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

DATE: MONDAY, July 3, 1995                   TAG: 9507040015
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FAMOUS TRAIL HITS A SNAG IN ITS FINAL MILES

We are talking about the effort to give the Appalachian National Scenic Trail a permanent and public corridor from Georgia to Maine.

So close, yet so far away is the message being repeated this week in Harrisonburg, where more than 1,000 hikers have gathered at James Madison University for the 30th meeting of the Appalachian Trail Conference.

The trail people are there for hikes, workshops, exhibits, business meeting and speeches, but what they aren't doing much of is celebrating. Four days before the conference began, the House Appropriations Committee deleted most National Park Service funds for land acquisition. No funds were earmarked for the AT.

Forty-three miles of trail right of way yet to be secured may not sound like much, but it is scattered over more than 450 tracks totaling about 20,000 acres. The conference says it needs $25 million over the next three years to complete the project.

David Startzell, executive director of the conference, had warned members of pending money problems well before the Harrisonburg meeting.

``Imagine: You are walking along the Appalachian Trial in the year 2000, and, every three hours or so, you come to this sign: `The next quarter-mile is no longer part of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail,''' he said in a letter to trail supporters.

There had been an understanding that if the federal government would allocate the funds necessary to acquire a protective corridor for the trail, the conference and its affiliated clubs would provide the long-term stewardship of the pathway, Startzell said during a conference address Saturday evening.

The 31 clubs, including the hard-working Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club, have been doing their part, swinging picks, moving dirt, muscling rocks, clearing blowdowns, painting blazes. ``Now it would appear that the leadership in Congress no longer intends to honor this long-standing covenant,'' Startzell said.

Representatives in Congress need to get some heat, he said. ``There is more than one way to achieve a balanced budget, and it must not be at the disproportionate expense of our environment or our quality of life,'' he said.

``I would say we are a little angrier than we might have been in any other year,'' said Brian King, the conference's director of public affairs.

Even before the Harrisonburg meeting, letters were going to congressmen and senators. Roanoke AT club members had met with aides to Virginia Sens. Charles Robb and John Warner. ``Bill Lamson and I met with Rep. Bob Goodlatte and were pleased to hear his support for the trail,'' said Jimmy Whitney, the club president.

No state has a greater stake in the trail than Virginia, where one-fourth of the 14-state pathway resides. Few urban areas are blessed more by the AT than the Roanoke Valley, where the trail leaps from ridge top to ridge top, like a long, thin national park, visiting Dragon's Tooth, McAfee Knob and other natural wonders along the way.

While Startzell told conference members that he could no longer assure them success; the trail, frankly, is too big, too important to fail. Its soul remains strong. In time, it will be completed. But the longer that day is delayed, the greater the cost, and many of the scenic places now available for a price could be plundered.

Let's get the job done in the 20th century.