PINEVILLE —Bell County, in coordination with the Skyward Trail Project, has formed an off-road club to help oversee the adventure tourism effort taking place on the mountain trails of our Kentucky home.
The club held its first meeting on Thursday evening on the third floor of the Bell County Courthouse. The tentative name for the club is the Bell County Holler Crawlers.
“The club will operate similarly to the one existing in Harlan. Members of the Harlan club as well as clubs in Leslie County and Lee County, Va. are helping us get our club off the ground,” Skyward Trail Project Spokesperson Jon Grace stated. “The club will also bring the community together and strengthen it, due to the large number of people who enjoy trail sports in our area. The club will also help promote ATV safety and assist in cleaning up the mountains of litter and maintaining trails owned by the land companies.”
The prevailing theory is that trails through the mountains will result in an expansion of Bell County’s tourism revenue. The idea of adventure tourism is the backbone of both the Skyward Trail Project and the Pine Mountain Trail Project; as well as an issue in the gubernatorial race, behind casino gambling and ethics reform.
The Skyward Trail Project is a multi-county trail system project that will link immediately into Harlan County and eventually into Letcher, Perry, Knott, Floyd, Pike, Martin, Johnson, Morgan, Wolfe and Breathitt Counties. Once completed, the Skyward Trail would be open to dirt bikes, all-terrain vehicles, utility vehicles, sports utility vehicles, hikers and horseback riders.
The effort to establish the Skyward trails is spearheaded by a nonprofit corporation created just for that purpose, the Kentucky Mountain Trails Development Coalition. Counties and Area Development Districts in the project area make up the core membership of the corporation. The corporation works with the state Commerce Cabinet and the Department of Tourism to implement their trail system. Trails will be developed on private property. However, there are no plans to develop or use any trails in the adjacent National Forests.
“Studies have shown this project could pump millions of dollars in tourism revenue into each participating county annually,” Grace stated. “State government just pledged over a half million dollars to get the multi-county project started.”
According to Grace, the overall adventure tourism plan includes exploring opportunities not only of trail sports but also lake sports, rock climbing, and wildlife viewing. However, Skyward’s main focus in Bell County is trail sports.
Grace points out that neighboring Harlan County is quickly becoming known as one of the hottest new spots in the trail sports world. Harlan County ATV club, the Ridge Runners, offers free guided tours of land they have acquired. 7,000 acre Black Mountain Park in Harlan features an additional 30,000 acres of riding.
Grace attracts land companies who lend their land for use in this project by citing that the companies are protected from liability under KRS 411.190, which states that if a land company lends its land for recreational use and does not charge a fee, it is not held liable for injury under a court of law.
A similar project to promote adventure tourism recently attracted attention from concerned private landowners. The Pine Mountain Trail Project is creating a trail open to non-motorized traffic that runs from the Breaks Interstate Park to the Cumberland Gap National Park. Ultimately, the trail will be 120 miles long and will pass through the property of many private landowners, especially in Bell County, where nearly all of the stretch that the trail will occupy is privately owned.
“You talk about land in Eastern Kentucky, and you might as well be talking about somebody’s kids, because that’s how most people feel about it,” Pine Mountain Trail Project Spokesperson Shad Baker stated.
The Pine Mountain Trail is dubbed “Kentucky’s Linear State Park” and will eventually connect to a larger trail, “The Eastern Trail” that encompasses wilderness from New York to Florida. Since its conception, many donations and grants have been made toward the project, including a $1 million transportation grant from Congressman Hal Rogers and a $1.3 million T-21 grant. More information on the Pine Mountain Trail can be found at www.pinemountaintrail.com.
For more information, visit www.skywardtrails.com or www.kyoutdoors.com online; or e-mail Jon Grace with questions, jon_southeastky@hotmail.com.
Brandy M. Calvert is a Staff Writer for the Daily News. Contact her via e-mail at bmurray@middlesborodailynews.com.
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