Credit: Motleys.com

Over the past couple of days there’s been some outdoors/parks-related news that deserves to be highlighted. On Friday, the Times-Dispatch’s Jacob Geiger reported that Vauxhall Island, a 2.82-acre sliver of land in the middle of the James River downtown, had been auctioned to local non-profit The Enrichmond Foundation. The group won a sealed-bid auction for an as-yet-undisclosed sum. Enrichmond Executive Director John Sydnor told the T-D that the group would share it’s plans for the island soon. Whatever they are, based on Enrichmond’s history and stated purpose of supporting parks, recreation and the cultural arts, you can bet outdoor lovers will benefit from the purchase.

The second piece of good news came in today’s Times-Dispatch. Graham Moomaw reported that the entrance to the James River Park System at Riverside Drive and 21st Street will receive $90,000 worth of improvements next year.

From the T-D: Thanks to a grant from Altria tied to the 2015 UCI Road World Championships, the James River Association is seeking Richmond’s permission to beautify the 22nd Street tower entrance at Riverside, where erosion has created a steep approach to the bridge leading to the island. The outdoor group plans to improve the area by regrading some sections and adding planting beds, granite steps and a wood-chip path. The concept plan also calls for a new sign at the park entrance. Because the project would cost more than $25,000, the City Council will have to vote next month to accept the work as a gift from the James River Association.

A section of the 21st Street entrance to the James River Park System. Credit: Phil Riggan

How about that for a double dose of cool outdoors news going into the holidays, eh?

If you’re a James River Park System user, you might already know about the Friends of the James River Park and the regular newsletter they send out. It’s full of valuable information and volunteer opportunities for park lovers. I wanted to highlight the lead item in their most recent newsletter because it offers some updates on a topic I’ve covered before.

Volunteers from the James River Hikers at the new Texas Beach boardwalk in the JRPS. Credit: Dennis Bussey

Back in early September, I wrote about the sky-high usage numbers that park Superintendent Nathan Burrell found when he pulled the data from the newly-installed infrared and electronic counters. “Up through July,” Burrell said at the time, “we were at 500,000+ visitors. That’s May through July. And we only have counters at seven locations right now.”

Well, now the Friends of the JRP newsletter is reporting that the park saw “795,117 visitors from May 2014 until the end of October 2014.” Extrapolating from that now rather large data set suggests that by May 2015 the JRPS will see well over 1 million users and probably closer to 1.5 million.

Here’s some perspective: In February the Times-Dispatch reported that Maymont was the “most-visited place in the Richmond area,” with 527,153 visitors in 2013. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was second with 479,907 visitors. Rounding out the top five were the Children’s Museum of Richmond with 393,529 visitors; Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden with 339,139 visitors; and Henrico’s Three Lakes Nature Center and Aquarium with 304,621 visitors.

The Washington Redskins training camp brought in 164,789 visitors this year. Needless to say, the Redskins, with their tax breaks and sweetheart deals, don’t offer the city what the JRPS does in one or two summer months.

The James River Park has always been a popular place. We now know how popular.

And keep this in mind too, as I wrote in September, “The JRPS with it’s 1 million or more visitors a year is maintained by four full-time employees (including Burrell), two seasonal employees and one part-timer.” Note to the mayor and city council: That’s crazy!

And the Friends’ newsletter also reports that the park “provides a huge economic benefit to the City. Using the $16 per day per user estimate for park economic impact numbers from the 2014 edition of the Virginia Outdoors Plan, JRPS right now, provides a $12,721,872 economic impact directly to the City and local businesses.”

Martin Litton, pioneering river runner and conservationist, died this week at 97. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

It was a perfect kind of coincidence: I was sitting at my computer Monday reading about the death, and life, of conservation legend Martin Litton when an email popped into my inbox from the James River Association. “Action Alert — Protect the James,” the headline read. “Voice your concerns with the Dominion high-voltage transmission line project.”

Litton, who died Monday at 97, was a pioneering voice for the natural world. He was a Sierra Club board member, and is considered the father of commercial river guiding in the Grand Canyon. According to the Outside Magazine obituary, starting in 1963, Litton, along with David Brower, the Sierra Club’s executive director at the time, formed the core of the lobbying effort that successfully derailed the Bureau of Reclamation’s plans for two dams — the Bridge Canyon Dam and Marble Canyon Dam — that were slated for construction between lakes Powell and Mead, within the last 277-mile running stretch of the Grand Canyon.

You could argue Martin Litton helped save the Grand Canyon as we know it.

From what I’ve read, Litton was cantankerous and strident in his conservation efforts. It’s not hard to imagine what his opinion would be on a transmission line crossing 4.1 miles of the James River, atop 17 towers ranging in height from 160 to 295 feet, a section of river both relatively untrammeled and, being right next to Jamestown Island, historically significant.

I wrote about what the building of this transmission line, with a few towers nearly as tall as the Statue of Liberty, would mean for that area when I was Outdoors columnist at the T-D. It’s not a pretty picture. (Click here to see the spot where the line would go as we captured it this summer for our Terrain360.com tour of the James.)

Here’s what the James looks like where the proposed power lines would be.

I get that power companies need to move power from where it’s generated to the people who use it (i.e. all of us), but I think the question Martin Litton would ask is, “At what cost?”

Is it worth paying more to turn on the lights to not have more giant towers crossing a gorgeous and significant stretch of America’s Founding River? It’s easy to see now how short-sighted it would have been in 1963 to drown the Grand Canyon for a couple of power-generation dams. But back then it took people like Martin Litton to convince us of that fact, to show us that once gone, our special natural places are lost forever.

Is the tidal James River near Jamestown the same as the Grand Canyon? Maybe not. But then again, maybe it is.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is currently considering final approval of a permit application for those transmission lines, but the process isn’t over yet. You can make your voice heard. Click here before 5 p.m. on Saturday, December 6th to learn more and to send an email to the Corps of Engineers, Norfolk District representative handling of the permit application.

You know what Martin Litton would do.

The Lynchburg derailment on the James River. Credit: Michael Cover

Yesterday the James River Association rolled out a campaign aimed at highlighting the threats posed by toxic chemicals that move through and are stored in the James River watershed. The campaign — Our River at Risk — intends to raise public awareness of the threats and the gaps in our regulatory structure that allow those threats to exist.

Adrienne Kotula, the JRA’s policy specialist, said the effort was triggered by the Lynchburg train derailment last April; a Feb. 2 coal ash spill into the Dan River 10 miles from the Virginia border; and Jan. 9 leak of toxic chemicals in the Charleston, W.Va. area that put drinking water off limits for 300,00people for five days.

“The train derailment was certainly the biggest turning point for the James River Association,” Kotula said. “After that occurred we decided to step back and look at what the threats specifically to the watershed were. Once we had that groundwork of info to work from, we started looking into the regulatory schemes for each of these and when we revealed the gaps in each of these areas that’s when we knew it was something to move forward with.”

The group set up a website — riveratrisk.org — that includes a map showing all the toxic storage sites, coal ash ponds and rail lines that carry the highly flammable Bakken crude oil that spilled into the James last spring.

Kotula said the Our River at Risk campaign will begin with community engagement in the form of three town hall-type meetings: In Richmond’s Virginia War Memorial tomorrow night; the Lynchburg Museum on Thursday night; and Nov. 18 at Jamestown Settlement. The group is also reaching out to the companies responsible for the toxic storage and transport to see if self-regulation could stave off state and federal legislation and regulation. Failing that, the JRA will look to the General Assembly and the U.S. Congress to see how these sites might be made safer.

“The conversations with legislators on these topics will be ongoing over the next several months and into the session itself,” Kotula said. “We’ll see what pieces of legislation come up.”

The Texas Beach bog now has a gleaming boardwalk spanning it. Credit: Dennis Bussey

Two weekends ago, Lynchburg native, carpenter and batteau builder Andrew Shaw (and crew) delivered a heap of lumber to the Texas Beach section of the James River Park via multiple batteau trips. The lumber was to be used to construct a long boardwalk over the perma-muddy section of trail leading from the base of the Texas Beach stairwell toward the river. The batteau delivery was A) just downright cool and B) an ingenious way of solving the problem of getting a huge quantity of heavy, unwieldy building materials to a rather remote site.

Dennis Bussey wrote a story for RichmondOutside.com about the day and how it came together. Once the materials were delivered, the boardwalk was expected to take three weekends of work by volunteers from Bussey’s Meetup group — James River Hikers — to complete. Well, as these pics show, those volunteers (along with Mike Burton and his James River Park System trail-building crew) work very fast. What was supposed to take three Saturdays was finished in one. Now hikers can navigate this formerly treacherous stretch of trail without need for muck boots even after a heavy rain.

If you’ve been to the Floodwall Walk or the Manchester Climbing Wall recently, you probably noticed all the construction going on. When I first saw all the trucks and equipment massing there a couple of months ago, I got my hopes up that this was the start of construction for the Brown’s Island Dam Walk. It turned out all those workers would be fixing up the Manchester Bridge, not building a new link between the north and south banks of the James.

The current Vepco Levy Bridge, where the Brown’s Island Dam Walk will be built from Brown’s Island to Manchester. Credit: Chris Johnson

But it did get me wondering when work on the BIDW will begin. So, I sent an email to the city’s planning department, and they forwarded me to Tammy Hawley, Mayor Dwight Jones’ press secretary. Here’s what she had to say: For now, we hope to have a contractor on board by mid-December. The responses from potential contractors are due back by November 2014. Planning is expecting to get some benchmarks from Procurement, but we don’t have those yet, that will further define the timeline. When we get those benchmarks, we’ll be able to further layout the timeline.

So, while no start date has been set, she went on to clarify that construction should begin no later than the first of the year. That’s pretty exciting news for those of us who’ve followed the Riverfront Plan, and specifically this part of it, for the past few years. Whether that is enough time to complete the bridge before thousands of visitors arrive for the UCI World Cycling Championships in September 2015 is an open question.

And while we’re on the subject of the riverfront, check out these two recent news items on impending projects. A week ago, Graham Moomaw of the Times-Dispatch reported on landscaping and beautification work — a whopping $825,000 worth — that will soon take place between Dock Street and the James River and Kanawha Canal below Tobacco Row. “The project, a public-private partnership led by the beautification group Capital Trees,” Moomaw wrote, “will involve the planting of 117 trees, 475 shrubs, 1,604 ferns and 7,934 perennials, as well as vines and grass, according to a city report.”

And almost directly across the river, NBC 12’s Curtis McCloud reported last week on improvements to Ancarrow’s Landing, with construction just beginning and scheduled to be complete by the end of the year.

James River hiker and Home Depot employee Jeff White said it over two years ago: “We need to build a bridge across the Texas Beach quagmire.”

Our Meetup group, James River Hikers – Hiking With History, has crossed this sloppy and treacherous section of the James River Park System scores of times during the over three years it has grown from a group of 19 hikers to today’s membership of over 2,200. During the wet season, many pictures destined to Facebook were taken as the hikers would trapeze across the narrow planks and climb over the massive ball of roots necessary to get to the other side and complete our eight-mile loop hike.

The bateau makes its way down the James. Credit: Andrew McRoberts

The legendary Ralph White commented that this problem section was a priority he wished could have been corrected before his retirement. But standing in the way were the complications of 1) design, 2) logistics, 3) manpower and 4) money. How would we get a professional engineer to design it, and how could we pay for it? How to get the necessary construction material to this difficult-to-get-to site? A five level stairwell, part of the over-the-train-track bridge structure, would need to be navigated with the long timbers. The project would require lots of laborers.   Where would the money to purchase the materials come from? A harsh reality is that if it was necessary to budget it through the City of Richmond process, it might have been a project for the next generation to deal with.

Nathan Burrell, James River Park System superintendent, solved issue No. 1 by acquiring at no cost the design services of professional engineer Stuart Toraason from the Timmons Group.

A meeting with Richmond’s park system trails manager Michael Burton resolved issue No. 3, labor to do the work. The James River Hikers would assemble the necessary volunteers. But the suggestion that we engage in a money-raising campaign was rejected. James River Hikers is a “money-free zone.” We’ll do the work, but prefer to leave fundraisers to the Girl Scouts, the Rotary club and your church.

Soon after that, a most curious coincidence happened. Out of nowhere, group member Louis Matherne informed us he had really enjoyed hiking the trails over the years and hoped to make a financial contribution to create something of value, perhaps something like a new bridge. Bingo! Issue No. 4 solved.

Another meeting with Michael Burton, and now we were on our way. This was followed with communications with Home Depot’s White, who arranged the best possible deal for purchasing the construction materials. But what about issue No. 2, how to get the construction materials to the site?

Loading the bateau at the Reedy Creek put-in. Credit: Dennis Bussey

What follows is a story that if in a novel would categorize it as fiction. But it actually happened.

James River Hikers founder Dennis Bussey and event organizer Andrew McRoberts were together at an event one Thursday evening when Andrew came up with the novel idea of transporting the construction materials to the site by batteau just like this would have been done over 150 years ago on the James. It would both fit nicely into the “Hiking With History” theme of our Meetup group and also solve the logistical issues.

Dennis: “Andrew, do you know anyone who has a batteau boat?”

Andrew: “Nope.”

Dennis: “Me neither.”

Both: “Maybe something will come up.”

Twelve hours later, I was at The Wetlands with a group of volunteers painting and staining bridges as part of our yearlong effort to maintain all 120 of the wooden structures in the James River Park System. We were literally lost in the complex network of trails looking for the next bridge to work on when a 30-something guy came up behind us and asked if we had dropped the pruning shears he was carrying. Yes, we had, and as we thanked him, he inquired what we were doing. The conversation evolved from that to our plans for Texas Beach, and I mentioned the batteau concept.

Bingo again! Issue No. 2 solved.

Moving the lumber at Texas Beach. Credit: Dennis Bussey

The guy who returned our pruning shears was a batteau crew member for Andrew Shaw, a carpenter who had built his own batteau.

All that remained was to bring all the players together and coordinate the effort achieved this past Saturday when Shaw and his crew transported the construction materials from Reedy Creek across the river to Texas Beach in his batteau. James River Hikers plus additional folks willing to weigh in carried the materials the 250 yards down the trail from the beach to the construction site.

Under Burton’s supervision, the Texas Beach boardwalk will be constructed by teams of volunteers from Home Depot as well as Saturday Meetups by James River Hikers.

It began as an idea to fix a problem that for years has inhibited hikers, runners, dog walkers and just folks who wanted to experience the beauty, power and wonder of the James River up close. It was an idea plagued with complications, but they were all overcome through a series of coincidences and some determined individuals.

Here’s an invitation. Sometime after Thanksgiving, because the construction will be complete by then, take a hike to Texas Beach and see for yourself what can be achieved when citizens volunteers band together to solve a problem.

Joey Parent hits the trail in Forest Hill Park. Credit: Hunter Davis

Few Richmonders know and love the Falls of the James River, and the parks and trails that surround it, like Hunter Davis and Joey Parent.

The two met 10 years ago at VCU, helped start a kayaking club there, and have been friends ever since. While their journeys took them to places like Durango, Colo. and Asheville, N.C. for work and play, they both eventually found their way back to their hometown and they river they love. Parent is the leader of VCU’s Outdoor Adventure Program, and Davis works for the ACAC Fitness Center in Short Pump, is a outdoors-focused filmmaker, and the proprietor of Home on the James.

For years the two had batted around the idea for a kind of triathlon uniquely suited to Richmond.

“(It’s) something (that’s been) floating around,” Davis said. “Living in Richmond just lends it self to making that decision whether you want to go kayaking or trail running or mountain biking. Being in Richmond, you can do it all in one day. And everything is centered in one place. It’s just easy.”

“We’ve been talking about it for so long we realized that if we didn’t just do it, it wasn’t going to happen,” Parent said.

Thus, on the morning of November 8th, will be born the first-ever King of the James — a trail run/mountain bike/whitewater kayak race that is more about celebrating the fact that it can be done right here in the middle of a city than it is about the time or the winners. The race is free, and, importantly, it can be done individually or as a three-person relay team.

“I think that’s actually going to be a pretty big category,” Parent said, of the relay, noting that the number of people willing to run downtown rapids like Hollywood and Pipeline is limited.

But if you’re a mountain biker or trail runner and you know someone who can paddle Richmond’s famous whitewater, you’ve got yourself 2/3 of a team.

The race starts at the grassy area by the Reedy Creek boaters’ put-in. From there runners will go through the tunnels under Riverside Drive and do a lap in the Forest Hill Park singletrack. Mountain bikers will then take over and do what I like to call the Butterbank Loop: the Buttermilk and North Bank Trails with the Nickel Bridge and Belle Isle connecting them on either end. Paddlers will then put in at Reedy and run down to the 14th Street takeout, where they’ll be shuttled back to Reedy.

“I don’t enjoy kayaking more than mountain biking. And I don’t enjoy mountain biking more than trail running,” Davis said. “You can do them all right out your front door, if you live in the city. It just shows that the James River is a destination where you can come do all three sports.”

Parent added that T-shirts will be for sale for about $10 and there’ll be an after party at a yet-to-be-determined destination.

Sounds like a pretty sweet event to me, one that’s quintessential Richmond, not to mention a chance to bond with like-minded outdoors people. And considering it’s free…well, let’s just say we here at RichmondOutside.com will definitely be fielding a team.

On Saturday morning I got a call from Scott Turner, RichmondOutside.com contributor and owner of True Timber Tree Service. He was down along Riverside Drive in the Pony Pasture area with one of his company’s bucket trucks helping rescue an osprey that had become entangled in fishing line hanging from a tree. I started making my way toward Pony Pasture to this for myself, but a few second later I got a text from Turner: “Osprey is already saved.”

Turner was able to capture some neat photos and a video of the rescue (above). Here’s his account and another one from True Timber arborist Peter Girardi, who was on the scene first.

A VaDGIF conservation police officer waits with the osprey for a wildlife rehabilitator to arrive. Credit: Randy Reynolds

At 9:15 a.m. my phone starts ringing from Nathan Burrell. I answer assuming its a request to bike ride, but he tells me the story of a hawk (which turned out to be an osprey) that is dangling from a fishing line from a tree between Pony Pasture and Z-Dam along Riverside Drive.

I start to change and head over to our office to grab one of our bucket trucks, which I hope will reach the bird without having to climb the tree. I called Randy to see if his trucks were out or if I needed to grab one from Northside office. Randy was close to the location so while I was getting our truck Randy went to scout the area to confirm a bucket truck could reach the bird. Half way to the office Randy calls and said our crew of Justin and Jason were available with the bucket to meet us at Riverside Drive. I changed direction and started heading towards Riverside Drive.

When I pulled up, there were two park employees, a resident (not sure if he spotted the bird), Randy and our bucket crew. Soon a warden with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries arrived, and he instructed us to remove the bird from the tree and he could handle the bird until the rehabilitator arrived. Justin started to move into the tree with the bucket, removed the line from the tree and carried the bird from the string back to the ground where the game warden carefully grabbed the bird’s talons with gloved hands and wrapped the bird in a blanket to help calm and control the bird from flapping.

The bird who probably has never been touched by humans or even been that close was very calm and just watched us all.  We all pulled away at 10 a.m. from the site leaving the game warden and park staff to wait for the rehabilitator.

SCOTT TURNER

The cool thing is from the time it was noticed how quickly all the residents and officials acted to make the rescue. A person noticed about 8:30 am. They called Betsy Slade, a neighbor and Friends of the James River Park board member. Betsy called Nathan Burrell. Nathan checked in with us. We had a bucket truck working on a job that we sent over to cut the bird free and lower to the ground as you see in the video. A game warden was there to take possession and was waiting for a rehabilitator to take over. The fishing line was still pretty well wrapped around, so we would not have wanted it to try to fly. Time of notice to time of rescue was about 1 and a half hours. It was neat to see how the nature lovers and residents rallied around the osprey as we would any other  family member in Richmond. Pretty cool story.

The Texas Beach Trail in winter. Credit: gorichmondproject.blogspot.com

There’s a trail that runs along the north bank of the James River — sometimes it almost drops into the river — from the woods behind Pump House Park to the Texas Beach stairs. If you’ve been down to Texas Beach, chances are you started out walking on that trail. Maybe you took it as far upstream as the canal outflow below Maymont, but most people don’t realize that it runs all the way between those two James River Park system parcels. That’s why it’s one of my favorite outdoor spaces in the area. It hides in plain sight. (Click here to see the RichmondOutside.com map of the area and the “Texas Beach Trail.” Click here to take the Terrain360.com tour of the trail.)

Yesterday, the T-D’s Rex Springston reported that the Texas Beach end of that trail will soon get a makeover — with a historical flourish. For a couple of months the local Meetup group James River Hikers-Hiking with History has been working on plans to build a long wooden boardwalk a muddy section of trail that starts near the base of the Texas Beach stairs and runs almost to the river. Dennis Bussey, the leader of the group, has written for RichmondOutside.com before, as have other group members. He told me about the plan for the uber-long boardwalk a few months back, and we plan to cover the build as it unfolds later this month.

But here’s what makes it more than just an ambitious addition to the park system: all the material for the project will be brought across the river to the site via bateau.

From Springston’s piece: Michael Burton, the city’s trails manager, said the boardwalk project has “been on my radar screen for several years. The challenge was always getting the materials to the site.”

Here’s an example of what a bateau looks like. Credit: martingregoryedwards.com