WHY GO?
The Appalachian Trail through southwest Virginia forsakes the Blue Ridge for the valley and ridge region, but loses none of the beauty or steep climbs. Open cliffs on Tinker Mountain and overlooks from McAfee Knob and Dragons Tooth are popular day hikes. More remote is Wind Rocks in Mountain Lake Wilderness or a perch on Angels Rest, near Pearisburg, with views of the New River. It’s been 80-plus years since volunteers moved this leg of the AT off the Blue Ridge in hopes of saving the trail’s remote character. It’s safe to say they succeeded.
THE RUNDOWN
Start: Mount Rogers Visitor Center
Distance: 190.3 miles point to point
Difficulty: Difficult
Trail surface: Using dirt footpaths and abandoned dirt roads, hike along steep ridge crests, through deep valley hollows and bogs, and across high-altitude meadows.
Nearest towns: Marion, VA (south access); Roanoke, VA (north access)
Canine compatibility: Dogs permitted
Trail contacts: Appalachian Trail Conference, Harpers Ferry, WV, (304) 535-6331, www.appalachiantrail.org; Roanoke ATC, www.ratc.org; Outdoor Club at Virginia Tech, www.outdoor.org.vt.edu/; Piedmont Appalachian Trail Hikers, www.path-at.org; Mount Rogers National Recreation Area, Marion, (276) 783-5196, www.fs.usda.gov/gwj
Maps/Guides: AT Guide Set #9 Southwest Virginia covers the AT from the Virginia/Tennessee state line to Pearisburg, VA; Guide Set #8 Central Virginia covers the AT from Pearisburg, VA to Rockfish Gap (northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway). www.atctrailstore.org
FINDING THE TRAILHEAD
To Marion Trailhead: From Marion, proceed south on VA 16 to the Mount Rogers Visitor Center (6 miles from VA 16’s junction with I-81). Turn right into the visitor center parking lot and park. Follow a sidewalk to the front of the visitor center, walk to VA 16, and cross the highway. The Appalachian Trail (AT) enters the woods on the northbound side of VA 16. DeLorme: Virginia Atlas & Gazetteer: Page 23, B5. To Roanoke Trailhead: See Segment 3: Roanoke to Rockfish Gap.
THE HIKE
From the point where it leaves the Great Valley, north of the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area, the AT crosses seven mountain ridges. Little Brushy Mountain is the first. Beyond it stand Big Walker, Lynn Camp, and Garden Mountain. Each ridge rises sharply, then drops into stream valleys. Crawfish Valley, at the base of Big Walker, is secluded and overgrown. Across Big Walker, Rich Valley is wide and busy, with the North Fork Holston River and VA 42 running along its bottomland.
Burke’s Garden breaks the valley and ridge pattern in scenic fashion. Garden Mountain forms the southern boundary of this bowl-shaped valley, and the AT follows its crest for 5 miles. At Chestnut Knob and again at Davis Field Campsite, views west drop 900 feet into the valley, which formed millions of years ago when a basement rock of limestone eroded and washed away. The resulting claylike soil makes for prime farmland. Local lore says James Burke, the first white man to settle in the Garden, tossed a few potato peels on the ground during his first visit here in the mid-1700s. The next season, Burke returned and found potato plants. True or not, a small community of farmers continues a tradition that dates back centuries. They’ve also managed to keep the commercial world at bay, with prohibitions on billboards and neon signs.
AT SHELTERS/HUTS (MILEAGE ON THE AT FROM VA 16 NORTH TO US 220)
Mile 0.0 - Partnership Shelter (at Mount Rogers Visitor Center on VA 16)
Mile 7.0 - Chatfield Shelter
Mile 14.2 - Davis Path Shelter
Mile 25.4 - Knot Maul Branch Shelter
Mile 34.4 - Chestnut Knob Shelter
Mile 44.4 - Jenkins Shelter
Mile 58.2 - Helveys Mill Shelter
Mile 68 - Jenny Knob Shelter
Mile 82.2 - Wapiti Shelter
Mile 90.6 - Doc’s Knob Shelter
Mile 105.7 - Rice Field Shelter (also called Star Haven Shelter)
Mile 118.0 - Pine Swamp Branch Shelter
Mile 121.9 - Bailey Gap Shelter
Mile 130.7 - War Spur Shelter
Mile 136.5 - Laurel Creek Shelter
Mile 142.9 - Sarver Hollow Shelter
Mile 148.9 - Niday Shelter
Mile 157.8 - Pickle Branch Shelter
Mile 171.7 - Boy Scout Shelter
Mile 172.7 - Catawba Mountain Shelter
Mile 174.9 - Campbell Shelter
Mile 180.9 - Lamberts Meadow Shelter
Northwest of Burke’s Garden, the AT crosses three more ridges. On the last, Pearis Mountain, an overlook called Angels Rest provides beautiful views across the New River to the slope of Peters Mountain. The AT crosses the New on a highway bridge and follows Stillhouse Branch up the steep side of Peters Mountain. On the ridgetop, the West Virginia border and AT crisscross for 12 miles through grass fields and a portion of the Peters Mountain Wilderness.
Like Catawba Mountain to the north, which derives its name from the Catawba rhododendron, Peters Mountain shares its name with a plant. Peters Mountain mallow grows only in Giles County, Virginia. The single known community of this purple-blossoming herb is protected on land owned by the Nature Conservancy. The AT is partly to blame for its earlier decline. In the late 1960s, a section of the trail ran along the mountain’s sandstone outcrops, a favored habitat of the mallow. Heavy foot traffic took its toll. Virginia and the federal government now list the plant as endangered. What communities exist are fenced in and tended carefully. Trail relocation remedied encroachment by AT hikers.
The descent off Peters Mountain marks a turn in the AT. Its direction is now once again northeast, a course that will eventually intersect with the Blue Ridge Mountains, beyond Roanoke. For the intervening 74 miles, the AT crosses eight more ridges, each with a corresponding stream valley. The first, Potts Mountain, caps out at a rocky point called Wind Rocks in Mountain Lake Wilderness. The 10,753-acre federal wilderness, like Burke’s Garden, is a welcome respite to the valley-and-ridge routine. Gently graded trail leads across two flat-topped mountains, Salt Pond and Lone Pine, and their upland bogs. The descent off Salt Pond steepens and ends at Johns Creek. In quick succession, the AT then crosses Johns Creek, Sinking Creek, Brush, and Cove Mountains. Cove Mountain makes a U shape around the headwaters of Trout Creek and rises to the pointed, skin-your-knee-rough rock on Dragons Tooth.
The wide valley east of Dragons Tooth is part of the Great Valley system that runs down the Appalachian chain from southern New Jersey into Tennessee. Views of Roanoke, the largest city in southwest Virginia, signal the approaching end of this leg of the AT.
Before leaving the valley and ridge region, the AT crosses Tinker Cliffs. Blocks of sandstone in Devils Kitchen and the overhangs at Snack Bar Rock and Rock Haven make striking formations. Tinker Cliffs itself is reminiscent of another high-mountain ridge, Pine Mountain, on the Virginia-Kentucky border. Like Pine Mountain, the edges of Tinker and Catawba Mountains were, millions of years ago, a leading edge of a thrust fault—essentially a piece of the earth’s crust that slid up and over another piece of the earth. The resulting topography is steep and often sheer to the west, while more graded and sloping eastward.
The subdivisions and farms visible on the last 6.5 miles of the AT signal the descent into the Great Valley. From a final rock outcrop, Hay Rock, the view reaches west across the heavily populated valley to the Blue Ridge, and another leg of the AT.
HIKE INFORMATION
LOCAL INFORMATION
Roanoke Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau, Roanoke, (800) 635-5535, www.visitroanokeva.com
Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce, Blacksburg, (540) 382-3020, www.montgomerycc.org