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.

The Hike, Week 99: 12/30/05

For the second week in a row--and with no new frozen precip having fallen--we were denied our first-choice hike by virtue of the Blue Ridge Parkway being closed north of Roanoke.

Without quite articulating it, we decided we'd find a way to walk up to the parkway and see just how frozen and impassable it was. We drove up
I-81 to Buchanan and then a short distance up the ridge on Va. 43 to the Bearwallow Gap parking area for the Glenwood Horse Trail. From there, we walked the horse trail southward for two and a half hours, going on faith (we'd brought the Appalachian Trail map but left the big, all-trail National Geographic map at home) that we'd come to a junction with the AT at some point.

That point was at Boblett's Gap, where the horse trail, the hiking trail and the scenic road nearly intersect. We walked a short distance on the AT, paralleling the often-visible, empty-but-clear parkway before pausing for lunch at a spot with a firepit. The day was just barely warm enough--and the sun bright enough--that we didn't use the pit and did enjoy the sun.

This unscripted, unplanned loop had its best moments on the 3.1 miles of the Appalachian Trail that took us back to 43. The AT crosses the parkway twice and continues to parallel it for most of those miles, allowing us to build our case that there was no reason for the roadway to be closed. The complete lack of vehicles did allow us to cross without looking both ways, to let the dog to cross without a leash and to walk right on the double yellow line for the distance between the trail sections on either side, providing us a trifecta of total-spurning of traffic rules, awaiting execution perhaps since childhood.

The walk at the end of the AT back to the car was--and this was the unplanned part--about 3.5 miles down the mountain on 43. Traffic was light, most drivers offered a friendly wave and the Day Hiker--always disdainful of road-walking--toward the end trotted out her repertoire of songs that were a hit before your mother was born, including the likes of "Mairsy Dotes," "My Favorite Things" and "Buttons and Bows."

"See how much the songs shortened the road?" she crowed as we turned off of 43 toward the parking lot.

There was, of course, and in the manner of the do-I-look-fat-in-this? question, simply no answer.

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