It’s too cold!”

I love hiking. You should too. Not just because it’s a great exercise —which doctors say you aren’t getting enough of. But also because it gets you outside in nature and around history, which you have no business living in the area if you aren’t the least bit interested in.

So, after an entire winter of making dumb excuses to not hike (“It’s too cold!” “I’m too busy!” Etc.) I decided that, confronted with the reality that spring has finally sprung, it was time to get off my ever-expanding duff and start hiking.

Now, there are many truly great places to hike in the area, but none is as truly, dauntingly awesome as the Appalachian Trail. And you don’t even have to hike all 2,175 miles to enjoy it.  Those parts in Northern Virginia are best travelled at this time of the year, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, as  “summer heat and humidity can be oppressive.”

There is a trailhead in Keys Gap near Harpers Ferry, W.Va., just off of Route 9 as one enters Jefferson County. This is roughly 16 miles from the center of Leesburg, and is well worth the trip.

Just last week, I decided to take an early Monday and walk into Harpers Ferry from Keys Gap, a side trip as I was on my way to visit my parents in Charles Town. I arrived at the trailhead at about 3 p.m., and had to turn around at about 5 p.m. in order to make it back to my car in time for a home-cooked meal, but I covered roughly nine miles in four hours with a bum ankle, a personal best if not any particularly astonishing athletic achievement.

And boy, in addition to negotiating plenty of ankle-turning rocks and shoe-sucking muck, there was plenty of pretty stuff to see, too. 

Looking back into Loudoun County or over into Jefferson from Keys Gap is an impressive site. I didn’t run into any particularly interesting wildlife up on this stretch of the Appalachian Trail, but I know they are around.  I recently saw a bear while hiking at Gambrill State Park near Frederick, Md., an adventure I will relate in a future column.

It is only rated as “moderately difficult” terrain by the ATC, but I would not recommend this trail for those who are just getting active after a long period of indolence, or if you suffer from joint pain. If you feel like you are up to it, though, it really isn’t too bad. I can handle it despite the fact that my ankles are probably in worse shape than my 83-year-old grandmother’s. Just know you will feel it the next day, and you should have an ice pack and ibuprofen available.

One piece of advice: don’t be impulsive like your humble editor and decide you are so good at hiking that you can do it on the drop of a hat, while wearing slip-on Vans. You can’t. That is dumb testosterone and poor planning talking. Wear real shoes, bring water and stretch, dummy.