Pamela Roy has a background in biology, ecology and fine arts.
An unusual combination? Maybe. But she was exactly the kind of person the Appalachian Trail Conservancy was looking for when it began the unique project of mapping the allure of the nearly 2,200-mile trail.
Roy is the manager of the Visual Resource Program for the ATC, a nonprofit organization that has the mission to protect, manage and advocate for the Appalachian National Scenic Trail and is in a corporate management partnership with the National Park Service. Since early 2021, she has spent her summers on the trail identifying the greatest views that surround the trail and then providing data that the conservancy uses to help protect and enhance those spots.
In early June, Roy and her team of three began mapping the views on Virginia’s portion of the trail. The field work for 2024 concluded on Thursday in Craig County where the trail meets Virginia 621 at Upper Craig Creek.
Now comes the office work, when she will take all the data that has been gathered and complete the evaluation.
“Part of what we capture is what portion of the viewed landscape can you see from the viewpoint,” said Roy, who worked as a middle-school teacher in the Philadelphia area before entering the field of ecology and natural resource preservation.
“We use that information for a lot of our GIS modeling. Our partners, in addition to our organization, also use that data to determine what parcels of land might be really valuable for conservation, in terms of preserving the scenic quality. It kind of gives an extra dimension, where we are trying to maintain this ecological climate corridor along the trail, but also recognizing that this is a national scenic trail, and so we also want to preserve the scenic value.”
A prime example of the Visual Resource Program’s work can be found in the Roanoke Valley, where several of the trail’s better-known sites were part of a pilot program to determine if this was a viable project.
Dragon’s Tooth, Tinker Cliffs and McAfee Knob were among those evaluated in 2019. Some of the data gathered was used to help the ATC and its local partners complete protection of the viewshed below McAfee Knob. A combination of acquired land and other stewardship agreements resulted in nearly 900 acres of land that is now protected for both viewshed value and wildlife restoration.
The ATC, which is attempting to bolster its financial and political backing as the trail nears its 100th anniversary next year, believes that the visual mapping could support its cause on what it calls the “Protect Pillar” of its centennial campaign.
“With the Protect Pillar, we don’t get a lot of federal funding for it. What we get there is very minimal, and what we do get is highly restricted,” said Mary Hodges, associate director of annual giving based out of the ATC’s Roanoke office.
“We are very ambitious going into this next century, and we want to just protect more land, steward it better and make sure it’s healthy and stays with its wild character and nature,” she said. “This program allows us to do that. Not only is it protecting the scenic part, but it also gives us the tools to acquire and protect the land. And if we can’t acquire it, can we help monitor it so our partners maintain it in a manner that keeps its ecological integrity.”
Considering the length and diversity of the trail, the ATC’s leadership realizes that it cannot protect the surroundings of every mile of the path. But data from the mapping project does help when it is time to prioritize which parts of the trail need extra attention, and where the conservancy’s funding would be best spent.
When plans are made to alter the surrounding land — with housing developments, businesses or utility work, for instance — the ATC hopes that these scenic maps will help preserve some of the trail’s greatest views.
“The AT is not a green wall from Georgia to Maine,” said Kathryn Herndon-Powell, the ATC regional manager who oversees trail projects in Central and Southwest Virginia. “We’re not trying to block every development that might happen, nor could we. But we like to be at the table when those projects are being planned. We like to know about them because often there are ways to mitigate them — if you can identify them in the planning phase — where we can shift things where they are just a little more out of view.”
In Virginia, Roy’s mission has been to capture the views that are not as well-known, which in turn gives the ATC the information necessary to inform private landowners and other conservancy groups about what should be taken into account before any structures are raised or other changes are made to those properties.
There are four parts to the process for each evaluation:
- Photographs are taken of the landscape.
- Detailed GPS information is collected.
- A two-paged detailed sheet of observation data is filled out.
- And finally, everyone on the team rates the view in nine categories.
It’s the same process that the National Park Service’s landscape architects go through when they evaluate other national park units around the country, and it allows the various entities that are affiliated with preserved federal lands to cross-reference data.
Roy and her team have spent less time on well-traveled segments of the trail and have focused instead on lesser-known places such as the Petites Gap stretch near Big Island that features overlooks of the James River, and the Hay Rock hike that goes by Carvins Cove Natural Reserve, the adjoining reservoir.
“On this part of the trail, there is not a lot of water,” Roy said. “So that makes the [Carvins Cove] views there unique.”
Two members of Roy’s team this summer have Roanoke-area ties. Jordan Henegar is a graduate of both William Byrd High School in Roanoke County and Virginia Tech, where he majored in wildlife conservation. Chess Duckwall graduated from Roanoke’s Patrick Henry High School and is now a geology major at James Madison University.
And even though they grew up so close to the trail that they’ve spent the summer on, both say it has been an eye-opening experience. Henegar grew up an avid camper and always has had an interest in observing wildlife, but the summer has broadened his knowledge of Southwest Virginia.
“I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve never hiked the trail,” said Henegar, who said he hopes to find work in North Carolina with the National Park Service. “It’s definitely been a good experience to get out here and see places that I’ve driven by my whole life but haven’t seen until now.”
The fourth member of the 2024 crew, Austin, Texas, native Sara Thiessen, said her experience this summer has helped her fall in love with this part of the country.
“There have been so many small towns and other great areas I’ve been able to explore on the weekends,” she said. “Before the summer, I thought I wanted to move here. And now I’m certain I want to be somewhere in this area.”
Four years into the project, Roy has inventoried views from the Appalachian Trail in Maine, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia. In the coming years, she will be walking the trail in New York, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and everything south of Upper Craig Creek through the trail’s southern starting point at Springer Mountain in northern Georgia.
Even after all this time on the job, she has not soured on her assignment.
“Views are something that we are drawn to as humans and in some ways are intangible, so there’s this draw to get to a view and then sit down and absorb it,” Roy said. “A lot of what we do speaks to visitor experience or connects people to a place in a way that is a little less hands-on and straightforward like some of the work Kathryn and the trail crews do — building and making the trail. We are documenting and collecting data in the hope that we can preserve some of these really important views.”
Learn more about the Appalachian Trail Conservancy’s centennial by visiting appalachiantrail.org
