Length/Kind: Roughly 10 miles (one-method, out-and-back), part described here is roughly the route’s northern half; Difficulty: Difficult (steep grades with few to no switchbacks; deep mud and failing trailbed in places); Other Concerns: Trail use might require permit charges for some customers; connection to Breaks Interstate Park requires hiking or riding on a busy highway with little to no shoulder. Path distances referenced beneath are approximate as a consequence of spotty GPS reception. Update (October 2019): Since the initial publication of this evaluate, now we have learned through a public data launch that the Virginia Division of Environmental Quality has cited Spearhead Trails’ parent agency, the Southwest Regional Recreation Authority, for “deficiencies” related to erosion and sediment control on newly-constructed portions of the Russell Fork Trail. You possibly can view DEQ’s inspection notice here. Equally, Breaks Interstate Park officials have notified us that makes an attempt have been made to improve and/or restore among the path inside Breaks Interstate Park. For the past few years, we’ve been cataloging regional hiking trails throughout the Cumberland Mountains of southwest Virginia, northeast Tennessee, and southeastern Kentucky. Our area has not seen many new nonmotorized trails constructed in recent times, however that’s changed this summer season with a brand new route – the ten-mile Russell Fork Trail – that connects the town of Haysi, Virginia with Breaks Interstate Park, an excellent park on the Virginia-Kentucky border. The trail was constructed by Spearhead Trails, an initiative of Virginia’s Southwest Regional Recreation Authority, in partnership with Buddies of Southwest Virginia and different regional partners. The route’s funding was provided partially by a grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission.
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A new trail opening is normally a trigger for celebration, notably for an extended route. Nevertheless, that’s not the case right here. Whereas the multi-use Russell Fork Path does provide a path from near Haysi to the Breaks, experienced hikers most likely won’t like what they encounter. As a substitute of a graded, effectively-constructed path, this can be a mixture of bulldozer paths blasted out of the forest and current fuel well and logging access roads, with several sections of latest construction working nearly vertical up hillsides. There’s hardly any grading to the contours of the terrain alongside some of the northern half of the trail’s steeper stretches, bulldozed vegetation lies in piles along the route, and a current visit to the 10-15 foot-wide bulldozer observe found it lined in several inches of slick mud. Put simply, this path in its present state isn’t the kind of place people are going to be flocking from surrounding states to see, particularly given the region’s different, way more well-developed routes. Hopefully there will be some follow-up enhancements performed to convey this path up to the requirements of the region’s different nonmotorized choices.
Regardless of those drawbacks, we’ve decided to write down up the route right here since it is still a new member of the Cumberlands’ hiking options and has little info available on-line. For sweat pimples treatment this submit, we’re writing up the northern half of the trail, from Breaks Interstate Park to near Bartlick, Virginia (a settlement along the Russell Fork). We’ll keep this publish comparable in format to our others, however consider this intro a warning: what you’ll encounter on the Russell Fork Trail is a disappointingly far cry from southwest Virginia’s different hiking and mountain biking options. There are two formal trailheads for the Russell Fork Path: one at Kiwanis Park near Haysi, Virginia at the trail’s southern terminus and a northern trailhead close to the Breaks Interstate Park lodge. The trail’s managing company, Spearhead Trails, studies some confusing details about permitting for the route. Hiking seems to be free, but it seems that mountain bikers and equestrian customers need to pay differing quantities to use the same route; how that is communicated and paid upon users’ arrival seems unclear. These waters are muddied even more by the fact that Spearhead Trails appears to be levying an added entry price to use Breaks Interstate Park’s public property on high of the day-use fees already charged by Breaks Interstate Park itself – a transfer that could be the primary time in the South that an out of doors group has charged users simply for access to public lands managed by an entirely separate company. If that sounds confusing, you’re not alone.
The upshot of all this is to be sure to verify with park officials if you’re planning to visit the path as written up right here to avoid getting ticketed during your journey. From a kiosk positioned near the Breaks Interstate Park lodge, the Russell Fork Trail heads south, paralleling the park’s entrance highway again in the direction of the entrance gate on a crushed gravel path. Though the trail is advertised as non-motorized, that’s a little bit of false advertising by officials for this portion of the path in the park’s frontcountry, as it really doubles because the park’s ATV path. Anticipate probably quick-transferring autos alongside this stretch who will doubtless not bear in mind of non-motorized users’ presence. Earlier this summer time (as of August 2019), this initial stretch of trail was also a bit of a large number, as the trail was already sliding off the mountainside and its gravel washing down into the forest beneath. If you’re making an attempt this on a bike or horse, security is an actual concern here because of a number of deep, unstable, and eroded ditches running lengthwise down the path (not to mention the earlier point about incoming ATVs), and you could also be better off following the park highway itself. The crushed-gravel path soon traces the surface edge of the parking area for the park’s Towers Overlook and winds down to the entrance road at around 0.Four miles from the lodge.
At this point, it turns into even more obvious that the advertising and marketing of the route as a continuous non-motorized path from Haysi to the Breaks has been a bit deceiving; instead of continuing on a footpath out of the park, the path abruptly stops. As an alternative, you’ll need to show right and walk the asphalt of the park’s entrance road past the entrance gate and all the best way out to its junction with Virginia Highway 80. From here, you’ll need to show proper on Freeway 80 and stroll or experience your bike/horse down the highway a quarter mile or extra to a paved pullout on the proper. Take word right here that Freeway 80 may be busy, has little to no shoulder, and includes quick-transferring site visitors that isn’t conscious that trail customers are getting compelled out onto the highway. Here’s more in regards to sweat pimples treatment take a look at our site. Though there were no indicators to warn trail customers of this throughout our visit and even to mark the route alongside this stretch, bear in mind of the safety concerns earlier than you go. If you’re a horseback rider uncomfortable taking your animal into quick-shifting traffic in tight curves, this isn’t the path for you.
When you attain a horseshoe-formed pullout on the fitting at 0.75 miles from the lodge, you’ll discover the continuation of the actual path on the back of the pullout itself. The path looks extra like a bulldozed proper-of-manner underneath a powerline clearing, however a sign denotes the continuation of the trail. Observe the path up a remarkably steep climb with no grading for a short distance, and prime out on the ridge. From right here, you’ll be following a bulldozer path via one of the trail’s extra depressing stretches. As a substitute of using hand development or small excavators designed particularly for trail building, it appears that path crews simply ran a bulldozer by means of the forest. Toes-excessive piles of dead vegetation line the trail in spots, along with a minimum of one giant, uprooted tree that has been left to rot alongside the trail in one heavily-excavated space. Contemplating that you’re nonetheless inside the boundaries of Breaks Interstate Park right here, the work seems rushed and is of surprisingly poor high quality, particularly when in comparison with the park’s different trails and its basic design requirements.
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Erosion control measures appeared to be mostly nonexistent along the trail’s steepest stretches along a number of of the segments we hiked – something that may likely grow to be a liability because the path ages and we enter into the region’s wetter months. After a jaunt along the ridge separating VA-eighty from the Russell Fork Gorge, the trail then drops down off the ridge and enters another strenuously steep section as it descends to Camp Branch. This is more automobile-vast bulldozer path and was coated in a number of inches of slick mud throughout a current visit in August 2019. Regardless that the trail is only a few weeks outdated, storms appeared to already be washing mud and rocks throughout the path in just a few spots resulting from the mix of building on overly steep terrain, so take care if walking or riding this part, especially throughout periods of wet weather. You’ll ultimately descend to a spot just above Camp Branch Creek, flip left (the park’s singletrack Camp Branch Path turns proper on its approach to the Russell Fork), and meet dirt-gravel Backyard Gap Street approximately 1.5 miles from the park lodge.
