Re: Doe River Gorge Threatened?

First I've heard of it, but I don't see this being an issue.
The back side of the gorge already is a public road (going over a truss bridge near the site of the Blevins depot) and the gorge track is privately owned and has been so since at least the 1960s.
The front end of the gorge ends at a public highway, which was built across the right of way. Most of the track on the other side of the highway, going over the fame covered bridge at Hampton, is also private land and hard to make out where the tracks had been. Only once you go further past there do you hit a tunnel, then a giant open space where the covered truss bridge used to be but has been empty space since the 1950s across the Doe River again. Plenty of spaces along the route to Elizabethton are now covered by homes, businesses, what have you. The large bridge at Valley Forge is also missing.
In short, they'd have to declare eminent domain (which would be fought in the courts), rebuild a crazy amount of right of way and bridges (including several alternate paths as public roads go over several portions of the right of way into North Carolina), then put in a trail to a place hardly anyone would go?

-Lee

Flickr photo set of my On30 layout