While travelling to and from the eclipse I pulled off the highway to ride two of southern Virginia's long rail trails, the New River Rail Trail on the way out and the Virginia Creeper Trail on the way back.
For the NRRT, I pulled off the I-81 at Draper Virginia where there is a trail head with parking. There's a fee for parking and it has to be paid with cash and there is no one there to collect it (they use the envelope system). I don't mind paying to use the facility, but I didn't have exact change on me, so I had to waste some time getting change. But that aside I rode was able to get underway and rode the trail north toward Pulaski. We rode to the trail end on the east side of the city (past Xaloy Way) where it ends just shy of the active rail line. There's another, longer path called the Dora Trail that connects to the NRRT just south of Xaloy and it leads into town to the Pulaski Train Depot, but we didn't have time to check it out. The trail is unpaved and the section we rode transition to farmland to woods, passing over two high railroad trestles and under I-81. Of course, this is just a short piece of the trail, in the south direction it goes all the way to Fries and Galax.
On the way back we stopped at the trail head of the Creeper Trail in Abingdon, VA. From there the trail goes all the way to the small town of White Top and the top of White Top mountain, coming within kissing distance of both Tennessee and North Carolina on the way. The Norfolk and Western rail line it follows use to go to Elkland, NC (Todd, NC) so maybe it will be extended at some point. We didn't bike this time, since I had some crabby boys with me but we did hike down to Wye Park where a spur of the rail use to push off a little to the east. At the trail head there's a restored train that mildly entertained little boys, though they wanted to climb on/drive it and could do neither.
On the way home from Abingdon we got redirected by WAZE because of an overturned tractor-trailer on I-81 and I got a glance at the Huckleberry Trail (another option that is half rail to trail and half rail-with trail) in Christiansburg as we drove underneath it. Still a 4th option would have been the relatively new Salt Trail from Glade Spring to Allison Gap. But those will have to wait for next time.
Not to nit-pick, but I think you mean I-81. The short sections of the Creeper Trail (largely where it's concurrent with the Appalachian Trail) that I have seen look fantastic, and the photos of the New River Trail look great too.
Posted by: Purple Eagle | August 29, 2017 at 06:49 PM