Catastrophic damage closed swaths of the Appalachian Trail. Now thousands are working to restore it

By Graham Hurley, CNN

(CNN) — For Terry Wise, the Appalachian Trail was so special that he made it his home. But now, with Hurricane Helene leaving hundreds of miles of the trail in ruins, the future of his business and the trail’s wide-reaching community is uncertain.

“It is like a bomb went off, like the entire forest is flattened and all the trees are down. …It is indescribable,” said Wise, a veteran and owner of Uncle Johnny’s Hostel in Erwin, Tennessee, a well-known hostel among hikers steps off the iconic East Coast trail.

Nearly two months after Helene left a fatal path of destruction across several Southern states, hundreds of miles of the world’s longest hiking-only trail remain closed. Volunteers from 31 trail clubs, along with US Forest Service and National Park Service staff, are spearheading a massive cleanup operation, hoping to ready the trail for the upcoming hiking season but their task is daunting.

The Appalachian Trail extends for almost 2,200 miles across 14 states – from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. The destruction from Helene is widespread across the trail’s 1,050 miles of main and side paths in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, including an estimated 300 miles of “catastrophic damage” that may potentially result in some rerouting of the trail, according to the Forest Service.

“We knew it was like nothing we’d ever seen. After the event, we shed tears. I shed tears,” said Michelle Mitchell, director of recreation, wilderness, heritage and volunteer resources for the Forest Service’s Southern region.

Portions of the trail in North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest suffered the most severe damage and remain closed. Meanwhile, other national forests like the Cherokee National Forest, which spans parts of Tennessee and North Carolina, have reopened but officials say safety isn’t guaranteed in sections previously closed in the wake of Helene.

The damage was in part caused by excess water from the storm that saturated the soil, making trees lose their grip on the ground and crash into each other when Helene’s strong winds hit the area, said Franklin Tate, an associate regional director for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the organization responsible for managing and protecting the famous trail.

“They’ll be two, three or four of them (trees) crisscross, and the root balls will be 10 feet in the air,” said Tate, describing the current trail conditions. “There are places where you lose sight of where the trail actually is. You can’t, you don’t know, unless you have a map on your phone or, you’re able to kind of crawl through it.”

In addition to fallen trees blocking the trail, the conservancy is concerned rain could lead to landslides and storm debris could become fuel for wildfires. Emergency services are also limited in areas with partial closures, the group said.

Towns and businesses need the trail’s traffic

The Appalachian Trail is more than a footpath for many people. Every year thousands of people attempt to hike the entire trail or “thru-hike” it, and about 3 million people visit portions of the trail, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.

Because there are dozens of towns along the trail’s corridor, businesses depend on its foot traffic and hikers rely on them for supplies, food and rest.

When the Nolichucky River in Tennessee burst its banks, half of the cabins at Wise’s hostel in Erwin were flooded. The foundation of the hostel’s store was ruined by debris and mud flooded into the cabins, damaging furnishings, Wise said.

“Imagine throwing out everything, just everything,” Wise said. “The worst part is sometimes you think you can save things. …I thought I could save the (hostel’s) store, I thought maybe we could rebuild the foundation. And every contractor I talked to was just like, ‘It’s not worth it,’” Wise said.

He bought Uncle Johnny’s Hostel in 2021 as a way to give back to the trail after completing a thru-hike a few years earlier.

In October, Wise hiked a part of the trail known as Temple Hill Gap, which is a few miles south of his hostel in Erwin, and the conditions were “indescribable,” he said.

“If you were looking from high enough up, it would just look like somebody dropped a bunch of toothpicks, but they’re toothpicks that are, you know, 50-75 feet long,” Wise said.

After cleaning the debris out of the hostel and its surrounding area, Wise said the hostel’s main cabin, store and two other cabins were torn down. Although the rebuilding and repairs have not yet begun, Wise wants to reopen by spring.

“People in town ask me daily how it’s going because they care about me, but also because it impacts them,” Wise said. “We want to serve the hiker community and have the economic activity driven by outdoor enthusiasts back in this town. We’re committed to it.”

Like in many communities up and down the trail, Helene wreaked havoc in the small mountain town of Hot Springs, North Carolina. The town, about 30 miles southwest of Erwin, cannot handle many visitors because its lodging businesses were damaged and remain closed. And farther south, the city of Asheville had been under a boiling water advisory until this week, making it difficult to accommodate anyone looking for places to stay or eat.

Ed Clark, superintendent of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail with the National Park Service, said the opening of the trail is a massive priority for the land management agencies, which they hope will get tourists back in the area as some businesses largely depend on both thru- and day hikers.

“Beyond the personal property damage that they’ve experienced, this is really a key time for them … the end of the year (that is) making the difference for them in terms of their revenue streams,” Clark said.

Last year, visitors spent more than $2 billion in western North Carolina in the fall season, nearly 30% of the annual visitor spending in the state’s mountains, according to a post-Helene budget recommendation report by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s office.

Volunteers and federal government are working together to clean the trail

The number of people – usually in the thousands – who regularly maintain the trail has been growing in the past weeks as more people join the efforts to tackle the gargantuan task of cleaning up the trail.

The Carolina Mountain Club, the oldest of the trail’s 31 maintaining clubs coordinated by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, has recently seen a surge in volunteers, said Paul Curtin, the club’s trail maintenance supervisor.

Since Helene, the club’s members have descended on the more than 90 miles of the trail they oversee with hand saws and axes, or brought experienced chainsaw workers to remove fallen trees; and they have filled root ball holes with rocks, dirt and leaves. Curtin says he is hopeful they can get their portion of the trail fully cleaned by the end of the year.

Some of the volunteers have already worked to restore homes damaged by the storm and now are assisting on the trail’s repairs because they want to give the community an outlet for their physical and mental well-being, Curtin said.

“To see all the debris piled up and people’s lives laying by the side of their house, it’s really tough mentally,” Curtin said. “It’s really helpful to be able to get out in nature and enjoy that clean, fresh air, and get in the mountains and see the beauty, and get a little break from some disaster fatigue.”

The local maintaining clubs are collaborating with federal agencies for the cleaning process, which started in the least damaged areas before moving to the more heavily damaged portions of the trail, said Mitchell with the Forest Service.

The total cost of the repairs along the trail remains unclear while officials continue assessing the full extent of the wreckage, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy said.

But earlier this month, the US Department of Transportation announced it was allocating $43 million in emergency funding to the Forest Service and the National Park Service to make critical repairs in national forests and parks in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Officials said they don’t have an exact timeline for when the trail will fully reopen and it is unlikely to happen before spring, which is the start of the 2025 hiking season. In the meantime, the conservancy said it plans to post notices about problematic areas and provide detours to help hikers navigate around them and rejoin the trail.

Hikers are changing their plans to help

Terra Caballero, 27, was planning to proceed with her thru-hike earlier this fall after an ankle injury made her suspend her trip in May.

Instead of resuming her voyage, Caballero decided to volunteer in the hard-hit Asheville area when she heard about the devastating damage.

“Since I have the time, since I have the passion, the drive and the love for the space, I am quitting my hike because I think it’s more important to put my energy where it’s needed,” Caballero said in a video she posted on Instagram.

While she couldn’t complete the trail, Caballero wanted to return some of the “grace and acceptance” she received from people on the trail who genuinely wanted to help her.

Caballero said she has cleaned mud out of homes and helped residents collect personal belongings from houses ruined by the flooding.

“I think right now, one of the beautiful things that we’re seeing is that desire to continue to give back and that sense of solidarity,” Caballero said.

Since the cleanup began in Erwin, a driver known by hikers as Steve with Unicoi Shuttle has driven volunteers around town for free as some detour their hikes to assist with the recovery process.

“I take them to wherever they’re volunteering at, pick them up in the day, take them back to the hotel. All my rides around here are complimentary. That’s my way of trying to help them out,” the 63-year-old said.

Craig Stivers, a 51-year-old from Florida, was staying at Wise’s hostel in Erwin when Helene struck. He had hiked the trail in 2018 and returned to hike portions of it.

In the aftermath of the hurricane, Stivers slept in his tent outside the hostel and helped in the cleanup efforts around Erwin for two weeks. He left only because his home in Florida was in the path of Hurricane Milton.

“I took a lot from the trail; it gave me a lot. And for me, this was like giving back,” Stivers said.

Just like hiking the Appalachian Trail, volunteers and officials agreed the repairs and cleanup after Helene’s havoc would be a complex journey for the trail’s enormous community.

The human and ecological communities that make up the trail will recover “in nature’s time” with attention, and if “we hold ourselves accountable,” said Mitchell with the Forest Service.

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