my hosts live in is completely fine - some minor water damage to the road outside is the only sign that we've had anything but a heavy shower. The towns below are on bottled water, and hoping that the power is restored soon.

The Roaring Fork earned its name this week - and I think I'll be staying off the real trails for a while.