Guest River Gorge trail notes
I went on a
brain-cleansing hike Wednesday at the Guest River Gorge. As the name
suggests, the river runs between steep cliffs, paralleling the trail
and providing a soothing soundtrack for the entire day.
The trail itself is one
of those rails-to-trails deals, meaning that it's more of a road than a
trail. If you go on a pretty weekend, the place is packed. But at 8 am
on a Wednesday morning, I saw no one until I'd walked all the way to
the end and was 50% of the way back. Perfect!
The only really hard
part of the trail is the length --- 5.8 miles one way...then you have
to walk uphill for the entire return journey. I'm intrigued by the
option to instead take a left just before the end and follow the Heart
of Appalachia trail over to Sugar
Hill. But I've never been able to find the connection on the Sugar
Hill side, so I'm a bit leery. (The connection on this end was
well-marked and obvious.)
Despite the
high-trafficked nature of the upper two to three miles, the Guest River
Gorge Trail is a good spot for botanizing since it's located at a high
elevation. I was very taken with these purple-flowering raspberries, in
full brilliant bloom. (Although my reading suggests it's not worth
going back in search of the berries --- as with the Pacific Northwest's
salmonberry, the prettier the flower, the more insipid the fruit.)
Views like this one put
any slightly insect-damaged plants in my own garden into perspective.
But my favorite spot was
a particular part of the cliff that captured the sound of the river and
turned it into an ocean-like symphony. I hesitate to tell you exactly
where it is --- if I do, you have to promise not to leave your trash in
my favorite location and not to show up at 8 am on a Wednesday morning
to steal my hideaway.
Promise? Good. Just at
the two-mile marker, you'll see a ledge easily accessible via a short
scramble up a scree slope. Clamber on up, then lie back and relax. 99%
of passing hikers won't even know you're there and the roar of the
river will lull you into true relaxation. Enjoy!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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