Two of the most common questions Parkway travelers ask before they venture out are “What’s the weather going to be like?” and “Are there any road closures in my area?”
With our new upgrades to Virtual Blue Ridge we hope to be able to answer both of those questions quickly and accurately.
We’re proud to introduce a new 3-day Parkway Weather Forecast page. Day and nighttime forecasts for both Virginia and North Carolina are updated 5 days a week. Read more »
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.
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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.
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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.
February 22 will be a day of change for our National Parks. As of that date rules prohibiting the possession of loaded and accessible firearms that date back to 1897 will be overturned. Due to a rider attached to the Credit Card Holders Rights Bill (Public Law 111-24, Section 512) the National Park Service and Department of the Interior will no longer have the authority to regulate the possession of firearms in National Parks. The carrying of firearms will now follow those of states and local governments. This brings about several possible points of confusion for park visitors and administrators.
No longer will there be one set of regulations pertaining to the possession of firearms in National Park Service Areas. Visitors will need to be aware of the regulations of the state where the park they are visiting is located. It becomes even more complex when parks are in more than one state or regulations and ordinances are not uniform throughout a state. Read more »
