Troutville, north of Roanoke and now an official Appalachian Trail Town, celebrated the second day of its June 1-2 Trail Days celebration with food, music, talks and more in Troutville Town Park on this Saturday. Seemed only right to drop by and then take the good walk from just south on U.S. 11 where the trail crosses, and on up to Fullhart Knob Shelter, despite the fact that we’ve been on this section a lot lately.
At the celebration, we ran into Dan Dennison of WDBJ7, fast becoming a denizen of area trails, though still resting up from a bicycle crash and just back to driving at this point. Also, while we had lunch in the town park, we listened to two thru-hikers answer questions from school kids about their experiences along the trail.
On the trail, The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All seemed determined to prove such, perhaps in response to her sniffly off-day at Kelly Knob the week before. Anyway, we were through the fields, across the road and up the mountain in less than an hour and a half. At the shelter a section-hiking couple had just pulled in for a rest or possible stop for the day, despite the relatively early hour. We left the shelter site to the couple–perhaps almost as old as we are–are found a lunch perch just back toward the trail.
The way back down was not quite as swift, despite its descent.
Appalachian Trail from U.S. 11 at Troutville north to Fullhart Knob Shelter and back. 7.8 miles.
How to get there: U.S. 11 north out of Roanoke to the small parking lot where the AT crosses the roadway just south of downtown Troutville.
