An intrepid cadre of trail volunteers had their work cut out for them as they gathered at first light at the base of Cold Mountain in the Shining Rock Wilderness. Their mission: trek deep into the backcountry to revive a trail edging toward disappearance.
The work day was a collaboration of the Carolina Mountain Club’s Wilderness Crew and Extra Mile Crew for a full south-to-north hike-through of the Fork Mountain Trail — the kind of route that quietly slips toward abandonment without regular volunteer maintenance.
Storms reshape the terrain, dropping trees across narrow corridors and eroding tread until sections collapse. Rhododendron advances quickly. A season or two without attention turns a passable route into a tunnel, then a wall, then a memory. These are the places where volunteers make the difference between a line on a map and a trail that can be followed…