Bikers and the Trai

Aaron Kremer writes a travel piece in the Richmond Times Dispatch of 17 June 2007 titled "Bike brothers; For five days, duo traveled by the seat of their pants through Va. national forests". Kremer and his brother Benny took what sounds like it was a memorable trip together at the end of the school year last May 2006.

Down in the middle of the article, Kremer writes

"The Appalachian Trail was a dotted line on our map. We planned to meet up with it in the evenings, assuming camping would be close. From previous hikes, I knew about where we could spend the first night. Craig County is almost 50 percent national forest, and we found paradise where the AT swoops down from one mountain and crosses a gravel road along a stream before heading up the next ridge. We washed our faces and feet in the frigid water, sat on a Boy Scout-built bridge and cooked by campfire.

"After the second day of pedaling, we were somewhere past a penitentiary in Bland County when we figured we ought to start looking for a place to camp. Again, we easily found the trail crossing, but this time, there was only a gravel parking lot and a depression near a creek separated from the lot by a few pine trees. Empty potato chip bags and soggy Hustler magazines littered the pebbly soil. 'It's kinda close to the road - seems like the place kids come to drink,' said Benny, kicking a broken whiskey bottle. 'I don't want to get harassed tonight.'

"We walked our bikes south on the AT for 20 minutes, but it was too steep for camping. So we returned to the road, saddled up and pedaled a 20-mile loop before returning to the same spot, this time hungrier and resigned to the possibility of being molested that night.

"There was a creek 10 feet away. Benny walked across a swinging foot bridge and found a campsite used by two AT hikers. It was overrun with poison ivy, but suitable.

"'Mind if we camp here with you guys?' I asked them.

"'Ahh, normally we don't like camping near nonhikers, but you guys seem OK,' said the man, who looked to be in his mid-20s. He warmed up to us, offered us some of his tuna and talked about quitting his technology consulting job in Chicago to hike the trail. The woman had an Australian accent. They said they had met farther south."