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The East Is Still Rebuilding What Helene Took
Detours, demolished shelters and closed trailheads from North Carolina to New York, as the northbound season winds down and southbounders come through.
A stretch of the Appalachian Trail through the Appalachian Ranger District remains closed, with a detour in place at Iron Mountain Gap routing hikers around the last few miles, from roughly a mile south of the destroyed Cherry Gap Shelter to about a mile north of the gap. Fire restrictions have been in force in the Roan Mountain area since the storm raised the fire danger, and crews are still laying gravel by the thousands of tons on forest roads.
In Virginia, road reconstruction in the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area closed Whitetop Road and the Whitetop trailhead along with the observation point; the trail itself stays open where it crosses. Elk Garden and Beach Mountain are the alternates.
New York and New Jersey have their own list. The Appalachian and Ramapo-Dunderberg trails are detoured through Harriman to cross the Palisades Interstate Parkway by the Anthony Wayne overpass. The Breakneck and Wilkinson Memorial trailheads, and the Breakneck Ridge train station with them, stay closed into mid-2027. A section of the Highlands Trail in Byram is shut while a Superfund site is addressed.
In Vermont, Taft Lodge on Mount Mansfield closed on September 8 for repairs — the oldest and largest overnight site on the Long Trail, at 105 years old, is getting its rotting sill logs replaced. The bridge over Homer Stone Brook north of Little Rock Pond is gone until crews replace it; hikers rock-hop just east of the old site.
The season is turning over as all this happens. Northbound finishers are thinning out and southbounders and flip-floppers are taking over the trail, which is the stretch of the year when a stale closure list costs you the most.
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