Planned Huckleberry Trail Extension

On February 28, an article on the Virginia Tech Web site begins as follows:

“Virginia Tech, the Friends of the Huckleberry, and the Town of Blacksburg have worked out an agreement that allows for the expansion of the Huckleberry Trail … Virginia Tech will be granting a property easement that allows for the trail to be extended across university property.”

The article also appeared the next week in the News Messenger. I contacted Bill Ellenbogen, president, Friends of the Huckleberry, to clarify some points in the article.

Before describing the planned expansion, these are some relevant facts about the existing trails: The Huckleberry trail starts at Miller Street in Blacksburg (near the Library on this map) and ends (after 5.762 miles) at the New River Mall. At about 1.75 miles, the trail goes through a tunnel under the US-460 Bypass and then takes a sharp turn left (south) towards Christiansburg. This is clearly marked on the map.)

There is also a bike path that starts at the Virginia Tech horse barns (near Smithfield Plantation), runs through a second tunnel under the US-460 Bypass and ends at Plantation Road (the road that runs from Prices Fork Road at the Carilion clinic to the Pig Barns). Coming from Virginia Tech, if one turns left (south) on Plantation Road and goes up the hill (a couple of hundred yards), one can turn right on a paved spur that connects to the Hethwood bike path. The up-hill on Plantation Road, the paved spur, and the first couple of hundred yards on the Hethwood bike path completes three sides of a rectangle — going around a field (that often has burros) that is bounded on the north by Stroubles Creek.

The currently planned expansion will take part in two phases. Phase I is a short spur that is not related to the Huckleberry Trail. It starts at Plantation Road and runs through the field just described along the south bank of Stroubles Creek. Phase I cuts about 1/3 mile off the distance to Hethwood, takes runners, bikers, and walkers off of Plantation Road. Ellenbogen says Phase I should begin very soon and will take about two months. Phase 1 is shown in the rectangle in the attached map (PDF).

Phase II will connect the Huckleberry Trail to the Hethwood bike path. The new spur will begin at the gravel road on the east side of the tunnel (where the Huckleberry Trail passes under U.S. 460) and will wind north — paralleling the Bypass and connecting to Phase I at Plantation Road. (The spur will essentially be a tunnel-to-tunnel connector, although one intersection will actually occur at Plantation Road due to the creek being in the way. It is drawn in the PDF map.) Due to safety concerns about negative encounters between trail users and agriculture equipment, a bridge may be constructed to separate agricultural traffic from trail traffic at the south end of the spur.

Ellenbogen closed his comments with the following:

This phase of the Trail extension will be a critical link in creating a Huckleberry Trail that extends from Christiansburg to the Jefferson National Forest. Friends of the Huckleberry is working with Dean Crane, Director of Parks and Recrea-tion for the Town of Blacksburg, and several departments at Virginia Tech, including the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the Transportation Office, and the Office of Real Estate Management to facilitate the trail connections. The trail easement has been granted by Virginia Tech. We hope to develop our final plans this year and begin construction in 2007.