They’re a relatively recent phenomenon, rail trails.
They’re a relatively recent phenomenon, rail trails. The first came to be in the midwest in the 1960s, but it was not until 1980’s Staggers Act allowed railroads to abandon unprofitable routes, followed by 1983’s amendments to the Trails System Act to allow “railbanking,” that trails along old railbeds began to proliferate.
Railbanking, according to the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, is a “voluntary agreement between a railroad company and a trail sponsor (such as a trail organization or government agency) to use an out-of-service rail corridor as a trail until a railroad might need the corridor again for rail service.”
The happy result, these few decades later, is more than 2,400 rail trails nationwide, with more than 25,000 total miles.
Malee Oot’s story on page 30 explores seven of these flat, scenic wonders, including two in the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy’s very select hall of fame—the 34-mile Virginia Creeper Trail and West Virginia’s 78-mile Greenbrier River Trail.
And while Gail and I have biked or walked on both of those, if we had a vote we’d nominate Virginia’s 57-mile New River Trail for hall-of-fame consideration.
Our technique for traveling its miles is akin to our pattern with hikes: The most important part is where we pause for a great lunch, whether it’s one of Gail’s gourmet home-maders or a stop at a nice restaurant.
The latter was the focus of our excitement on our first jaunt on the New River Trail, a few years back: We’d start at Foster Falls, ride north just under 18 miles to Draper, have lunch at the eclectic Draper Mercantile and ride back.
Along the way we enjoyed the flat surface, the trestles, the nice views of the river and the properties along its banks, at one of which we paused to admire a beautifully green lawn with people unloading stark white chairs onto it.
A few miles later, we pulled into the exit spot for Draper Merc, with worry quickly mounting over what appeared to be an empty parking lot. Early into a Saturday afternoon!
We got off the bikes, looked around and eventually found a sign announcing that the Merc was closed for the day for a family event.
Anticipating that wonderful lunch, we’d carried nothing but water.
Looking at the map, we discerned that our best and maybe only bet if we wanted lunch was to continue north for just under seven more miles to Pulaski.
Now seven miles on a bicycle is certainly not seven miles on foot, but once you’ve done your 17.8, the idea of another seven before lunch—increasing your round-trip total from about 36 to about 50—hits a hungry person a little hard.
We were, in the end, rewarded with a fine and satisfying lunch in downtown Pulaski.
And on our return trip, we paused briefly to watch lots of people in white and lots of other people sitting in white chairs apparently celebrating a wedding, which we’ve told ourselves ever since was lovely enough to make up for the extra distance pedalled and also—true or not—to assume that the Draper Merc family had a wonderful celebration on its closed Saturday.
The story above first appeared in our September / October 2023 issue.
