Trail blazers

By CAITLIN SULLIVAN/Staff

Frank Kilgore and his three dogs have been roaming Clinch Mountain for years. He’s completed nearly 120 miles of a worn trail along the ridge from Burke’s Garden to Gate City.
“This has been a thruway for game, natives, settlers, hikers for hundreds of thousands of years,” Kilgore said pointing on a map to a dotted line meandering along the Washington and Russell county border. “When I walked on it, it was difficult to keep finding a trail. I wanted a well-marked trail.”
When the state bought the 4,800-acre Channels State Park on Clinch Mountain, which includes a maze of 30-foot tall stone crevices, Kilgore and Mountain Heritage, a regional conservation organization, began looking at building a foot trail along the Clinch Mountain ridge from Hidden Valley Lake 10 miles eastward to the Channels and Route 80, then continuing on from Hayter’s Gap 11 more miles to Laurel Bed Lake.
Now, four years later, Kilgore’s dream is becoming a reality.
For the past five weeks volunteers have spent their Saturdays at Hidden Valley with hand tools, digging eastward. So far they have completed one mile of the trail and have another nine to go before completing phase one of the project. They plan to complete phase one within a year, Kilgore said.
“It can’t be done without volunteers,” he said.
Mountain Heritage volunteers gather at the Low Gap parking lot of the Hidden Valley Wildlife Management Area off Route 19 on Saturdays at 9 a.m.
Mountain Heritage has been around for more than a dozen years “preserving, maintaining and promoting the natural cultural resources of our region,” said Kilgore, project coordinator. The group’s past efforts include building the Clinch River and Sugar Hill trails near St. Paul, publishing two educational books on area wetlands and cleaning up polluted dump sites.
Claude Gable works part time organizing the 50 volunteers and laying out new segments of the Clinch Mountain Trail.
“It has been a joy being up on a new wild place that I didn’t know about,” said Gable, who grew up in Konnarock. “Even when I was in the rain, in the middle of a mountain laurel patch I was happy to be there.”
The trail will average around 3,800 feet in elevation and travel through Southern Appalachian northern hardwood forests, high elevation cove forest and calcareous cliff plant communities.
In addition to providing access to the wilderness of Clinch Mountain and its ecological richness, Kilgore said the trail will benefit the region on a broader scale as well.
“The eco-tourism potential in Southwest Virginia hasn’t even been scraped,” Kilgore said. “The more people from outside the area come in and benefit, the more local people will appreciate it and benefit. It’s good for the legs, lungs and spirit.”
The first phase of the trail passes through the Hidden Valley Wildlife Management Area, Brumley Cove Baptist Camp and Channels State Forest. About halfway between Hidden Valley Lake and the Channels there will be a spur trail down the mountain to the Brumley Cove Baptist Camp, which can be used as an access point to the trail or a place to fee camp while hiking the trail.
“In Southwest Virginia there aren’t a lot of resources and I think wilderness is one that we have,” Gable said.
Kilgore said the trail will help people both in and outside the region.
“We have bad health statistics around here,” said Kilgore. “The more you can get people out and about exercising, the better off you’ll be.”
For more information on the trail and volunteering contact Claude Gable at (828) 768-0794 or at luther_g73@yahoo.com.
To contact Caitlin Sullivan call (276) 628-7101 or csullivan@wythenews.com.