COVER STORY
In June 2016, as a massive thunderstorm system triggered mudslides, rockslides and catastrophic flooding across the mountains of southern West Virginia, Nancy Harris’ thoughts turned to the Greenbrier River Trail (GRT). “My first thought was that it would be wiped out,” Harris said of the trail she has ridden almost every day for the past 30 years. “Then it was: What can I do to help?” Luckily, the trail, while damaged in places, wasn’t wiped out. And, when cleanup began in the region, Harris figured out how to help: by cleaning toilets. “I volunteered to clean the bathrooms along the trail,” Harris told me over coffee at a Marlinton, West Virginia, restaurant a block from the trail. That way, she figured, the tiny West Virginia State Parks maintenance crew—who oversees the entire 77.1-mile rail-trail (rtc.li/wv-greenbrier-river-trail) as well as two other nearby state parks—would be free to do the heavier lifting, repairing washed-out roads and clearing fallen trees. “They were more than glad to be relieved of that.” Harris was given permission to drive the crushed- stone trail, which hues to the emerald-green Greenbrier River as it carves through the verdant spruce forests and golden valleys of the Allegheny Highlands, but the 77-year-old retired vocation rehabilitation counselor was determined to ride. “I put a broom and a Swiffer on the back rack of my bike, carried the toilet paper and the hand sanitizer and the cleaning stuff in a backpack, and just took off!” she said. Sometimes Harris would begin her janitorial duties from her home in Lewisburg, West Virginia, about 5 miles from the trail’s southern terminus; sometimes she would drive to a trailhead farther north and start from there. Either way, each of the trail’s six bathrooms was serviced every week.
PHOTO: The Greenbrier River Trail meanders through 77 miles in Pocahontas County and Greenbrier County (pictured here) in West Virginia. | Courtesy Experience Greenbrier Valley.
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