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Simply Appalachia Brad Trumbo
"Are you comfortable taking your rig up there?" I asked Derek as we peered up the 30-percent grade ahead. "Oh yeah!" He replied, as he dropped the 2000-model Jeep Cherokee into fourwheel-drive and dumped the clutch. Water had eroded a formidable crevasse across the old Forest Service road, but the Jeep lurched ahead. Contorting and clawing its way across the gap, the rig leapt up the far side, seemingly excited by the challenge, and successfully conquering the only obstacle separating us from a trailhead leading into one of Appalachia’s brook trout strongholds.
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In February, 2018, I returned from the Pacific Northwest to my Virginia home for a brief visit with family. The weather was unusually warm and attractive and the Blue Ridge Mountains were calling. I moved to Washington State in 2011 where I reside, working as a fish and wildlife biologist, but I will forever be faithful to and mourn my separation from my Appalachian roots. Derek Blyer has been one of my best friends for nearly twenty years, and we share a passion for deciduous forests and adipose fins. Hence, some time on the water is not an option, but a requirement
