Conservancy Opens New Appalachian Trail Section to the Public; Governor Manchin to Dedicate State-Funded Enhancements
Harpers Ferry, W.Va. (June 1, 2009)—The northernmost mile of the Appalachian Trail in West Virginia is getting a lot of new looks, and the public is invited to join trail workers in a set of “first peeks” this Saturday before Gov. Joe Manchin officially dedicates them June 11.
The enhancements include
- a two-block relocation of the trail in the lower-town section of Harpers Ferry,
- safer and more attractive rock steps up on Camp Hill, where a quarter-mile side trail to the Appalachian Trail Visitors Center at the headquarters of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) leaves the main trail, and
- a series of informative signs and plaques throughout Harpers Ferry National Historical Park paying tribute to the first U.S. national scenic trail.
The events on Saturday, June 6 (National Trails Day), begin at 11 a.m. at ATC’s Appalachian Trail Visitors Center on the corner of Washington Street and Storer College Place—with a short hike on that side trail to those new steps. Materials and support for the volunteers who crafted them were underwritten by a $57,299 grant of state-administered federal trail-enhancement funds. The rehabilitation of this steep section and intersection—often missed in years past by hikers looking vainly for a “real trail”—was accomplished over a three-year period by volunteer trail-builders from ATC, a private nonprofit organization, and the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) based in Vienna, Va., which maintains the A.T. from Waynesboro, Va., to Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania.
Manchin will be joined on Thursday, June `11, by state Commerce Secretary Kelley Goes and is scheduled to review the steps work and recognize the volunteers at about 11 a.m.
But, on Saturday, from there, it’s a half-mile walk on the trail past Jefferson Rock and St. Peter’s Church to the bottom of the historical stone steps as the A.T. reaches High Street. A new wayside informational plaque has been installed there to note for visitors that they are standing on the legendary Appalachian Trail.
Instead of turning down High Street and approaching “John Brown’s fort” from the rear, the northbound trail beginning June 6 will cross High Street, pass through a courtyard to Potomac Street, and continue to “The Point” above the convergence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers.
That plaque and a series of other new signs throughout the park are the culmination of a decade-long effort by ATC’s information-services office, working with park officials and the staff of the National Park Service’s Interpretive Design Center—the immediate neighbor of those side-trail steps in the upper town.
The new section in the lower town crosses the backyards of a block of antebellum buildings that once were dry-goods stores and/or boardinghouses and private residences and now house major park exhibits. It turns at the probable site of the log cabin of the town’s first settler, across from the ruins of the federal armory.
Another new sign will be unveiled on The Point, where the A.T. turns north to cross the Potomac on the Goodloe E. Byron Memorial Pedestrian Walkway, a bridge cantilevered on the side of the railroad bridge into Maryland.
The national headquarters for “the A.T.” have been located on Camp Hill in Harpers Ferry since 1972, and the current 2.6-mile route for this part of West Virginia—from the Virginia line on Loudoun Heights to the Maryland border at the Potomac River—was established in 1986. The trail straddles the Virginia–West Virginia border for 15 miles south of this section and for another 11 miles above Pearisburg, Va.
Following the lower-town ceremonies, at about 2 p.m. back at the visitors center, ATC will launch officially its volunteer clearinghouse—an on-line system to recruit, track, and match with new needs the corps of volunteers who have been the backbone of the Appalachian Trail from its beginnings in 1921. Last year, for example, more than 6,000 private citizens—most in the 30 affiliated clubs under the ATC umbrella—contributed more than 200,000 hours of both outside and inside work to the trail from Maine to Georgia.
The Internet-based clearinghouse, under development since March 2007, is supported by grants from the National Human Services Assembly (IMPACT: A Fund for Change through Volunteerism) and Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI).
Scheduled to speak during Saturday’s events are David N. Startzell, executive director of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and immediate past chair of the American Hiking Society (organizer of National Trails Day); Pamela Underhill, National Park Service superintendent for the Appalachian National Scenic Trail; Rebecca Harriett, superintendent of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park; and Lee Sheaffer, PATC president.
Nearby on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the park is coordinating a series of National Trails Day hikes. (See more information, see http://www.nps.gov/hafe/parknews/upload/National%20Trails%20Day%202009.doc.)
ATC manages the trail and the 250,000 acres of resource-rich public lands through which it passes, in cooperation with the Park Service, the USDA Forest Service, and agencies in 14 states. It employs 42 people year-round at the Harpers Ferry headquarters, a publications-distribution center in Kearneysville, W.Va., and regional offices in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. Comprehensive information about the trail and ATC’s work can be found at www.appalachiantrail.org.
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