"I am very proud to tell you that the Great Eastern Trail is on the ground in New York thanks to the efforts of 15 FLTC Board of Managers and officers and about 25 community members on July 26-27. Early next week, a roadwalk will be blazed (about 6 miles) from the NY/PA border to Addison (Pinnacle State Park) to provide for a continuous 14 mile route [connecting to Pennsylvania's Mid State Trail.]
We received excellent media coverage from WETM (Elmira) as the lead story for their 6:00 pm broadcast as well as additional coverage on the 11:00 news and their website. Here is the link: Story from WETM-TV"
Although Mid State Trail is not yet completely marked across 13 kilometers near US Route 6 between Wellsboro and Mansfield, Pa., the pending trail guide and maps will describe a route on low traffic roads around the remaining gap to complete a 526 km hike across the Keystone State.
]]>Some of the events scheduled for 2008's NTD along the GET are:
]]> Mystery Hike along Standing Stone Trail (Huntingdon, PA)Trail Building with REI Bedford (Everett, PA)
Green Ridge State Forest Hike (Flintstone, MD)
]]>Just start here:
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A work crew will be out improving the SST and the GET later in April. See the entry on the GET work schedule for April and sign up quickly, this bunch always has a wonderful time based at a luxurious hunting lodge wedged deep in Pennsylvania's Tiltrock Country.
]]>See http://www.get-athike.org/ to follow their hike - and this entry from The Vista for more information.
Best of luck!
]]>American Hiking Society and the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club are sponsoring a Volunteer Vacation on the Great Eastern Trail in Northern Virginia. Join us in beginning construction of the six-mile Carr Mountain Trail through a remote area of the George Washington National Forest in northwestern Rockingham County, Va. We'll be staying in a lodge at the Highland Retreat, a Mennonite camp near the trail head. For details and sign-up, go to the American Hiking Society website Volunteer Vacations.
I've attached a photo taken on the yet-to-be-built Carr Mountain Trail.
And it's true - I've never been there. It's an interstate PARK, NOT on the interstate highway!
However, the GET will take you there! Breaks Park will be an important hub as the GET hiker transitions from Kentucky's Pine Mountain Trail from Cumberland Gap to a developing route crossing Buchanan and Tazewell Counties in far southwest VA.
Dennis Crowley of Kentucky Trails Association HAS been to Breaks, and shares some of the splendor of this special place with us.
]]> We'll let the pictures speak for themselves...
Read the hike report:
]]> We were interested in observing the waterfalls on Nickel Run so we descended the blue blazed side trail to Nickel Run Falls. The temperatures lately have been near zero so the falls were spectacular with ice.
On this side trail we did run across a black powder deer hunter. It was smart that a couple of us were wearing blaze orange.
As the trail passes through the area where the historic, now defunct, village of Landrus was located, we observed some old foundations and other evidences of homes and industry being located here long ago.
The hiking was quite easy, rarely climbing or descending steeply, until we were challenged to find a way across Babb Creek without getting wet. The creek is still quite high and, of course, now very icy. However, we found an accommodating log upstream that was only snow covered, not ice covered. Getting to this log was an adventure because we were forced to scale down the very steep, slippery, snowy, icy bank. Our alternative was to retrace our steps back to the high water route. I don’t recall that we made a decision about turning back before observing that our jumpin’ bunny, Red Riding Hood, was already on the other side of the stream. We all made it safely across without incident, but with helping hands from each other.
Just downstream the falls at Sand Run were absolutely spectacular because of the ice formations.
Walt Smith, a longtime PATC volunteer, appeared in the Martinsburg (W.Va.) Journal recently to GET well-earned recognition for spearheading efforts to enhance PATC's Tuscarora Trail, part of the GET network in the Mountain State.
From the article:
]]> Smith, who is the club’s district manager for the 32 miles of the Tuscarora Trail that run through West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle, has been actively working with his team of volunteers to move a segment seven miles down a Sleepy Creek Mountain ridge and through a rock scramble along the Meadow Branch creek to the Devil’s Nose, where hemlocks and rhododendrons grow at the base of a canyon in the shadow of 100-foot rock cliffs.He believes it’s something people really have to see.
“The only reason I’m moving seven miles of the Tuscarora Trail is because of Devil’s Nose,” said Smith. “What’s the point of walking somewhere if you don’t have something to look at?”
Smith, who lives in Winchester, Va. and is married with two daughters, previously was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army and served two tours in Vietnam as the commander of a rifle company before retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 1980.
He went on to work for Loudoun County, Va. as a human resources specialist and later retired when a renewed interest in hiking and backpacking coupled with a desire to give something back drew him to the PATC.
“I think we get to a point in time where we want to pay back others. A lot of people have helped me along the way and that’s how I got involved with the PATC,” said Smith, 71. “There’s inspiration in seeing the beauty of the Earth. You become interconnected with things.”
Smith, a Mormon who also plays the organ as a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints, has served two terms as president of the PATC, from 1999 through 2002. He joined the club in 1992.
After he stepped down from the leadership post, Smith became the district manager for this area, where he now works with volunteers to construct and maintain hiking trails for the public.
“You see lots of animals and meet interesting people along the way,” he said.
Clearing brush and blown-down trees, painting blazes on trees and setting the signs along the trail are just a few of the jobs that Smith and his volunteer crew are responsible for.
The crew, under Smith’s guidance, also blazes new trails and builds shelters for weary hikers to rest overnight. The PATC owns more than 2,000 acres of land and maintains more than 40 shelters and 32 cabins on trails throughout the region.
“I like creating something that will help benefit people in the future,” he said. “These are some of the prime vistas on the East Coast.”
]]>Welcome to the brand new blog for Great Eastern Trail, America's newest exciting long distance trail.
Here you will find news items from all up and down the GET, from Alabama to New York.
For general questions about GET, e-mail Tom Johnson johnts3 AT juno d0t com.
If you represent a GET group and would like to have something posted here, e-mail interim webmaster and blogger Pete Fleszar footpaths@fleszar.org
Happy trails!
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