Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 9, 1990 TAG: 9005090600
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: AUSTINVILLE LENGTH: Long
Now there's a railway route for grown-ups to play on, too.
The New River Trail State Park, 57 miles of rail bed converted into Virginia's skinniest park, winds through some of Southwest Virginia's most scenic, historic areas - from Pulaski to Galax and Fries.
Here, people of all ages can seek their own adventures, whether it's fishing, hiking, bicycling, horseback riding, canoeing, camping, or any combination.
"I think we have a tourism asset that we should advertise to people beyond our borders," Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, said during his fifth annual wilderness trek last weekend.
About 25 guests turned out for the six-mile walk and overnight camping and canoe trip sponsored by Boucher and Virginia Southwest Blue Ridge Highlands, an umbrella economic development group for the region.
Boucher told the group that recreational opportunities in this neck of Virginia's woods have "been a secret for too long."
If state park officials have anything to say about it, the New River Trail State Park will help change that.
Scott Flickinger, the park's superintendent, said the trail has already attracted 23,000 visitors this year - and only half of the linear park is open. The northern 29 miles will open in sections as trestles are renovated.
When completed, Virginia's newest state park will meander for much of its length alongside the second oldest river in the world - the New, a misnomer tourists should find charming.
And lately, tourism is the buzzword in Grayson, Carroll, Wythe and Pulaski counties, where the park is located.
Local officials tout the intersection of interstates 77 and 81 as the "Crossroads of the Blue Ridge," and are counting on travelers to stop over at the state park and neighboring communities.
Ironically, those highways contributed to the demise of Norfolk Southern's North Carolina Branch, which hauled commodities from the mountains of Southwest Virginia to Roanoke and points east a century ago.
In 1882, the tracks reached only to the tiny community of Ivanhoe, where iron ore was mined along Cripple Creek, said Ken Miller of the Roanoke Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society.
Twenty years later, the line was extended into Galax and Fries, and soon daily carried two or three freight trains loaded with timber, livestock and furniture. Passengers also rode the rails until 1951, Miller said.
Because of economic slow times for railroads in the 1920s, the route never reached the final 20 miles to Mt. Airy, N.C., as originally intended. And with the closing of zinc mines in Austinville in 1981, the traffic dropped to one train a week. The last train rolled down the tracks in Oct. 1985.
A few months later, Norfolk Southern donated the 80-foot wide right-of-way to the state park system, and the line joined 242 other rails-to-trails projects nationwide.
A user-friendly trail
The Washington-based Rails to Trails Conservancy, founded in 1986, has helped citizens convert a total of 3,000 miles of former railways. Virginia far outranks other Southern states, with 159 miles of trail.
Conservancy spokesperson Alicia Avery said the rails-to-trails movement combines the country's increasing environmental awareness with its ongoing health and fitness craze.
Many trails run through urban areas, where people feel the need for open space more acutely. In rural areas, Avery said, there is still some resistance among adjacent property owners to rails-to-trails projects.
"People generally have no concept that a managed park will be better than an abandoned railroad," she said. "We have the information now to prove it's not some god-awful thing that's going to be in their backyard - that it can be a real asset."
At first, landowners opposed the idea of the New River Trail State Park, Flickinger said. Although two landowners are still legally challenging the right of Norfolk Southern to deed the land to the state, most have come around, he said.
"They've seen respectable trail users," Flickinger said. Their fears of vandalism, trespassers and horses trampling their land have not come true, he added.
Indeed, some adjacent property owners are among the 60-some volunteers who make up the Friends of the New River Trail State Park, and have pitched in time and money to re-deck many of the 31 trestles.
The result is a user-friendly, 10-foot-wide trail that never exceeds a 3 percent grade and easily accommodates hikers, bicyclists, and horses, with the possibility of access for disabled visitors.
"What was easy for the trains is now easy for the hikers," Flickinger said.
Boucher's past excursions have included treks along the Virginia Creeper Trail - another old railroad line from Abingdon to the North Carolina border - and in the Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area, both in the Jefferson National Forest.
The congressman says one of his dreams is to link the state and national recreation systems, creating a corridor of natural beauty and outdoor recreation opportunities that runs from Pulaski to North Carolina.
That link is nearly forged.
The U.S. Forest Service will begin construction this year on a proposed $5.25 million park in the Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area, which abuts the New River park.
Boucher led an effort to get federal funding for the agency to buy 116 acres of land from Appalachian Power Co. On Saturday evening, at a campsite on the grounds of the future New River Recreation Area, Forest Service officials outlined their plans for the congressman and his guests.
The recreation area is nestled inside a horseshoe bend of the New River, and is bounded to the west by Round Top Mountain. It will offer the modern amenities, including a large swimming pool, about 120 recreational vehicle and travel trailer sites with individual electricity, sewer and water hook-ups, tent sites, group camping and picnicking facilities, boat launching and a camp-store.
The agency estimates that with the "crossroads of the Blue Ridge" just 20 miles away, an average of 1,300 visitors will be at the park at any one time.
Some of those folks will inevitably want to venture down the state trail where the old rail lines used to run. But superintendent Flickinger said the state park will likely remain undeveloped, with scattered primitive campsites, "to keep it so people can go in and see how the park looked 50 years ago and how it will look 50 years from now."
Not another Gatlinburg
State park officials said they plan to highlight the region's history and local culture, such as mountain music and crafts, as attractions along the trail.
Charles Blankenship, a retired recreation planner who will help develop plans for the park, said he and others see the park as a way to boost the lagging economy of Southwest Virginia by creating opportunities in the service industry.
By the same token, Blankenship said, "We are not interested in creating another Gatlinburg down there."
Thus, the region's future seems to hang in the balance between the good and bad of tourism - trying to increase access to natural resources while protecting them.
After three years of operation, however, there's not much indication Galax will become Virginia's version of the heavily developed Gatlinburg tourist area of Eastern Tennessee. Park-related businesses, such as canoe and horse rentals, bait shops, snack shops or private campgrounds, have yet to sprout up along the trail.
Although the welcome sign at the entrance to Fries says "Where the Trail Begins," the town of 750 may be out economically in the cold.
"Financially, it hasn't touched us," said Mayor Bill Warrick of the trail. And what with trying to find an industry for an abandoned textile mill and waging a legal fight with Galax - 3 miles upstream - over sewage in the New River, the town has had little money or energy left for promoting tourism.
At the northern end of the trail, in Pulaski County, supervisor Bruce Farris said the county is waiting to see how successful the park will be before making plans.
Farris said a study by the Rails to Trails Conservancy that points to economic growth associated with a trail in Wisconsin doesn't really apply to Southwest Virginia, because the Wisconsin trail is near three major urban centers.
"How many people are going to drive from Roanoke to use a trail that goes from Pulaski to Galax?," Farris said.
Although Farris said he supports the park, he added that gung-ho growth would quickly destroy its concept. "Who wants to go for a walk along the river and have nothing but people trying to take your money?"
For now, all land adjacent to the park in Pulaski County is zoned agricultural and residential, which will protect it, he said.
But Virginia Southwest Blue Ridge Highlands is confident the rural counties here can absorb a healthy tourism trade without harm.
Paddling down the New River, gentle as it flows between Ivanhoe and the shot tower, it's easy to sense the past in the sounds of an occasional bird cry, the gurgle of a small rapid here and there, even a distant tractor.
It's more difficult to imagine the future of this part of the New River.
Hitting the trail
Visitors to the New River Trail State Park can gain access to the trail at seven points, all of which are marked with a state park sign. For more information, call park headquarters at 699-6778 during business hours, or write New River Trail State Park, Route 1, Box 81X, Austinville, Va., 24312.
\ The Shot Tower Historical State Park, which is also park headquarters, off U.S. 52 near I-77.
\ In Austinville, off Virginia 619 near the new lead mine bridge.
\ In Galax, off U.S. 58 across from Vaughan of Virginia and off Virginia 721 near Cliffview.
\ In Fries, at the Fries Park caboose, which serves as an information center for the park, and off Virginia 721 at the low water bridge.
\ In Ivanhoe, at the Depot Lot off Virginia 639, one block south of Virginia 94.
by CNB