AFTON Far down the trail ahead of me, a bright light punched a hole in the darkness, beaming like a small moon. This truly was the light at the end of the tunnel â about 4,200 feet away. A shaft of nearly total blackness stretched between us and the other side of the Claudius Crozet Blue Ridge Tunnel, a historic, 163-year-old railroad passage where steam-powered trains once powered through Afton Mountain, which straddles the Augusta and Nelson county lines. Now, after having been sealed for more than half a century, the tunnel is open to walkers and bikers. My family recently took a day trip to Augusta County, about 90 minutes from Roanoke, to walk through the belly of a mountain.