Ideas help develop Outdoors Plan

People who enjoy outdoors recreation and some of those who make it available gave Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation planners a wish list of items they’d like addressed in the 2013 Virginia Outdoors Plan. Hikers, bikers, and equestrians and officials from agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service and the Wolf Creek Indian Village and Museum, gathered at the Mount Rogers Planning District Commission office in two sessions Wednesday.

The sessions, among 42 held across the state since December and continuing through March, were designed to garner public input shaping the comprehensive plan for meeting outdoor recreation, land conservation and open space needs. The plan is required by the Code of Virginia since 1965 and updated every five years.

“The staff will take this information and we’ll talk about setting priorities,” said planner Lynn Crump, who is responsible for the Southwest Virginia region represented by the Mount Rogers Planning District.

The plan “helps all levels of the public and private sectors meet needs pertaining to those issues,” its website said.

One need, identified by Lynn McKinney, Sugar Grove resident and planning district commission employee, was for a toilet facility to be provided at the quarter-mile walking trail adjacent to Sugar Grove Combined School.

USFS Area Ranger Beth Merz of the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area said the outdoors plan should acknowledge an Appalachian Trails Conservancy program developed since the publication of the plan’s 2007 version. Trails to Every Classroom trains teachers in environmental education who then develop outings focused on the AT corridor and other areas as well. That program began about three years ago, Merz said.

Mountain biking enthusiast Tom Graham encouraged development for recreation of the Rye Valley Railroad bed running southward from Marion. “It’s still in good shape,” he said. “Sixty percent, from Currin Valley to Teas, could be a trail tomorrow,” needing mainly trees cut. He said he’d biked it at 30 miles an hour as evidence of its suitability and showed photos of one section some 400 feet long devoid of trees or other obstacles to its use as a trail.

“And it’s already owned by the U.S. Forest Service,” he said.

Planning District Director Dave Barrett said a number of developments since 2007 should be noted in the updated plan.

“One of the biggest and most controversial is the Salt Trail,” he said, referring to the Rails to Trails program conversion of a light rail spur line to Saltville from Glade Spring. At some eight miles long, the trail “is almost totally finished,” needing only about a mile to completely reach downtown Glade Spring and a section in the middle where the trail diverts users away from undermined and collapsed U.S. Gypsum property now off limits, Barrett said.

“It was controversial because it had resistance from adjacent landowners who wanted to keep ownership of the property,” Barrett explained. “But the court said no, it does belong to the town because was given to the town by the railroad company.”

Another development Barrett noted was the new Clyburn Hollow trail system nearing completion in Hungry Mother State Park

dkegley@wythenews.com