Smyth County News
Jun
02, 2009
By Dan Kegley/Staff
In a month to 45 days—weather permitting, this
wetter-than-usual spring—Chilhowie will join the growing list of communities
boasting recreational trails.
Town officials and citizens broke ground Monday in an
almost impromptu ceremony, itself scheduled when sunshine finally figured
prominently in the forecast, according to Kelly Spencer-Hill, the town’s parks
and wellness department director.
Almost 45 people gathered in Chilhowie’s park along the
river where orange lines marked the path for the first phase of the H.L. Bonham
Tourism Center Trail. Among them were the town’s mayor, Gary Heninger, and his
staff and town work crews.
Many, ironically, sought shade from the bright sun that
seemed intent on making up time lost to frequent rains in the last several
days.
The event included a ribbon-cutting and the ceremonial
plunging of shovels into the ground, breaking it to signal at last a start for
construction of the long-planned trail. That start is imminent for a project
that finally cleared years of study, design and redesign hurdles to Virginia
Department of Transportation requirements.
The new trail is the first phase of a project that will see
trails on both sides of the Middle Fork of the Holston River.
The phase ready for construction loops through the park along the river from
the ball field to just east of Pine
Avenue, then along Railroad Avenue with a swing to the south
around the basketball courts.
In a later phase, a bridge will span the river to link the
park to a trail to be built between the river and Interstate 81 and link the
tourism center to the trails. The date of the start of that work remains
unknown, according to Heninger.
Kyra Bishop, president of Chilhowie Organization for Art,
Community and History, told the group she hoped the trail would inspire less
active people to take up walking and running.
Chilhowie joins Marion and Saltville with their respective
Riverwalk and Salt Trail, and Abingdon with the Virginia Creeper Trail that
links to Damascus and the Appalachian Trail, in a club of communities in the
region boasting trails promoting health and exposure to the outdoors.
http://www.swvatoday.com/comments/get_trail_ready_in_chilhowie/news/5361/
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