Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 4, 1990 TAG: 9007070165
SECTION: MOUNT ROGERS PAGE: 7 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
On the way, it passes Weaver's Grocery, a combination gas station-grocery store-restaurant, near Konnarock in Smyth County.
Inside, Bill Weaver turns from the grill with such a friendly greeting for a stranger that the visitor wonders if he's been mistaken for someone Bill knows. The coffee is on the house.
The business was built by W.E. Weaver, Bill's dad, who turned the operation over to his son and daughter-in-law, Carol. The old man still is in and out.
"I put the first place in here you could get a sandwich, put the first public restrooms in here, put the first self-service gas pumps in, had the first ABC sales in here," he said, chatting from behind the counter near where his son fried eggs and bacon.
Business hasn't been bad, but Weaver would like to see better roads and more tourist facilities for the national recreation area. He is for development.
"We fool a lot of people," he said. "Like they come off the interstate where a big sign says `Mount Rogers National Recreation Area.' They figure there are going to be a lot of things to do. Restaurants and those kind of places. It is just not here, and they get disappointed."
Let them weep, is the feeling of Robert McKinney, a novelist and magazine author who lives in Sugar Grove. He would just as soon those signs be taken off the interstate so tourists would breeze by unsolicited.
"My best advice is to enjoy the view of Mount Rogers from Interstate 81 on your way to Opryland," he said.
McKinney is for preservation. He questions why anyone would want to mess with something so close to heaven in altitude and other ways as the Mount Rogers high country.
Preservation has had the upper hand since Congress enacted the Mount Rogers Act nearly 25 years ago, creating a 154,000-acre holding to protect the scenery and provide outdoor recreation.
As late as 1970, a Winston-Salem, N.C., consulting firm predicted 7.5 million visitors would be flocking to the region by the year 2000. They would come to a New River impoundment the size of Smith Mountain Lake and to the winter skiing complex, the summer swimming-fishing lakes, the dude ranch, the 63-mile scenic highway, the resort lodges that were envisioned for the national recreation area and Grayson Highlands State Park.
The lake, proposed by Appalachian Power Co., was blocked by scenic-river legislation and the grand plans of the national recreation area fell victim to the swelling cost of the Vietnam War and, often, the lack of support from citizens in the area, some smarting from the fact that their land was being condemned for the project. Even the Jefferson National Forest planning team had second thoughts once it undertook its task.
"We were concerned that [the planned development] would bring outside capital in there and get away from local control and we would get another Gatlinburg," said Charlie Blankenship, the chief planner who retired earlier this year.
Out of that concern came the Mount Rogers Planning District, one of the first regional planning organizations in the state, a model for others to follow.
By 1980, a revised Forest Service plan was projecting 2 million visitors annually. Last year, about 1.5 million came, according to the best figures of Larry Grimes, a Jefferson National Forest ranger who is administrator of the recreation area.
Many people in the region have the feeling - troublesome to some, exciting to others - that the Mount Rogers Area is a jewel about to be discovered.
Halfway between the Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains national parks, the area is served by Interstates 81 and 77.
"I think within five years that place is going to be found by people in the middle of North Carolina. The people out of the hot areas are going to come to the cool, mountain areas," Blankenship said. "If Ohio and the Lake States were more affluent right now, we would be into development already, but they have their own economic problems."
While the plans of the Forest Service have been toned down, Blankenship remains concerned about the unchecked development that could occur on adjacent private lands.
"I think the people need to get ahead of the problem. If you look at Cape Cod and some of these other places, things had gone to hell in a hand basket before anybody did anything about them."
Some people see plans to widen or relocate U.S. 58 as a threat; others think it is long overdue.
"You put in a transportation system, which is the first step of economic development, or you pay the money in social programs through the years," said Dink Shackleford, the mayor of Damascus and an administration specialist of the Mount Rogers Planning District Commission.
Shackleford, a motorcycle-riding paraplegic, knows the urgency of access, but his frequent visits with tourists on the streets of Damascus undergird his awareness of the importance of preserving the area's rich culture and natural beauty.
"Change is coming," he said. "The thing is, we either are going to have it pushed down our throat or we are going to have a hand in that change and help shape it and develop it in the future."
In recent months, growing numbers of local citizens have been banding together in behalf of orderly change.
"The tourists who come here aren't as afraid of these winding roads as the politicians cry that they are," said Lenora Rose, an artist who lives in Mouth of Wilson.
She helped organize Graysonites For Progressive Change late last year, a group that is saying U.S. 58, from Lee County to Virginia Beach, doesn't need to be widened to four lanes in the Mount Rogers area. An improved two-lane is sufficient.
Better roads are required more for residents getting to and from jobs outside the area than they are for the tourists coming in, Rose believes. Tourists don't stay away because the roads can make them white-knuckled and wide-eyed. "They come here for what we are and what we have - the unspoiled beauty of the Mount Rogers area."
Doug Ogle, one of the area's best-known naturalists, likes to climb Whitetop Mountain and watch the ravens ride the updrafts when the wind whistles against the north-facing cliffs.
"They basically just float straight up 300 or 400 feet . . . just tumble like kids on a carnival ride."
While that is the only permanent carnival ride he wants to see in the region, Ogle doesn't consider himself anti-development.
"I guess I fall in the line of, develop what needs to be developed and save what needs to be saved and be sure you know which is which."
One thing never to be developed is the region's three wilderness areas.
"Of course, the federal law that we passed requires that they remain in their current conditions," Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, said. "With regard to access to those areas, I am for significant improvement."
Boucher endorses the state's plans to upgrade U.S. 58, and he also is seeking federal funds to improve Virginia 600.
Family campgrounds in the national recreation area, which receive the flow of Winnebagos and Airstreams, also need to be enlarged and new ones developed, he said.
"My sense is that the campgrounds are very heavily used."
Unlike the Reagan years, the '90s will be a decade when Washington shakes loose funds for recreation, Boucher believes. "I think we have a new day in that."
Earlier this year, the Jefferson National Forest gave the go-ahead to develop a 100-acre, horseshoe-shaped recreation area along the meanders of the New River in Carroll County. Tucked between the Buck and Byllesby dams, it will contain a family campground with flush toilets and showers, along with a swimming pool, camp store and canoe access to the river.
The Virginia New River Trail State Park runs through it, and long-range plans call for linking that trail to the Virginia Creeper Trail. This would mean a hiker, biker or horseback rider could travel from Pulaski all the way into North Carolina without having to intrude onto a major highway.
The Forest Service also is planning a major camping facility for horseback riders in the east end of the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area. A site is expected to be selected by mid-summer, Grimes said.
While do-it-on-your-own backpacking and hiking opportunities were the cry of the '60s and '70s, the aging baby boomers want developed recreation facilities, Grimes said. Locating the family campground and the horse facility in the east end of the recreation area is designed to address those needs while protecting the wildness of the high country to the west, he said.
Some people believe the high country already is attracting so much use that a permit system should be considered to control visitation.
"I think the overuse has reached the point that to me it is seriously hampering the overall recreation experience," said Tom Heffernan, a horseback rider who is a Forest Service real estate agent.
On a weekend or holiday, May through October, the alpine high-country meadows can attract up to 300 riders, he said. "It can get horrendous up there."
Trails are being damaged; litter is a problem, he said. Club riders carry a special long-handled tool so they can pick up litter from horseback. They often come out of the backcountry with saddlebags bulging with trash.
Nancy Gilliam, a backpacker-cross-country skier from Mouth of Wilson, said she counted 150 beer cans left behind by one riding group.
There are some highly popular areas - Wilburn Ridge is one - where use is heavy, Boucher said, "but even that is not to the point, I think, which should be subject to some kind of use limitations. I believe the days when we have to consider that are still far into the future."
by CNB