This Land, Your Land

The National Park Service has published a full opening and closing schedule for the Blue Ridge Parkway's 2011 season.

Seasons on the 469-mile scenic roadway generally run from late-April through October.

Most Parkway campground seasons run May 13 – October 31. In North Carolina, Linville Falls opens April 1 and, because of ongoing construction, the season at Doughton Park is delayed until mid-May.

The full schedule includes picnic grounds, visitor centers, restaurants and other concessions, such as the Pisgah Inn Lodge and Restaurant opening March 29, and the Parkway Craft Center at Moses Cone opening March 15.

Bluffs Lodge and the coffee shop at the Blue Ridge Parkway's Doughton Park may not reopen after closing for the season, according to the Blue Ridge Parkway Journeys blog.

"Economic conditions and planned road closures due to guidewall restoration will likely keep the favorite-destination lodge and coffee shop closed for the foreseeable future," the blog says. "The operating concessioner (lessee), Forever Resorts (Scottsdale, Arizona) has indicated that they will not be renewing their lease arrangement with the park service next year."

The 24-room Bluffs Lodge closes for the season November 1, the blog says. Construction work on stone walls in the Doughton Park area is expected to be completed in the spring of 2012.

Blue Ridge Country magazine, in its December issue, explains how Parkway concessionaires find it hard to make money. The National Park Service's contract requirements make the concessions unattractive, so the NPS hasn't even sought new bidders in recent years.

Because of Forever Resorts' withdrawal, the NPS is in fact seeking "expressions of interest" through November 8 in operating Bluffs Lodge and the coffee shop, plus concessions at Julian Price Lake, the Crabtree Falls gift shop, the Mabry Mill restaurant and gift shop, Rocky Knob cabins, the Peaks of Otter lodge, restaurant and country store, and the Otter Creek restaurant and gift shop.

As Blue Ridge Parkway Journeys and Blue Ridge Country both say, the withdrawal of a concessionaire leaves the future of the affected Parkway facilities totally up in the air.