History Hike with Tom Johnson- exploring the old AT from Three Ridges Overlook to Dripping Rock -7/11/2020

Saturday, July 11 seven PATC members gathered at Three Ridges Overlook for an investigative hike.  Tom Johnson, SSVC member and former PATC president, ventured down from Front Royal.  He was interested in seeing the old abandoned Appalachian Trail that ran from Three Ridges Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway, through the woods (NPS and ATC borders), up into Wintergreen Resort, and finally ending at Dripping Rock where it connects to the relocated Appalachian Trail. Tom has written a book on the history of the Appalachian Trail, which will soon be published and had a desire to hike this section that he had researched, but never seen. Marit Anderson, hike leader, gathered a group of his old friends, including Iva Gillet, Bill Holman, John Shannon, and Marian Styles, and organized the day.  Mark Perschel, hike leader, assisted the hike and also spent many hours the day before clipping tall vegetation in the woods leading up to Wintergreen from Three Ridges Overlook...creating a walkable trail and also marking GPS points where the four visible white blazes can still be seen on the trees. As history goes, Wintergreen was a planned resort community, which lay astride the route of the AT. The developer, Lewis Payne, began to develop the property in 1976. He was not unfriendly to the trail, but the trail would run along streets and houses, which would not be the ideal trail envisioned in the National Trails System Act.  He agreed to sell the land to the ATC and the funds were acquired with NPS funds and Congressional Appropriations. The reroute was moved to the west and included a nice view at Cedar Cliffs Overlook.
We had a beautiful day, fairly cool for July, very breezy with clear skies.  As we hiked, Tom would interject historical facts of the AT and its creation over the years.  We took our time, the trails are rocky and steep in most of that area through Wintergreen, stopping for lunch at an overlook facing west with views of Sherando Lake, and ended at Dripping Rock with a safe-distance shuttle (one passenger at a time) set up at the end of the hike to retrieve the cars.  The only sad part of the day was that Jeff Monroe could not join us as planned. Make sure to check out Tom Johnson's book, From Dream to Reality-the History of the Appalachian Trail when it is published and will be sold through the Appalachian Trails Conservancy.

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submitted by Marit Anderson