Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 4, 1994                   TAG: 9405040141
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TRAIL MORE THAN WHAT MEETS EYE

Johnson, 21, and other students from the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind on Tuesday tested a new trail through a sunny meadow, a fragrant pine stand and a gurgling stream in the George Washington National Forest.

``I love to write,'' Julie Roberts, 14, said as she leaned on a bridge rail and listened to a small waterfall. ``It's areas like this that really inspire me. I feel at peace.''

``It sounds like bubbles popping,'' said Teresa Richeson, 13.

The George Washington National Forest learned Monday that it has been awarded a $10,200 federal grant to develop the interpretive trail in partnership with the state school in Staunton. Trail designers and teachers took a group of visually impaired students out on the trail Tuesday to determine what needs to be done to make the hike so accessible that people unable to see, hear or walk can experience serenity in the Appalachian forest.

``I want a blind person to be able to come out and walk this trail alone, if he or she wants to, after being dropped off and later picked up,'' said Kay Lanasa, a Forest Service environmental education specialist.

The Americans with Disabilities Act passed last year requires any new trail construction in a public forest to be accessible to the disabled.

It's a process that needs a lot of preparation and field testing. For example, Lanasa said, the platform overlooking a beaver pond needed to be low enough for people in wheelchairs to see over but high enough to keep blind people from toppling over.

Jenny Davis, 16, swung her white cane from side to side along the three-foot-wide trail and led the group. When she entered the woods from the meadow, mobility specialist Elaine Goff worried that the pine straw on top of the fine gravel would confuse blind people because it's similar to wild grass on the trail border.

``No problem,'' Jenny assured them. ``I can tell the difference.''

``Oh God, I'm afraid,'' Johnson said as she began to enter the woods. But she smiled broadly when she smelled the violets before the trail guides could see them.

In a few weeks, the students will return with tape recorders and transcribe their thoughts on braille writers.