Trail maintainers on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail along the Blue Ridge Parkway are warning hikers about a possible danger in a tunnel that runs under I-40 on the trail in East Asheville.
“This is a public safety issue,” said Les Love, of Weaverville. He is the section crew leader of the MST along this section of the parkway for the Carolina Mountain Club.
He said the large tunnel, which is on a highly popular section of the MST between the Folk Art Center at Milepost 382 and the Parkway Visitor Center and Headquarters building at MP 384, has not only become unsightly with offensive graffiti and mounds of trash, but he believes it’s a safety hazard.
Black Mountain is 9 miles from the nearest entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway, but the Buncombe County town had something last year that the world-famous park couldn’t offer – a public bathroom.
That feature – as well as its restaurants, shops and gas stations – drew in crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic when the national park’s facilities were shuttered but millions of people still came from around the world.
According to preliminary data compiled by the National Park Service, the 469-mile parkway, which snakes across the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains in Cherokee, was the most-visited of all 423 national parks in 2020.