Just found a creek crossing shortcut on the Appalachian Trail near Roanoke that saved me 4 miles

Last month I was hiking through Virginia and a local pointed out this unmarked bypass around a big ridge, and I swear it cut out more than an hour of climbing, has anyone else stumbled onto a route like that that actually worked out?

3 comments

3 Comments

waderamirez11d ago

Yeah I read a blog post last year where a guy talked about a similar thing near the Shenandoah section. He found an old logging road that looked like it connected two parts of the trail and it shaved off almost 2 miles. But he also said it was way overgrown and he had to backtrack twice because the trail just disappeared. So there's always a gamble with those shortcuts. For every good one there's probably five that waste your time or get you lost.

ray56210d ago

Yeah, that "trail just disappeared" part is exactly why I stopped taking shortcuts like that. I ended up trying a similar thing once in the Smokies and wasted a whole afternoon bushwhacking before I gave up. @waderamirez, the only shortcut that ever actually worked for me was one a park ranger told me about, so now I just stick to asking locals or checking recent trip reports instead of guessing.

hannahj4910d ago

Shortcuts always look good on paper but fail in the real world, @waderamirez.