Catch up on all the recent news developments related to the Blue Ridge Parkway, Virtual Blue Ridge, Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, and the Blue Ridge Parkway Store here.
March is when most National Parks start to swing into full gear preparing for the coming visitor season. Even though the ground may still be covered with snow and ice and roads closed, employees in the parks have lots of work to do on facilities and staffing to be ready for busy spring visitation. And this spring promises to be a busy one considering the epidemic of cabin fever in the East and the promise of a well watered wildflower bloom.
Read more »
Snow and ice continues to melt and break up in the lower elevations leading up to the Blue Ridge Mountains. The mountains themselves remain locked in winter’s icy grasp with melting involved in a much slower process. The higher elevations where temperatures are significantly lower, received more snow than below in the valleys. That snow was then pushed and sculpted by high winds to produce drifts that stood in excess of seven feet in depth at many locations. Limited daily radiant sunlight then started to melt on the surface of the drifts on those few clear days that allowed the rays to peak through. That melting then refroze turning the snow drifts into ice bergs blocking roads.
Read more »
Author and retired National Park Ranger Bruce W. Bytnar will be in Roanoke, Virginia on Saturday March 13 for a reading from his book, “A Park Ranger’s Life: Thirty Two Years Protecting Our National Parks” at the Tanglewood Barnes and Noble Store. The event will start at 1pm and he will be available to sign books through the afternoon.
Mr. Bytnar spent twenty seven years of his career as a park ranger on the Blue Ridge Parkway which forms the stage for many of his stories. Stop by and learn about bears, lost hikers, bad guys, fighting fires, and many of the other adventures and duties of a park ranger.
Voting for this year’s People’s Choice Award will begin in conjunction with the opening of the AMPC exhibitoin at the Mezzanine Gallery in the Turchin Center March 5, 2010 at 7:00 pm.
A kiosk will be setup for gallery visitors, but you can also cast your vote by going to the AMPC website. Final judging for this year’s Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition will take place mid-March, and winners will be announced April 1, 2010. One winner will be chosen from each of the seven categories, along with one image chosen for Best In Show and one image chosen for People’s Choice. Read more »
One of the newest editions to the store’s collection of videos is a DVD entitled “The Spirit of Asheville“. This video is a 73 minute overview of one of the state’s most popular cities. It includes amazing photography of the landscape, architecture and artwork and takes you on a virtual tour of the downtown area.
A typical soundtrack for this type of video would be what I like to call, “elevator music” but this DVD takes a different approach. The whole video is narrated by people on the streets of Asheville. The people interviewed talk about what they love about the city and what makes it special. Some of the individuals interviewed have lived in Asheville their whole lives while others are new to the community and share what it is that brought them there. Read more »
