Blue Ridge Parkway superintendent to retire amid park challenges

Karen Chávez | The Citizen-Times

ASHEVILLE - When Mark Woods took the helm of the Blue Ridge Parkway in late September 2013, he didn’t exactly receive a welcome party.

Less than a week on the job, the federal government shut down, closing all visitor centers, campgrounds and visitor facilities for two and a half weeks at all national parks, including the parkway – the busiest unit of the National Park Service - and laying off nearly 200 workers, including Woods.

It was the first of many challenges Woods faced as the most high-profile superintendent in the National Park Service. The parkway, a 469-mile scenic roadway through 29 counties in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and Virginia, including a path directly through Asheville. The park received 15.2 million visitors last year.

Sitting in his office on Hemphill Knob, with a picture window view of the surrounding trees and mountaintops, Woods said he has a lot to reflect on as he gets ready to retire July 3.

Many of the memories will be good ones, and proud ones, and some will be wishes that things had taken better turns.

“One of the biggest challenges I felt arriving on the parkway in 2013 was that a third of all of our facilities were closed, the picnic areas, campgrounds, it was really concerning,” Woods said.

That was another “gift” Woods received upon starting his new job. The federal sequestration earlier that year mandated all national parks to cut their budgets by 5 percent starting March 1, 2013.

“As a team, we met to focus on reopening those facilities and restoring visitor services as a priority. We’ve made pretty good progress and as a result we’re seeing strong visitation and use,” he said.

“The Crabtree Falls area (near Spruce Pine) was one of those areas closed. We were getting letters and calls almost daily from visitors who loved these places. Once we got funding, the staff worked hard to get the overlooks mowed and the facilities open. Now every time I drive by the parking area for the trail, it’s full, and the picnic area is getting used. It’s nice to see that.”

The parkway’s budget, which has been flat at some $16 million for the past decade, has not been able to keep up with the continually aging and deteriorating infrastructure of a park built starting in the 1930s.

The parkway has $517 million in deferred maintenance, one of the worst in the country, meaning roads, bridges, tunnels and buildings are not being maintained properly.

In his budget proposal, President Trump plans a cut of 12 percent to the Department of the Interior, the governing body for the National Park Service. Woods said it’s too early to tell if that will happen and what it will mean for the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Another thorny issue has been negotiating plans for the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross parts of the parkway in Virginia. Woods said the parkway is one of the few parks in the nation that has the authority to issue right of ways for pipelines.

A legacy of land conservation and community partnerships

One of the shiniest moments of Woods’ parkway tenure will be the Waterrock Knob project. Last summer, nicely coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, the Blue Ridge Parkway acquired some 5,500 acres of nearly priceless land in the viewshed of the Waterrock Knob section of the parkway in Haywood County.

Woods called the acquisition historic. It was the largest land acquisition for the parkway in some 60 years, and was the last of the highest elevation privately owned land in the Eastern United States.

The creation of the new Waterrock Knob Park was the culmination of years of collaboration over decades among the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Conservation Fund, the Conservation Trust for North Carolina, the Nature Conservancy, Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy and private landowners.

Funding for the project came from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund and private donors.

“The Waterrock Knob project is an achievement that will benefit generations yet to come and all of us now,” Woods said. “It’s rare you have an opportunity to protected, the highest peak in the Plott Balsams. It’s rare habitat and a unique and special place. I’m very happy to see us come to that point.”

“One of the strengths Mark brought was his ability to work very closely with the community, which is very important for the Heritage Area, and in building relationships,” said Angie Chandler, executive director of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area.

“For example, he worked with the community in the Doughton Park area (in Virginia). That whole facility had been closed and just recently the park store has reopened. It’s a wonderful, great bright light for those communities and hopefully more work can happen to get the restaurant open,” she said.

Woods said that he is proud to look back at that time four years ago when the park seemed to be falling apart, and through all the road constructions and landslides, to see that today the entire parkway is open to traffic, and nearly every single closed facility is back in operation.

Some of the saddest moments during his tenure include accidental tragedies including the recent death of an 83-year-old woman who fell to her death from an overlook near Graveyard Fields.

There are also many serious crimes on the parkway - suicides continue across the park, a man stabbed his 6-year-old daughter to death in the Asheville area, and a sexual assault that occurred in Craggy Gardens remains unsolved.

Woods has worked for the National Park Service for nearly 37 years, including assignments at Ninety Six National Historic Site, Kings Mountain National Military Park, Andrew Johnson National Historic Site, Cumberland Island National Seashore, Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, Virgin Islands National Park Group, Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, Natchez Trace, as well as details at the Southeast Regional Office as Associate Regional Director and Deputy Regional Director.

“Superintendent Mark Woods brought a deep respect and commitment to the field. He approached the work he did at the park and the work with us always from the perspective from the benefit to the visitor and benefit to the park,” said Carolyn Ward, executive director of the nonprofit Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation.

“I value and respect him a lot for that. He spent a lot of time in the field and talking with his staff.”

Woods will retire with his wife, Ginny, to their home in Lake Junaluska. He said he is looking forward to spending time fishing with his granddaughters, visiting extended family, and finally getting to enjoy leisurely hikes on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

“Parks have been a big part of my life and I love it. I would have loved to have come here 10 years earlier. It’s such an incredible place. It’s been a real privilege to work here.”

The search for an interim superintendent of the parkway has begun and a selection is expected before Woods retires. The parkway has not had a female superintendent in its 82 years of existence.