Hiking goal comes into better focus

Janet Imrick

Randolph Hub

ASHEBORO – On Great Trails State Day, Randolph County Trail Coordinator Mary Joan Pugh will celebrate significant milestones along the Deep River State Trail. Some of these she has waited years to bring to fruition.

The third Saturday of October was made Great Trails State Day with the passing of the 2024 Farm Bill by the North Carolina General Assembly. It falls on Oct. 19 this year. Randolph County will start celebrating on Oct. 18 with the ribbon cutting for the new Sandy Creek Bridge in Franklinville, followed by a mayor's walk on Oct. 19 at 2 p.m.

People are not waiting for the grand opening to explore the trail's finished sections. Pugh saw it getting use while viewing the completed bridge with the builder, Robbie Wright of S&W Grading. "He said, 'You want to be the first one to walk on it?' I said, 'Sure.' And of course, we walk and run into somebody."

Linking the County Trails

The Deep River always appealed to Pugh as a recreational hub. "We wanted to find tourism initiative areas," she said. "We picked Deep River because it could be trails and a paddle trail. And there's these cool mill towns."

The 125-mile-long trail starts in High Point and runs through Randolph County before shifting east to join the Haw River south of Jordan Lake. Trailheads are scattered through Franklinville, Ramseur and Randleman.

Pugh helped get it designated a State Trail in 2007, working with the Tourism Development Authority (TDA) and Mac Whatley, the former mayor of Franklinville and a current town councilman. "We tried to figure out some kind of designation to make it special," Pugh said. "So, we decided to go for a State Trail. At the time, there were only two."

Pugh is on the planning committee for the Great Trails State Coalition, which has 107 members representing trails, greenways and recreational programs in North Carolina. "Randolph County was one of the first members," she said.

As they began work on the Deep River State Trail in 2015, Pugh saw a problem. "I started worrying about how there was no plan to connect them all. Franklinville and Ramseur run on the left side of Deep River, which we call River Left. Randleman didn't have a real trail, so they were developing along where their town is on the right side."

The TDA helped Pugh present a conceptual plan to county commissioners in 2017. It called for a bridge over Sandy Creek to connect 1.75 miles of trail in Franklinville to 0.65 miles of Ramseur's section.

"The first priority was to get them connected, and then we'd have two and a half miles, basically," Pugh said. "Then you throw in Faith Rock, and you have 3.25 miles connected."

It was slow progress at first. Pugh partnered with Piedmont Land Conservancy to preserve Faith Rock in Franklinville from being sold for housing development. Commissioner Hope Haywood helped her get strategic planning money for a preliminary engineering study in 2017. However, she was told she could only get $100,000 for a $400,000 project, which would grow to $530,000 by the time construction finally got under way.

Support Takes Off

Pugh saw a shift in support for the outdoors in 2020. "During the pandemic, everybody was on these trails, and they saw how valuable it was. It was the only place to go and meet your friends. Hope [Haywood] and I were in the Uwharrie, and there was a family from Charlotte and a family from Raleigh, and they were meeting there."

The Great Trails State Coalition secured $29 million for its "Complete the Trails" fund the following year, while Pugh received a million dollars through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to complete the Sandy Creek Bridge.

The Coalition hoped to keep that momentum going as the COVID-19 pandemic ended, culminating in their Year of the Trail campaign in 2023. That was when the 2007 decision to make the Deep River a State Trail paid off for Pugh and the county.

For the first time, with support from Randolph County Senator David Craven, the NC General Assembly appropriated funds specifically for all types of trails in all phases of development. This one-time appropriation was only for North Carolina's 14 State Trails.

"We ended up with $25 million for all types of trails: Paddle, pavement, natural surface, bike, horse, whatever you want," Pugh said. "We made all the other trails mad, but we got $860,000 out of it for the Deep River."

She's now focused on other sections. Ramseur is awaiting modeling of the Deep River so they can move forward on the Harlan Creek Bridge. To the north in Cedar Falls, they have to move the trail to River Left, avoiding the landfill and joining Randleman's section. In the meantime, construction in Worthville has stalled due to the fire at the cotton mill in January. "That one's on hold right now, but we did get one part of the paddle trail done,” Pugh said.

However, Pugh looks forward to sharing the progress with Randolph County Commissioners. "To do this ribbon cutting on something that everybody's been pointing to since 2015 when our task force started meeting, that we did that plan for in 2017, that the county commissioners gave their first money towards in 2017. It's just very exciting."

Mayor's walks will be held on Saturdays through October and November, and hikes on Sundays on those same weekends. All Great Trails State Day events in Randolph County are listed on https://healthycommunitiesa3.com.