The Konnarock Crew built about 200 feet of new Appalachian Trail paths on Catawba Mountain around McAfee Knob in recent days — splitting rocks, digging through underbrush, leveling out trails and measuring each step down to the right angle, to the exact degree.
The volunteer group was started in 1982 and is named for the small community that sits at the base of Whitetop Mountain on the border of Smyth and Washington counties — the crew’s former base camp. It works from Virginia to Georgia in conjunction with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. The crew was created to handle multi-mile relocation projects that came as a result of federal legislation in the late 1970s that allocated funds to acquire private land for a continuous Appalachian Trail — at the time, hundreds of miles of trail still sat along highway shoulders, said Kathryn Herndon-Powell, ATC Virginia’s regional director.
On Monday, it finished up its last workday after a long week. It was the crew’s 13th work session since April.
This session’s crew of nine focused on trail relocation along one of the most popular stretches of the entire trail, with a goal to make it easier for hikers to find a campsite instead of creating impromptu paths by trampling vegetation. Over the years, hikers and campers take shortcuts, which create unintended trails where people might get lost, Herndon-Powell said.
The volunteers cover up those trails and reroute them to remove a confusing juncture. It’s part of an ongoing project on Catawba Mountain to improve campers’ experiences. The project is a huge lift — literally, with about 125,500-pound logs used, transported to the work site through a 400-foot high line system, similar to a zipline.
Twelve tent pads — or flat ground with log borders where people can set up camp — were built further away from the trail during prior sessions, which are new for the AT, Herndon-Powell said. The project has also involved building dozens of stairs out of logs that connect to a stream and a bathroom facility.
The work of turning the ground to trails starts with Scot Brevick, from Georgia, who on Monday was “roughing in” the trail, or making an outline of where it would be in the underbrush. He then digs out the soil with an axe until he gets to the mineral part of the ground — which will see less erosion.
Donna Miller and assistant crew leader Brittany Hendricks were busy “perfecting” the trail that had already been dug out. This involves spreading the berm — or the hump on the edge of the trail made of dirt and plants — so that water can flow past the trail, removing any humps and bumps in the trail and creating a specific angle that water can flow past without eroding the trail.
That would be 45 degrees on the edges, with a five-degree slope, which Hendricks uses a level to measure, although it’s apparent she can estimate to the degree just by looking at the ground.
“It gives you a lot to appreciate,” she said of the meticulous work. “I turn into a positive Karen when I see people off trail now.”
Miller, who’s new to the crew, is from central Pennsylvania. She said she retired in June and “needed something to fill her time that brought her joy.”
Meanwhile, down the slope, Steven Besore, the crew leader, was busy directing a group that was flipping a rock into a hole that was dug for it.
Besore is from Mount Airy, North Carolina, and said this is his second year with the crew. When he’s not working with trail crews, he said, he’s hiking or canoeing. It’s his 17th week working on the trail this year, and he’s about to travel up to Vermont to continue work until November.
His section of the crew Monday morning was working on building steps that climb up a slope. He said it’s so rocky that the crew only completes about two steps every eight hours. He said small excavators are sometimes used to build trails, but he thinks they dig far too deep and work better for mountain biking trails, not hiking trails.
The volunteers go through orientation at the beginning of the week, he said, which includes a safety briefing on all of the tools they’re using. For example, they learn what the “blood circle” is — hold your tool out at arm’s length and spin in a circle. Nobody should be standing near that circle, lest they get hit with a pickaxe.
“Every piece of PPE [personal protective equipment] we have on is because a volunteer got hurt,” Besore said, laughing. The volunteers all wear umpire knee and shin guards from Play it Again Sports and hard hats while they work. He said they adjust practices as issues arise.
Whatever trail is left to be built when the Konnarock Crew wraps up this week will be built by the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club — a group of mostly retirees that works on over 120 miles of the AT. They work on the trails about once per week, Herndon-Powell said.
Herndon-Powell said spending just one day building or maintaining a trail can give someone an appreciation for the work and precision that goes into a trail.
“The AT has the best volunteers anywhere,” Herndon-Powell said. “I do worry about it,” she said of the possibility of declining volunteerism, “but I also think we’ve been so lucky for so long to have an incredible volunteer workforce.” She said this year, the ATC actually had a waitlist because the group put a lot of effort into recruitment for the Konnarock Crew.
She said she has heard people remark that it’s “lucky” that the mountain just happens to have log stairs, not realizing that those stairs were built by hand.
“Every footstep that you take is a lovingly-crafted bespoke, custom to this exact location,” she said. “It’s hard work, a lot of sweat, and a lot of problem-solving on the spot. It’s a beautiful tradition.”
Herndon-Powell said at the end of each season, she makes a piñata for the crew in the shape of something representative of the year. This year’s piñata represents a cooler that was chewed on by a bear during the session, she said.
