Good times on the Appalachian Trail

I hiked the Appalachian Trail on vacation. Honest.

Unlike the unfortunate governor of South Carolina, I have the photos and blisters to prove it.

As for the trail itself, we didn’t exactly hike the whole thing. After all, it runs for more than 2,000 miles, from Maine to Georgia, and we had only a couple of days.

However, we did cover almost 20 miles on the AT on two hikes in Grayson County, some of it scrambling over rocks, some of it a pleasant walk in the woods.

We trekked to the rooftop of Virginia — Mount Rogers, the state’s highest peak — and to a stunningly pretty high-mountain meadow called Scales, where years ago ranchers took their cattle to be weighed.

And aside from the occasional hiker or two, we saw almost no one.

In the backcountry, it is easy to find solitude but not so easy to find a cell signal. It seems to be one of the few places left where you have to be extremely technologically equipped — which I’m not — just to receive e-mail. There is no Facebook and no Twitter. The only blackberries are the wild, juicy ones growing along the trail. The blueberries are excellent, too.

(My one technological indulgence was having a daughter at home text me the nightly scores of the St. Louis Cardinals’ games. I didn’t really want to know anything else.)

We saw few people and no bears, but plenty of wild ponies that roam Grayson Highlands State Park, a couple of whom even chased us down trails. Well, “chased” might be a little strong. It was more like they were strolling in the same direction we were, apparently searching out the same berries.

Sleeping in a tent in the woods for a few nights is like rebooting your internal computer — except, of course, you don’t have a computer.

It takes some getting used to, but it’s a good thing.

My son and I capped off the week driving to Cumberland Gap, more than 400 miles from Richmond and the westernmost point in Virginia. We followed the footsteps of Daniel Boone, who helped blaze the trail through that famous V-notch in the mountains that proved to be a crucial gateway to the west in the late 1700s.

The last 30 miles of Virginia, along U.S. 58, from Jonesville to the gap, is as appealing a drive as you’ll find anywhere in the state, the rolling green pastures set against a dramatic, seamless mountain backdrop. In spots, it’s like driving through a painting. A historic painting.

This is, essentially, the paved version of the old Wilderness Road, which hundreds of thousands of pioneers followed through the gap to the western frontier. It’s no longer wilderness, but it hasn’t been developed beyond recognition, either.

Along that stretch, there’s a pizza place, an occasional convenience store and a fine little Mennonite-run grocery and bakery called The Dutch Treat — try the pumpkin roll — but not a whole lot else. There’s no Gap at the gap. There’s not even a Wal-Mart (although there is one on the other side of Jonesville and another in Middlesboro, Ky., on the other side of Cumberland Gap, proving it isn’t that remote).

Other than Wilderness Road State Park (which is well worth a stop), there’s nothing that would qualify as what those in the tourism business call an “attraction.“ Except the place itself.

Lucas Wilder, one of the young park rangers who led us on a terrific tour of a cave in Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, was born and raised in Ewing, a community along U.S. 58, a few miles east of the gap. He loves the place, and he said he even sheds a little tear every time he sees the “Welcome to Lee County” sign because it means he’s home.

I can see why.

Asked what there is for tourists to do along that stretch, he was almost apologetic in saying not much.

“That’s a good thing,“ he said, “and a bad thing.“

No, I think that’s a good thing.

Bill Lohmann is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.