The Blue Ridge Trail....... a work in progress

Got the files and look forward to getting out there soon. Thanks very much for the effort. Super thorough!

I hope this is the right place to ask these kinds of questions...

Can anybody recommend a place to safely park and leave a truck/trailer in the Damascus/Abingdon area? We're driving up from Birmingham and it seems like a decent home base. Is the leg from Damascus to Wytheville a good full-day's ride?

Also, We're not geared up for camping. Basing my plan on the reverse of error_cooled's 4-day report, is it feasible to do the trail finding hotels each night?

We'll be up there next week! Very excited, but I feel under-prepared!

Most motels will let you leave your truck there for a week. We left ours in Princeton, but a inmate volunteered to let us leave them at his place in that area too. You should be able to find motels along the route, we camped most nights but ate in towns and there were always motels.
We had a great time, thanks error cooled ! The route is great! Much more gravel/dirt than I expected, and that's a good thing. It was monumental for error cooled to put together a 1000 mile loop like this. Can't thank him enough. We are going to do it again the other direction next time, we started from Princeton and went clockwise from I 77 this time. My wife is posting a "Ride Report"soon.

And Damascus/Abingdon are not like big cities. Your vehicle would likely be quite safe parked there for a few days. Do ask permission of the motel however.

Niiiice - looking forward to it.

Also just stumbled across this group's video on the trail. I hear them mention DSA in the video. Is this anyone on here?

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I believe some of those guys are on here. Some are on a local forum I'm on and I believe it was mentioned to post up that ride here also.

That's the ride I lead about a month ago. We rode the first 150 miles north to south before camping and riding back the next day. I'm planning on running the whole route next weekend solo. Going to try and do it in two days and then slab it back on the third day.

I'm not much on taking pictures or ride reports but I'll see how it goes. Anyone want to give me some tips on a garmen gps using base camp?

Present. I was on the ride, but haven't made it through the whole video to see if I make an appearance.

What, my directions weren't clear as mud? You have a laptop? Gonna be in DSA this week? I can stop by after work. Easier to show than explain.

I'll be there tomorrow.

WTF? error cooled's whole BRT or what route you talking about?

The whole trail west of interstate 81. Plan is to make it to Blacksburg on day 1. The rest on day 2. Then hop on 81 and ride back north on day 3.

Gonna be a little damp here (SW Virginia) this weekend. Bring your rain gear.

not sure what whole route you intend to ride brt consists of about 900 miles Sieg and I rode 800 miles of it last week so you'll need to haul ass if you intend to cover it in 3 days

I have a distinct feeling that he won't have any problems rolling the miles.

I'm in there as well, though not much camera time for me.

I just booked a room at the Econolodge in Woodstock, VA. They said I could leave my truck there for a few days, and it looks to be pretty close to Mt Solon (I'm leaving the Shen500 and heading there).

I was trying to piece together a mostly off-road loop combining the TWVT and the BRT, but it looks like I'm going to attempt more of a down-and-back on the BRT, since I've got 4 (or, possibly 4 1/2) days to ride. I'm not wild about backtracking, but (for me) it's better than 80 miles of pavement to connect the two.

This should happen Oct 7, so I'll report back afterwards.

Backtracking is OK with me, all the downhills are now uphills and lefts are now rights.

What's the weather like around Thanksgiving? (Dec 1st maybe)

When I went on the little two day jaunt, we backtracked some of the same trails, and the consensus was that they were quite different northbound and southbound. Could have just been the second day talking, but northbound sure felt a lot more abusive.

The file has a a few alternate paths.. so you can vary up your route a bit coming back. I would make sure to get east between Big Island and Waynesboro. There are some great roads in the vicinity off of the parkwat that are also in the route - like Enchanted Creek, Shoe Creek and Pedlar River. You could add Coon Bridge FDR 1167 into the mix as well - although its not in the BRT file.

I rode shoe creek uphill this time thinking it would be easier. Maybe if it wasnt raining and I could see the wet rocks that were throwing me around it would have been. I should really stop doing this solo.