A MOUNTAIN VIEW: Wishing for walkways

By LIZA FIELD/Columnist

Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path leading wherever I choose.

—Walt Whitman, “The Open Road”

They annexed or stole the commons and shut up the footpaths and made it an offense for a man to go aside from the road to feel God’s grass under his feet. Well, they have also got the road now, and cover and blind and choke us with dust and insolently hoot-hoot at us. ‘Out of the way, miserable crawlers, if you don’t want to be smashed!‘

—W.H. Hudson, Afoot in England, 1909.

We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble walking across the street.

—Source Unknown

It seems quite impossible to walk in America.

—Roger Bannister

This spring, I heard that some Alabama folks would like to extend the Appalachian Trail through the mountains that lead its Georgia endpoint naturally into their state.
Whether a weary, southbound through-hiker would appreciate, upon reaching Springer Mountain, seeing those white flashes continue on through the trees toward several more days of plodding—who knows? But another section of any footpath in the U.S.—or any new trail, greenway or walking path—is a terrific idea, and today could not be soon enough to piece it together.
Fifty years ago, the 2000-mile A.T. saw few travelers—usually with crude rucksacks and low-tech army boots made of green canvas and rubber soles. Grandma Gatewood walked it in 1955, wearing “red-ball Ked” sneakers and carrying a blanket, at age 67. At age 75, she finished her third trip down the trail. She saw very few people and many long stretches of solitude.
Today, hikers compare the old trail to an interstate. People come from all over the country and world to walk the famous path, so a traditional camping spot, near water, can take on the aspect of a small frontier village, and hikers rarely walk a day without passing or being passed by others—many of whom they’ve already met and shared food or advice with, in the past few weeks.
This speaks well of the community-making nature of a foot-path. One could get from Georgia to Maine in a couple of days, rather than half a year, by driving, but there’d be no conversations at a spring, little comradery (unless one stopped to help change a tire), no history, no suppers together, not even one look into the faces of other bulleting motorists along the Interstates.
But the crowded A.T. also reveals a change in our human landscape. Where else can you walk for days under some trees, free of traffic, without hiking between glinting guardrails and trucks, or trespassing through sprawl and suburban backyards? In which subdivision would you pitch a tent and hang your wet socks on some twine? Wal-Mart might love the company of RVs and tractor-trailers overnight on its acreages of parking lot across the U.S. But do you really want to camp on a vast griddle of warm asphalt all night, in a neon glow, between the humming diesel engines? “Mmm! Good old Uncle Sam’s country! Ain’t it fine?”
The need for walkable trails and greenways grows, in America, with every passing year. As Blacksburg trails-advocate Michael Abraham says, our landscape gets designed for vehicle traffic, not human beings. For those without cars, or who’d prefer to walk across their own towns, newer roads often lack sidewalks. I’ve seen young moms with baby carriages (and no car) struggling alongside whizzing traffic to navigate their way toward the local Wal-Mart mecca. Cyclers take their lives into their own—or motorists’—hands.
Meanwhile, once-rural landscapes in which a person might pedal or walk those “open roads” Whitman refers to have also become subdivisions or guard-railed, shadeless thoroughfares made for commuters, not ramblers.
We in our region are blessed beyond belief to have the A.T. winding through the gorgeous mountains of Tazewell, Smyth, Wythe, Bland and other counties. In this age of sprawl, it’s an astounding privilege to live so near other National Forest trails, Virginia Highlands Horse Trail, Rock Castle Gorge, the New River and Virginia Creeper Trails, the quiet paths through Hungry Mother Park.
But most walkers must drive to these trails, adding to traffic and fuel-use. Sometimes, walking across town to work or just getting outside for a lunchtime jaunt would seem heavenly to a stressed indoor worker.
So municipalities in our region who’ve created greenways through their towns have lit on one of the most vital arteries a community can have flow through it. People like Shirley Blackwell who helped Marion’s incredible Riverwalk become a reality, those who envisioned the Huckleberry Trail in Blacksburg, the Pulaski officials who’ve converted the old rail-bed to a trail from their historic station, and Liz Belcher’s greenway creators through several parts of Roanoke City and County—these are visionaries who have given their communities a value money can’t provide—yet which, paradoxically, invigorates local economies.
That value would be “livability.” A rigid focus on attracting heavy industry with cheap water, tax breaks, Interstate access and cleared acreage is no longer enough to pump life into a place. When high-tech companies and entrepreneurs look for places to locate, they want beauty, clean air, rivers, mountains—and pathways. They aren’t seeking guard-railed sprawl, but a walkable place that has retained a sense of community and history, a local core where life occurs and the surrounding scenic beauty has not been destroyed.
After all, how many people fall in love with a place from behind a windshield, or looking out an office window? As the A.T. hikers begin their pilgrimage through our region, this spring, let’s think (on foot) about extending that kind of community into town.
A writer, educator and community activist, Liza Field lives in Wytheville. Contact her at .