Blue Ridge Country July/August 2022 - 8

FROM THE EDITOR
SMALL STREAM, BIG IDENTITY
Little Tinker
Narrow, 12-mile Tinker Creek, in Roanoke, Virginia, has
gained fame far beyond its size for several notable reasons.
Text and photo by KURT RHEINHEIMER
I
t's a tiny little flow, especially at its headwaters on
the side of a relatively small mountain. It builds in
size from a jump-across to almost full-stream size
over its approximately 12-mile flow, before it disappears
from the map and the world into a small river.
Perhaps one hint at its outsized identity is that
over its brief blue life, Tinker Creek makes its way
through parts of three municipalities-the counties of
Botetourt and Roanoke and the City of Roanoke, Virginia.
Is there a more famous-for-its-size waterway than little
Tinker Creek? Its headwaters, on the north flank of its
namesake mountain, are not far beyond the point where
Tinker Mountain makes a sharp hook after presenting the
drama and viewpoints of Tinker Cliffs.
From its modest start at about 1,950 feet in elevation-
the high point of the same-name mountain is about 1,000
feet higher-the little creek builds momentum and size
slowly, paralleling the mountain as it glides south for
those 12 miles until it achieves stream size and then flows
unceremoniously into the Roanoke River.
But those 12 miles have gained outsized fame, perhaps
most importantly via Annie Dillard's 1974 Pulitzer
Prize-winning " Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, " written from her
home and in the Hollins College (now University) library,
both in near proximity to the stream. The book is the result
of some 20 journals filled with her observations and
thoughts on Tinker Creek and which brought the stream
into a collective consciousness in some parallel to one of
Tinker Creek, just upstream from its flow into the Roanoke.
the book's inspirations, Henry David Thoreau's book on
Massachusetts' Walden Pond.
More recently, as the Appalachian Trail evolved from
an obscure, aficionados-only walkway into a much more
popular and more visited entity, the magic of Tinker
Cliffs-offering majestic and inspiring views across the
Catawba Valley and upon layers of blue mountains reaching
westward into West Virginia-gave the noun " Tinker "
a further reach into the minds of many.
In 2001, the Roanoke Valley Greenways Commission
brought into being the first section of the Tinker Creek
Greenway, a paved trail paralleling the creek's last and
largest 1.4 miles, further ingraining the name in people's
minds.
The next section of the Tinker Creek Greenway,
opened in 2012, does not parallel the Creek, but its 2.3mile
length is scheduled, sometime in the future, to link
with one of the several proposed routes of what will someday
bring even more fame to the name Tinker Creek: a
full-length-of-stream greenway.
Tinker Creek has become an important little subset of
Tinker Creek has another
area where it punches bigger
than its size: a 6,528-foot
tunnel into Carvins Cove.
8 BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
the penchant of The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All and
I to take a hike somewhere in the Virginia mountains every
weekend. One highlight, some years ago, involved the
realization that while the flow of Tinker Creek and the expanse
of Carvins Cove-our city's primary reservoir-are
separated by the nearly 3,000-foot Tinker Mountain, little
Tinker Creek has another area where it punches much
bigger than its size: At times of low water in the reservoir
and a certain level of flow in the stream, the gates open
for a 6,528-foot, six-foot-diameter tunnel to deliver water
from Tinker Creek through Tinker Mountain and into
Carvins Cove.
One more piece of big identity for a little stream.
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Blue Ridge Country July/August 2022

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