Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 13, 1993 TAG: 9310150347
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It is a trip through grasses and sedges and clumps of spruce and groves of northern hardwoods that lead to another era, another ecosystem, where some scenes are more Montana than Virginia. There is no question, this is one of the finest riding areas in the Eastern United States.
``It is just so peaceful and quiet you can lie down at night in your old tent and hear the crickets and the mountain critters chirping, and it is just very satisfying. It will calm your nerves when nothing else can,'' said Sheppard, who lives in the foothills of the recreation area.
Joane Keen likes to ride the Mount Rogers region, too; in fact, she did 20 miles of trail the other day, but on a mountain bike, not a horse.
``Mount Rogers is an absolute wonderful place to ride,'' she said.
So nice, in fact, that she wants to expand her Blowing Rock, N.C., mountain- bike outfitting business into Mount Rogers by offering organized rides and guide services.
When she requested a permit to do that, Steve Sherwood, the area forest ranger, sent out a scoping notice addressed to ``Friends of the Jefferson National Forest.'' It declared that Keen's proposal was consistent with the management direction of the forest plan for Mount Rogers.
But Sheppard and some other horseback riders didn't agree. Especially hard for them to swallow was Keen's request to use the Virginia Highlands Horse Trail, a facility they covet as their own, although the forest plan classifies it as a multiple-use.
``I can tell you there is no horseback rider that will give up the Virginia Highlands Horse Trail, not any part of it, for bike use,'' Sheppard said.
Conflicts between horseback riders and mountain bikers are not uncommon in the West, but this is a new issue for the popular Mount Rogers area, said Sherwood. He has been the area ranger for nearly two years, and his hobbies include both horseback riding and bike riding.
The nearly 150,000-acre Mount Rogers National Recreation Area, which stretches for 60 miles along the south side of Interstate 81 from the New River to the Tennessee line, is laced with trails. There are hiking trails, including a 60-mile chunk of the Appalachian Trail, horse trails, off-road vehicle trail, motorcycle trails and cross-country skiing trails - 350 to 400 miles of them. For the most part, they are multiple-use, meaning they are shared, with the exception that bikers can't ride in the region's three wilderness areas and only hikers may use the Appalachian Trail.
Sherwood would like to see multiple-use continue because it allows visitors to combine a number of trails into loop trips, something of a rarity in the East.
``If you start divvying up the trails, what that means is this trail is going to be for bikers only, this trail is going to be for horseback riders only, this trail is going to be for hikers only," said Sherwood. "So part of the loop is going to be off limits to someone.''
Horseback riding, hiking and backpacking are well entrenched in the area, particularly in the high country, where the retreat of the Ice Age left behind a spruce-fir forest, a bit of a Canadian boreal clinging to the rooftop of the Southern Appalachians.
There are no hard figures, but Sherwood said some trails can measure their use in ``tens of thousands'' of visitors annually.
Initial figures from a visitors survey being conducted for the forest service by Virginia Tech shows that 66 percent of the users in the high country last summer through fall were hikers-backpackers, 22 percent were horseback riders and 12 percent were others, which included mostly berry pickers but some bikers, said Joseph Roggenbuck, associate professor of forestry at Tech.
Mountain bikers are the new kid on the block. Their sport took root in the West about the time the forest plan for Mount Rogers was being written a dozen years ago.
Some horseback riders, who were using Mount Rogers before it became a national recreation area, have a problem with bikers suddenly showing up to ride trails that they helped build. Things really turned sour last month when a newspaper in the region mistakenly called the Virginia Highlands Horse Trail the Virginia Highlands Bike Trail.
Trail ownership isn't the only issue. Horseback riders like Sheppard say mountain bikes pose a safety hazard for them, a point that Sherwood believes is valid.
``There is a potential for a horse to get spooked by a mountain bike, just as a horse can sometimes get spooked by a backpacker,'' Sherwood said. ``There are concerns on a narrow, steep trail, when you have a mountain biker coming down about 10 to 15 mph and it is a single tract trail.''
But Sherwood believes education and trail etiquette can overcome many of these concerns. So do certain horseback riders, like Brother Moore, a farrier who lives in Wythe County.
``I don't have any problem at all of running into a mountain bike when I am horseback riding, because if you ride a horse you are going to have to get him used to all of this stuff. The worst thing I have had a horse spook from is a wild turkey or a grouse.
``I shoe horses for a living and I see horse people every day. What 99 percent of the people tell me is we are just going to have to share. If we say, `This is our trail, we don't want anybody on it,' then bikers are going to pick a trail and say `We are bikers and don't want you on it.'''
That trend may have started. Sheppard said he plans to organize a committee of horseback riders to study maps and trails to determine which should be for horses only, which can be shared and which can be ``sacrificed or given up.'' He wants the bikers to do the same.
Sherwood welcomes citizen input, especially now, when the forest plan is being revised, but he warns:
``We want to take a comprehensive look at the entire trail system. We don't want to take a piecemeal look and end up with some chopped up solution.''
Keen said she wants to contribute to the solution, not the problem.
``As an outfitter and guide, that is part of what I see as my responsibility when taking people out, not only to provide them a safe and enjoyable experience, but to educate them about how to ride responsibility. The more people we work with, the less the conflict between groups.''
by CNB