As the extent of the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene becomes clearer, an American monument that benefits dozens of towns faces historic destruction: the Appalachian Trail.
According to the criteria of
The 2,000-mile trail along the U.S. East Coast and Southeast attracts millions of hikers each year and provides an economic boost to towns along the route. But Hurricane Helene recently became the most destructive natural disaster the century-old trail has ever seen, uprooting trees, destroying bridges and leveling stone steps, making large portions impassable, reports the conservation entity that manages it.
Damage from flooding, high winds and tornadoes was present in many of the 14 states the route touches, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy said.
“The scope and magnitude are historic,” Sandi Marra, president of the organization, said of the damage. Although it was not yet possible to assess its full extent, I anticipated it to be widespread.
The conservancy plans to assess the damage and prioritize the hardest-hit areas, Marra said, but the timeline for clearing and rebuilding the trail won’t be quick.
“I can’t imagine it being normal by 2025,” he said.
Some portions of the trail may need to be retraced, forcing hikers to use roads, he said. Parking lots at trailheads may have been washed away, and both small hiker bridges and road bridges used to reach the trail may be gone.
The entity’s website notes that many of the towns are also urging visitors not to come in order to prioritize recovery. Across the region, the hurricane sent water and mud falling from the mountains. As a result of the flood, some small towns were practically isolated from the outside world.
“No one can hike the Appalachian Trail without these communities,” said Gary Sizer, who hiked the trail in 2014.
The conservancy recommends hikers stay off the trail in some parts. And the national forests the trail passes through in North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia are closed.
The storm has made parts of the trail “precarious and dangerous,” says Janet Hensley, who helps hikers from a van every year and is known to many of them as Miss Janet. “You could spend half a day going through a group of trees blocking the road,” Hensley said of the damage.
Communities in the path of the hurricane, which claimed more than 200 lives, are still suffering from power outages, water shortages and communications failures. “There are people who are literally struggling to get water and food,” Marra said of the residents.
For decades, the Appalachian Trail has held a special appeal for hikers, with many attempting, and the most intrepid succeeding, to hike its entirety.
“It’s a very diverse trail,” Sizer said. “In Georgia, it’s a lush, humid place, with rolling hills, kind of quiet. North Carolina is your first experience above the tree line. By the time you get north, you’re literally climbing hand-to-hand, you’re not just walking.”
A week before Helene made landfall in Florida, Tara Dower, 31, completed the north-south trek in just 40 days, hailed as a new record on the Appalachian Trail.
Ordinary hikers, who take five to seven months to hike the entire trail, face many challenges even in lighter times. Sizer said that in the White Mountains of New Hampshire he had encountered a storm “with winds so strong I thought someone had tackled me.”
#Hurricane #Helene #Appalachian #Trail #sees #historic #damage