Hiking

Appalachian Trail extension in the works?

By Andy Thompson | November 13, 2012

The Chattahoochee River at Peachtree Corners, Ga.

This isn’t a Central Virginia item, but I came across it on one of my favorite websites — The Outdoor News Hub – and figured there’d be plenty of area hikers who’d find it interesting.According to Jeff Martin of the Associated Press, the Trust for Public Land has been working for years to acquire the land needed to allow hikers at the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail in northern Georgia to continue hiking all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. The AT ends near the Chattahoochee River‘s headwaters in the mountains of north Georgia, and the idea is for this new trail to follow the river south to the Florida border where it will pick up the Apalachicola River to the Gulf.The trust has already acquired and set aside 17,000 acres of land that touch 76 river miles from the Chattahoochee’s headwaters to Columbus. One Trust for Public Land employee said he thought the trail could be completed in the next decade.

The Chattahoochee is in dark blue.

It’s already amazing that the AT extends 2,184 miles from Maine to Georgia. Adding another 500 or so miles would make the trail that much cooler, and make completing the hike even more impressive.

 

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Posted In: Greenways, Hiking

Exploring C-Ville via the Rivanna Trail

By Andy Thompson | August 5, 2012

On Friday, a friend and I drove out to Charlottesville to do some mountain biking with another friend who’d just moved out there. The newly minted C-Villian (or is it C-Villain?) had been exploring the Rivanna Trail and said it was a great way to get to know the city. We spent about three hours tooling around the Rivanna and the steep, rocky trails of U.Va.’s Observatory Hill (gotta bring the big boy/girl quads for O-Hill). It was a lot of fun, and I wrote about the adventure in my column in today’s Times-Dispatch.

Crossing Meadow Creek on the Rivanna Trail

It’s absolutely worth the drive to spend a day running, hiking or biking the Rivanna Trail. And if it sounds like something you want to check out, definitely go to the Rivanna Trail Foundation website first. They have a few different maps and some written instructions for getting around on the trail, which is not nearly as easy as you’d think.

 

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Posted In: Greenways, Hiking, Mountain Biking, Trail Running, Travel

Google invades California National Parks

By Andy Thompson | July 30, 2012

Terrain360.com screenshot of Belle Isle

It looks like our friends at Terrain360.com might have company — and not just any company — in their quest to take camera-based mapping where it’s never gone before. Google has rolled its “StreetView” technology off the city streets and into five California National Parks. You can now get the same StreetView experience at Joshua Tree, Sequoia & Kings Canyon, Redwood, Yosemite and Death Valley national parks.

There’s a difference, though, and it’s a big one between what Terrain360.com does and what Google has done in those five parks. Richmond-based Terrain360.com actually takes you onto the trails in parks all over Virginia. Google’s mapping of five California national parks still relies on shots taken from the road in those places. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very cool to get a tour of Yosemite without having to go there, but it’s also very different from what Terrain360 is planning, say, with the Appalachian Trail in Virginia (offering a visual tour of the entire length of it).

Until the Googlers gets out of their cars and off the beaten, asphalt path — and I don’t see that happening any time soon — our friends at Terrain360 will still be the only ones in the country (as far as I know) doing what they do. Oh, and by the way, you can find their trail tours right here at RichmondOutside.com. Every local destination they’ve mapped, we’ve got a link to. Try Belle Isle, for instance.

 

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Posted In: Greenways, Hiking, Mountain Biking, Trail Running

Storm damage on Buttermilk Trail

By Andy Thompson | July 1, 2012

Buttermilk Trail was a mess yesterday afternoon. I actually didn’t ride all that much of it — just the section from 21st St. to Reedy Creek — because it was impassable in so many places. Sadly, the worst damage I saw was to the relatively new boardwalk skinnies over the wetland area not too far east of Reedy Creek. I remember when the city trail crew and a host of volunteers built this thing. It took a ton of labor and man hours to construct it. It might be a while before it’s open again. Here are some pics.

Looking east

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Looking west

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Looking west

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Looking east

 

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Posted In: Hiking, Mountain Biking, Trail Running

Richmond leads early “Best Town Ever” voting

By Andy Thompson | June 15, 2012

Credit: Jesse Peters/Backlight

In today’s T-D I offer my take on what it could mean for Richmond to win Outside Magazine’s “Best Town Ever” contest. This year the focus of the contest is on cities with a strong relationship with the river (or rivers) running through them. Outside teamed up with the non-profit advocacy group American Rivers to whittle a list of 80 or so cities/towns down to the 10 finalists. In addition to Richmond, the other finalists are Nevada City, Calif., Hood River, Ore., Nashville, Tenn., Asheville, N.C., Ithaca, N.Y., Milwaukee, Boise, Idaho, Missoula, Mont., and Durango, Colo.

Voting is being conducted on Facebook through July 10. You can vote once a day, every day. You can also post comments and upload your favorite pictures, which is just as important as voting since “enthusiasm” is a component of the final decision. The winning city will be featured on the front of the October issue of Outside — the magazine’s 35th anniversary issue.

As of this writing, Richmond was way out in the lead in both votes (close to 2,000) and enthusiasm (363 comments, dozens upon dozens of pics). Nevada City, Calif. is currently in second with 450 votes. It would be pretty cool to see the River City get some credit for being the incredible outdoor recreation destination it already is.

 

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Posted In: Birding, Canoeing/Kayaking, Climbing, Fishing, Greenways, Hiking, James River, Mountain Biking, Road Biking, Road running, Running, Trail Running, Travel