The weekend hikers: Gail and Kurt Rheinheimer stand on top of Rice Fields, a bald southwest of Blacksburg, Va. along the Appalachian Trail. They were photographed in May by a couple who were thru-hiking the AT with their two children.

Week 95: 12/2 & 12/3/05.

The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All and I found ourselves, this first weekend in December, transported out of the Blue Ridge Mountains and into the coastal lands of northern Florida, where we accompanied on two beachy dayhikes by Richard Wells, publisher of Blue Ridge Country, and his wife Alison--both gracious to a fault in indulging Gail and me in our silly streak of walks.

The first hike was a 4.1-mile loop in Little Talbot Island State Park.
The trek begins with entry into a low-slung, shallow forest of small pines and huge live oak and emerges, after an alleged 2.6 miles (was it the easy terrain or the wonderful company that made it seem shorter?) onto a stretch of lonesome, shell-and-driftwood-strewn beach. The wooded section, while full of vegetation--the massive, broad-reaching arms of the live oaks are home to any number of smaller plants growing upward from their reach--appeared to be home to no creatures of any size, at least that we could see. The beach showed more signs of life, even if some of it--in the form of horseshoe crab shells--had long since been dead.

The second day's walk--perhaps three miles in length--was in Fort Clinch State Park, and began along the shelly beach of the inlet between the sea and the bay, leading to the point of land where Fort Clinch was built, at the time of the Civil War. Among the fort's many noteworthy features is the presence of two colors of brick, with the lower sections of several structures a lighter color than the upper bricks. The reason: Construction was begun by the South and then completed--with brick brought south from the North--by Federal troops after they had taken over the fort.

Free comedy for this hike was provided by perhaps the most sincere, thorough and painstaking re-enactor ever to oversee the firing of a cannon. How many men does it take to fire a Fort Clinch cannon? Eight!
(Seven to walk around waiting to be shown every move and one to show them every move--two or three times--while an assembled crowd of maybe 20 people alternates between holding its collective ears against the noise and its collective sides against the laughter over observations ranging from how many times the enemy would have scaled the wall by now, to if maybe life and warfare just unfolded at a much slower pace 140 years back.

The hike back to our starting point near the beach was highlighted by an opportunity for Gail to assert her light-legged athleticism when, with a deadline approaching for the day's next activity, she ran ahead to get the car and come back to meet us along the roaded last section of the walk. Temptations among the other three of us to do a little running on our own to negate her run were easily overcome, and so we ended up with a .7-mile hiking deficit to she who is, after all, that Greatest Day Hiker.

Click here for the archive of Kurt's Hikes