A Day Out On The Line

A marker set into the rock, overlooking Wintergreen.

The establishment and protection of the Appalachian Trail involved the acquisition of a large number of land parcels. On ODATC’s section, a beautiful tract was acquired from Wintergreen to protect the Trail from encroaching development and permit the siting of a shelter on scenic Mill Creek. The club maintains the Trail treadway and also is responsible for monitoring this large parcel of land to make sure the boundary is well marked and that nothing is happening on the land that shouldn’t be.

 

So each year, I make plans to visit our trail section in the early spring and walk a portion of the boundary. This year was more difficult than usual since the Blue Ridge Parkway was closed for long periods due to the ice and snow. On March 21, I finally pulled together a crew made up of Corey who works with me at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and Robert who is married to a student at VIMS. The Parkway was still closed, but thanks to Ed, an ODATC maintainer with a house in Wintergreen, we were able to park very close to the boundary line, running behind his house.

 

This year we were able to start very close to the line, almost right behind Ed's Wintergreen house. Thanks Ed!

 

 

We used the AT to get to the north end of the section. This is an effective set of log steps.

 

 

Robert joined us at the last minute to save the trip after our third had to stay and work in the office.
The Shenandoah Valley
 

There was a little bit of snow and ice.
Corey checks out the ice.

The A.T. Boundary has been surveyed and is marked with an aluminum monument on each corner and every 500 ft. Our objective for this trip was to check the section from monument 35 to monument C43. Although we were parked very near monument C43, we decided to start with monument 35 to avoid having to scramble almost a mile straight up the mountain at the end of the day.

The boundary line/monuments being monitored March 21, 2013.

We quickly found the AT, just north of the BRP crossing at Dripping Rock, and followed the Trail north past the double springs, past the overlook, and to the saddle just past Battery Cliffs. From there, we followed our GPS down the mountain in search of monument 35.

Battery Cliffs has a nice view of the Wintergreen ski area and condos.

 

 

In the shadow of a cliff, the GPS kept losing its satellite lock, but led us to the large boulder field under the cliff where we knew we’d find monument 35. As an experiment, Corey pulled out his IPhone and opened a Google earth KMZ file containing the monument locations. Surprisingly, the phone was very helpful in pointing us right to the large boulder that had monument 35 embedded in in.

 

 

#35 - Our starting point had to be dug out of the leaves and dirt again.
Monument 35

 

In 2012 we had repainted all the boundary line blazes between monument 36 and 35B, but did not have time to refresh the last two sections of line. This section crosses several rock fields with few trees, so the line is hard to follow and the footing is precarious, so progress was slow. We need to add some paint sometime soon! At each monument and when we were sure that we were on the line, we added flagging tape so that it would be easier to follow next year. Once we arrived at monument 35B the new paint made the line much easier to follow. We paused out of the wind for lunch, but pretty quickly started moving again since it was below freezing and the wind was blowing.
 

Corey marks a tree next to the monument to make it easier to find next time.

A pipe monument
 

Yellow marks the boundary line.

A nice creek - not as much water as I would have expected
 

We had to clear off this one too.

A boundary tree that fell recently.

Following the boundary line is a bit different than walking the Trail. While the trail is nicely groomed and rarely exceeds an eight percent grade, the boundary line follows a straight line from point to point that drops right over the edge of cliffs, through huge boulder fields, and briar patches. We monitor in the winter as the vegetation makes it virtually impossible to get to the line the rest of the year.

A bit of a climb to follow the line up the cliff.

 

 

The line from monument 36 to 37 is fairly level so we made good progress, though we accidentally skipped monument 36A and decided not to go back to check on it. That monument had been lost for many years and each year we would invest an hour or more looking for it until finally we uncovered it under some dirt on the face of a rock next to a creek. Our main objective this trip was to visually check the boundary for problems and there clearly weren’t any, so no need to backtrack.

 

We had to clear this one off too. It's on a cliff ledge.

The troublesome number 37A on the cliff ledge.

 

Between monument 37 and 38, the line turns and runs straight up a cliff face. Monument 37A was another lost monument until Sandy, an intrepid monitor, managed to retrieve it from under several inches of dirt and debris on a ledge near the top of the cliff. Reaching the ledge that this monument is on is quite a climb and the last push up a crack to the top of the cliff is another challenge that approaches rock climbing.

Corey enjoys the view from the ledge.

A monument in the rock up top.
 

The tree needs a little more paint on the chop blaze - next time. It was below
 freezing, so no painting on this trip!

We replaced three boundary signs that had broken or fallen off.

The final section of the line from 38, set at the top of the cliff, to C43 is a walk in the park compared to the remaining section. However, this section is directly behind a series of houses in the Wintergreen development, so we are particularly careful to make sure that the line is well-marked in this area.

Wintergreen houses are right next to the line near the end.

A violation! That ladder is partially on AT land. We let it go this time.
 

The last monument ..... a parkway monument.

We returned back at the car at 5pm happy to report no major problems on the line, except for some sections that need to be repainted and a few boundary signs that we replaced. After his first day our on the line, Robert commented that covering the line is “more like controlled falling than hiking! ~ David Wilcox

The crew!

 

 

For more background on Corridor Boundary Monitoring & ATC/ODATC information links,

see this previous R2R post:

 

Corridor Boundary Monitoring

 

 

 

(All photos & narrative: Dave W.)