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Source: The News & Advance, Lynchburg, Va.文件倉Oct. 12--Blue Ridge Parkway: Open.Skyline Drive: Closed.Crabtree Falls: Officially closed, though not much stopped visitors from exploring the Nelson County site earlier this week, when no barricades blocked the parking lot. (They have since been replaced.)Mabry Mill: Reopened, as of Friday.And so it goes for leaf-peepers seeking a ride this month on and near Virginia's fall foliage highway, the Blue Ridge Parkway. The partial government shutdown, now nearing the two-week mark, has brought uncertainty to visitors looking for stops along the way.But the views are lovely.Area officials say it will be hard to quantify the exact impact closures will have on visitation and tourism, but hope they won't last long."We are hopeful that the shutdown will be a short one," said Nelson County Director of Economic Development and Tourism Maureen Kelley.While the Blue Ridge Parkway will remain open throughout the shutdown, most parkway facilities -- including visitor centers, historic sites, park hotels, restaurants, campgrounds, picnic areas and restrooms -- have been closed and will remain closed until the government reopens.An exception as of Friday was the restaurant and gift shop at Mabry Mill, in Meadows of Dan. It moved to open after a parkway concessionaire in North Carolina prevailed in a dispute with the Department of Interior over the shutdown-induced closing of his lodge at Mount Pisgah. The federal government allowed the Pisgah Inn to reopen in return for the owner dropping a legal complaint.Robert Peters, the general manager of the Peaks of Otter Lodge, which also looks to reopen, told The Roanoke Times he was told the park service won't encourage parkway concessionaires to reopen, but won't stop them either.The first 30 miles of the parkway comprise the northern border of Nelson County, with milepost 0 in Afton. Humpback Rocks, another popular hiking destination in Nelson County, is located at the northern end of the parkway.Along with 400 other national park units, the Shenandoah National Park, located north of Nelson County, has been closed for the duration of the shutdown, which came just as the park is poised for peak visitation. During the month of October, the park averages 250,000 visitors -- 23 percent of its annual total -- to view the brilliant fall colors, said Nelson County Director of Economic Development and Tourism Maureen Kelley.However, Kelley said since t存倉e parkway is open for vehicular traffic, "hiking and leaf-peeping are still important drivers to our fall traffic," and she does not expect that to change during the shutdown.The 2,180-mile Appalachian Trail is a unit of the National Park System; about 700 miles of the trail that crosses lands managed by the NPS have been closed because of the shutdown. The Central Virginia section of the trail covers 226 miles from the southern end of Shenandoah National Park south to Pearisburg. It parallels the Blue Ridge Parkway and runs mostly through the George Washington and Jefferson national forests.The sections under management of the U.S. Forest Service and the state have not been closed down, although USFS buildings and facilities are closed.More importantly, the federal government shutdown means the trail's vast network of volunteers will not be supported, said Andrew Downs, director for the Southwest and Central Virginia Regional Office of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy."We support [volunteers] in a lot of ways, and one of the primary ways is that the federal government provides insurance for all volunteers working on the AT," Downs said. "Because the government is shutdown, that insurance is no longer offered or available, so all of our thousands of volunteers trail-wide have to stop their management activities."He said volunteers handle most of the problems that occur on the trail, such as erosion or downed trees."It's not a huge deal on a day-to-day basis, but it piles up really quickly," he said.Also, without the volunteers going out and gathering information, it will be next to impossible to gauge the effect of the federal government shutdown on the AT until it is over."You get used to having this really great volunteer resource," Downs said, " ... We rely on them so much, so when you don't have them, it's different in every aspect."Kelley said Nelson County officials are trying to look on the bright side."[The county] has so many other hiking trails for every level of experience that we see the closing of Crabtree Falls as an opportunity to showcase some of our less-traveled roads and trails," she said."What we are hearing from visitors is that they are planning to visit and are excited to learn about all the other hiking trails in Nelson."Copyright: ___ (c)2013 The News & Advance (Lynchburg, Va.) Visit The News & Advance (Lynchburg, Va.) at .newsadvance.com Distributed by MCT Information Services儲存