Great Eastern Trail promises hiker heaven

Johnson's challenge is filling in a 159-mile gap between trails in West Virginia and northern Virginia. Some of the group's 6,500 members will scout possible routes in August and September, when they don't have to slog through thick underbrush or snow to scour the area.

In northwest Georgia, Larry Madden is organizing a group of 50 to finish a hole in the path network. "A few volunteers are getting a lot of the work done, but we've got a long way to go," he said.

Tom Kelliher, the president of Pennsylvania's Mid State Trail Association, has a 30-mile gap in the state's hilly northern region to fill. Teams of volunteers are busy searching for aging logging roads or traces of existing paths, but still, he said, construction could take five to six years.

Warren Devine, the former nuclear engineer who led the trailblazing effort at Little Possum Gorge, has been working for years to craft his leg of the trail.

Scouting out the backwoods, buying the property and negotiating its boundaries alone took years. State archaeologists and biologists have to probe the area, too, to make sure the pathway isn't disrupting artifacts or endangered species.

Building the trail itself takes the constant work of a team of volunteers who, each day, tear up the thick underbrush using giant rakes and painstakingly clear out rocks, roots and organic material to forge a gentle path. The squads can take a week to puzzle rocky outcrops together into a flat pathway, even longer if they're fashioning a staircase.

In a pair of rough work gloves, 51-year-old local locomotive engineer Monty Matney leads four trailblazers, helping them lug rocks to piece together a few steps. On a nearby ledge, Roy Wheeler, a retiree from Cape Coral, Fla., takes a breather as he watches Devine tiptoe out atop the waterfall.

"It's nice to be out here in the wilderness area with a group, instead of just hiking," he said.

Standing atop the cliff overlooking the rapid, Devine lets loose a relieved sigh as he looks at the latest piece of the trail. "It's going to be there much longer than all the paperwork I grind out," he said, straining over the clanking of the busy volunteers. "The staircase down there is going to last a century.

"It's one of the most rewarding things I've done."

If you go

Great Eastern Trail: http://www.greateasterntrail.org/.

Building the trail: To volunteer with the American Hiking Society to help build the Great Eastern Trail, visit http://www.americanhiking.org/ or call Jeffrey Hunter, 423-266-2507. Volunteer opportunities in 2006 are as follows, with more planned for 2007:

• In Tennessee, Cumberland Trail State Park, Oct. 15-21, and Lula Lake Land Trust, Sept. 24-Sept. 30.
• In Kentucky, Pine Mountain Trail, Sept. 17-23 and Oct. 8-14.

Portions of the trail that are accessible:

• Alabama Pinhoti Trail: 140 miles open for hiking, including Mountain Longleaf Pine forest, http://www.hmtc.org/.
• Tuscarora Trail, 250 miles open in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Maps available from Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, http://www.patc.net.
• Pennsylvania's Mid State Trail includes part of the Great Eastern Trail. Maps available from http://phoenix.goucher.edu/MSTA/index.htm.
• Tennessee's Cumberland Trail, 165 miles open, including waterfalls, overlooks and forests on the Cumberland Plateau. Details at http://www.cumberlandtrail.org.
• Kentucky's Pine Mountain Trail, steep, rugged and beautiful, with elk and other wildlife. Details at http://www.pinemountaintrail.com/.
• Maryland's Green Ridge State Forest was recently added to the Great Eastern Trail. Maps available from http://www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/western/greenridge.html.
• New York's North Country Trail (http://www.northcountrytrail.org/) and the Florida Trail  (http://www.florida-trail.org/) are not technically part of the Great Eastern Trail but abut the trail at its northernmost and southernmost points.

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