Trail to preserve mountain 22-mile path part of development buffer for Clinch Mountain area

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BY DEBRA MCCOWN MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE

Mar 25, 2007

HAYTER'S GAP Clinch Mountain is the muscular backbone between Washington and Russell counties, home to remote mountain lakes and a unique-for-Virginia geological formation.

A few years ago when a developer tried to turn the south-facing slope into a residential subdivision, the people who live there fought to save their mountain.

They were successful, but the threat lingered until local conservationists got together with a different development plan -- a trail running along the ridge from a Washington County lake to a lake in Russell County.

"My theory is the more people who appreciate what we have here in Southwest Virginia, the more likely they are to protect it," said Frank Kilgore, the visionary behind the Clinch Mountain Trail.

Kilgore's St. Paul-based organization, Mountain Heritage, recently signed the last right-of-way easement for the first phase of the trail, which will run from Hidden Valley Lake to state Route 80 at Hayter's Gap.

The General Assembly has also come through with the bulk of the $3.2 million needed for the state to purchase a 5,000-acre tract from The Nature Conservancy. The trail will run through the mountainside tract, which the conservancy refers to as the Brumley Mountain Preserve.

"When we bought it, it looked pristine, and we want to keep it that way," said Matt Crum, director of the conservancy's Clinch Valley Program.

Ultimately, the state will plan and manage the trail, which will run from Hidden Valley Lake in Washington County northwest to Laurel Bed Lake in Russell County.

The trail route from Hidden Valley Lake will run through state woodlands and 1,800 acres owned by the Brumley Cove Baptist Camp.

It then will wind through the 5,000-acre Nature Conservancy tract, up an old fire tower road to Washington County's highest point and past the Great Channels of Virginia, a natural formation likened to a stone maze.

The Channels are a series of deep passages carved through Clinch sandstone that towers 20 to 40 feet above and covers several acres. Trees growing in the crevices cling to the lichen-covered rocks, their roots splayed out to whatever footholds they can find amid the angled shafts of light.

Crum said it's up in the air whether the Channels will be made accessible to the public, but he is thinking of ways to protect the rock formation while sharing it with the public.

From the ridge top, which has an elevation of more than 4,200 feet, Mount Rogers, the highest point in Virginia, and Whitetop Mountain are visible in the distance -- and, on a clear day, so is Beech Mountain, some 50 miles away in North Carolina.

"Other than the continental divide in Glacier National Park [in Montana], I've never seen a better view," Kilgore said.

Kilgore said he's hiked all 22 miles of the likely route. With no trail in place, traversing it took him three days.

Kilgore's vision for preserving Clinch Mountain includes the side benefit of economic development and job creation in the region eco-tourism.

He envisions a lodge on the shore of Hidden Valley Lake, with opportunities for canoeing and other non-motorized water sports, and other lodging along the Clinch Mountain Trail, so folks who want to hike but not camp will have a place to stay.

Kilgore estimates the total coast of establishing the 5-foot-wide, trail -- including a long path that will be 5 feet wide -- will be between $200,000 and $400,000.

Debra McCown is a staff writer at the Bristol Herald Courier in Bristol.