As America has transformed, so too has its celebrated footpath. Less than half the A.T. remains where it was originally laid.
Robert Weiss of Tewksbury, Mass., left, photographs his brother-in-law, Matthew Ferri of Dracut, Mass., and his wife, Andrea Weiss, just before sunrise from their campsite on the Appalachian Trail in Beans Purchase, N.H., in September 2017. (Robert F. Bukaty/AP)
By Lizzie Johnson and Lauren Tierney, Washington Post
MCAFEE KNOB, Va. — The morning fog had just begun to clear as the hikers made their way uphill, beckoned by a series of white blazes splashed on the trunks of hardwood and tall pine, the paint cracked where the bark rippled and whorled.
It was a weekday in mid-May on the Appalachian Trail, and their footsteps were muffled by the forest. Away they hiked — from the cramped parking lot glittering with vehicles, from the frenetic buzz of highway traffic, from the busyness and anxiety that compel people to step out of their lives, if only for a few hours, and escape into the wilderness.
Here, on what everyone calls the A.T., it was quieter. The leaves on the oaks were pearled with rain. Mushrooms erupted from softened logs, and in the crepey mass of damp leaves on the ground, roses and purple irises bloomed, sweetening the air.
One woman, a sweatshirt tied around her waist, pulled at the retractable leash of her German shepherd. She passed two brown-haired sisters in oversize T-shirts, hunched beneath the weight of their backpacks. With each step, their cooking pans tinkled like wind chimes. They paused beside a device that counts the hikers passing by on the trail.
“Did you know?” a sign read. “McAfee Knob is considered the most photographed spot on the Appalachian Trail.”
Four more miles uphill was the landmark, where hikers meet the open sky. The rocky ledge — at 3,200 feet — resembles a diving board. In the valley below, creeks slanted through the green. There were pinpricks of farms and shaved fields. The vast ocean of Jefferson National Forest lapped the horizon.
This panorama atop Catawba Mountain draws more than 50,000 people each year, causing a logjam and necessitating a seasonal shuttle to the trailhead on weekends.
“Once at the top, you can’t put words to it,” one hiker wrote on the popular outdoor website AllTrails.
But for almost a decade, McAfee Knob wasn’t part of the A.T. at all.
Read the full story here and see maps of the relocated trail
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