Blue Ridge Country March/April 2022 - 23

COUNTRY ROADS
entrance fees), and will start a pilot
project for requiring a day-ticket to hike
Old Rag.
* The Appalachian Trail itself has
also seen growing usage for some
time, but the pandemic has upped the
stakes. The Washington Post in August
2021 compared the crowds on a 13mile
stretch of trail west of D.C., known
as the Roller Coaster to a " linear version
of Costco on a Saturday. " Local officials
are looking at ways to regulate the
parking in order to curb the crowds.
Taking the long-view, several agencies
and nonprofit groups have been
making headway on establishing the
1,800-mile Great Eastern Trail stretching
from Alabama to New York.
" The idea was to have the several
existing trails through the western Appalachians
connected together, and it
was in hope it would take some of the
pressure off the Appalachian Trail, " says
Great Eastern Trail Association President
Tim Hupp. The GET traces more valleys
than mountains, says Hupp, but still
has plenty of scenery including gorges,
plateaus and waterfalls. greateasterntrail.net
There's
also a growing movement in
public lands management to enhance
protections for wildlife, which is under
increasing pressure from human activity-hiking
and driving. In 2020, six
organizations launched the Safe Passage
project to channel resources for
wildlife crossings (which can be either
overpasses or underpasses) on I-40 near
the Great Smoky Mountains National
Park. (See Blue Ridge Country, March/
April '21.) SmokiesSafePassage.org.
In Virginia, the legislature has
passed a Wildlife Corridor Action Plan
to identify and protect wildlife migration
routes. The nonprofit Wild Virginia
is advocating for further coordination
and funding to establish crossings,
which have decreased wildlife/vehicle
collisions in the state up to 92% when
combined with fencing, based on several
pilot projects. wildvirginia.org
While the number of people hitting
the trails (and woods and waters) after
the pandemic may decline, it's unlikely
to go back to pre-pandemic levels.
Pressure will remain to protect our natural
resources and to expand publicly
accessible green spaces. -CAT MCCUE
BOOK NOTE
Allegheny Front, by Matthew Neill Null.
Sarabande Books, 2016. 165 pp.
've read Matt Null's " Allegheny Front "
at least three times, and the nine stories
always leave me in awe. There's his language-lyrical
and visually precise, even as
it describes harsh geography and naturalistic
fate. And his characters-complex and
vulnerable as they choose violence and
self-protection. And most of all, his ability to
write about layered generations of
West Virginians as if they were his
next-door neighbors-both loved
and reviled and, finally, doing
what they must do.
I
What you'll find in Allegheny
Front are people who know
their place-its bears and
eagles and trout, its ridges
and rivers and woods, and
GRANDFATHER NATURE CENTER DOUBLES IN SIZE
Wilson Center for Nature Discovery opens this spring.
N
orth Carolina's Grandfather
Mountain is about to complete
FRANK RUGGIERO | GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN STEWARDSHIP FOUNDATION
Check grandfather.com for the opening
date of the new Wilson Center for Nature
Discovery at Grandfather Mountain, which
has been under construction since 2019.
work on its new 10,000-square-foot
Wilson Center for Nature Discovery,
part of a new Conservation Campus.
The center will offer education space,
including state-of-the-art museum exhibits,
three classrooms, restoration
of the ADA-accessible auditorium,
enhanced food service and expanded
capacity for hosting conferences,
seminars, receptions and community
events.
Outside the center, guests will
enjoy new outdoor learning spaces,
including an amphitheater with terraced
seating and a pavilion, as well
as a new botanical garden.
-KR
most of all, its native sons and daughters.
Some of whom are scraping by in the old
ways, hunting and fishing. And some of
whom are giving a newer way a try-tourism
and mountain ecology and education. I
guarantee that nearly every story in this book
will leave you a bit puzzled, going back to
find what you missed. In Null's stories, there
are more hard questions than easy answers
provided-sure proof that you're in the
company of a great writer.
I'd be hard-pressed to choose a favorite
story in " Allegheny Front. " But for suspense
and landscape and storytelling skill (it's
largely told by observers sitting and watching
the action play out), try " Gauley Season. "
It's hard to know who the real victim
is in this story: the one who dies, or the one
who lives.
It's no surprise that Allegheny Front won
the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction the
year it was published, and garnered raves
from reviewers all over the country. Null
can make tragic mistakes read like inevitable
beauty. He knows his homeplace from 50
different observation points, and writes
about it with grounded honesty.
Read " Allegheny Front " to know Null's
world from rock center to the air above it.
Read it because it tells the truth about the
piece of West Virginia known as the Allegheny
Front, no holds barred.
-JOAN VANNORSDALL
MARCH/APRIL 2022 23
http://www.SmokiesSafePassage.org http://www.wildvirginia.org http://www.trail.net http://www.grandfather.com
Blue Ridge Country March/April 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country March/April 2022
