The Shadow
COVINGTON, Va. (Virginian Review) — Economic growth in the Alleghany Highlands is increasingly being driven not by factories or industrial recruitment, but by the region’s natural assets, outdoor recreation and a growing arts scene, local tourism and business leaders say.
Speaking on The Value Proposition podcast, Matthew Fischer, owner of Alleghany Outdoors, and Josh Taylor, executive director of the Alleghany Highlands Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, outlined how trails, rivers and cultural attractions are reshaping the local economy and drawing visitors from across the Mid-Atlantic.
The Alleghany Highlands Trails Alliance, formed several years ago, has played a key role in restoring and maintaining historic trail systems across the region, Fischer said. The group focuses on reopening overgrown trails and ensuring they are accessible and safe for visitors.
“That work is critical,” Taylor said. “We’re an area that’s about 50% national forest. Visitors often rely on trail apps or brochures, but once they’re on the ground, the condition of those trails determines whether they have a positive experience.”
Positive experiences, Taylor added, translate into repeat visits and word-of-mouth promotion, strengthening tourism as a long-term economic engine.
Fischer launched Alleghany Outdoors seven years ago, initially as a concession tied to the Jackson River Scenic Trail. When the original concession license expired, he took over ownership, seeing a gap in the region’s outdoor tourism offerings.
“With the national forest, the rivers, the lakes — the recreation has always been here,” Fischer said. “What was missing was a system where visitors could have those experiences organized and outfitted for them.”
Today, Fischer estimates that 85% to 90% of his customers are tourists, many traveling from Roanoke, Lexington, Staunton, Northern Virginia and the Ohio Valley. Alleghany Outdoors offers kayaking, tubing and river trips along the Jackson River, using strategically located access points that allow visitors to return to their starting location without complicated shuttles.
From a broader tourism perspective, Taylor said outdoor recreation remains the region’s top draw, but it is increasingly complemented by other sectors.
“We’re seeing strong growth in the arts,” Taylor said, citing the Masonic Theatre, local arts councils and multiple performance venues in Clifton Forge and Covington. Scenic motorcycle tourism, particularly along the Backcountry Discovery Route that passes through Covington, has also become a major contributor, bringing travelers who stop for fuel, food and lodging.
Cultural heritage tourism adds another layer, Taylor said, with sites such as Humpback Bridge, Falling Spring Falls, Douthat State Park and historic churches attracting visitors interested in history and scenery. Upcoming Virginia 250 commemorations are expected to further boost interest.
Looking ahead, both speakers emphasized the need for infrastructure investment to support continued growth. Planned improvements include erosion control and signage upgrades at Humpback Bridge, enhancements at Lake Moomaw, and long-term discussions around expanded viewing access at Falling Spring Falls.
A persistent challenge remains lodging. While the region has a strong base of bed-and-breakfasts and short-term rentals, Taylor said it lacks sufficient mid-range hotel capacity to accommodate larger groups and tour buses.
“If people can’t find a place to stay, they still visit — but they stay somewhere else,” Taylor said.
To address that gap, the chamber plans to form a lodging stakeholders group in 2026, aimed at pairing accommodations with outdoor, arts and cultural experiences to keep visitors overnight and maximize local spending.
Both Fischer and Taylor identified connectivity as a key factor in future success. Fischer pointed to the potential of linking the Clifton Forge Reservoir to surrounding communities through trail systems, while Taylor emphasized expanding the region’s unified signage and branding into outdoor spaces.
“When visitors see consistent branding from the interstate to downtown to the trailhead, they feel oriented and confident,” Taylor said. “That’s how you become known as a destination.”
As tourism continues to grow, local leaders say the combination of natural beauty, strategic investment and coordinated marketing is positioning the Alleghany Highlands as a sustainable outdoor and cultural destination — one trail, river and performance at a time.
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Transcript of Podcast
Gene Mundy 0:00
Tourism, trails and transformation. What if the keys economic growth wasn’t a new factory, but the trails and rivers that run right through our own backyard? Good morning. Gene Mundy here with the value proposition podcast, and I’m here with two guests. Mr. Matt Fisher is the owner of Alleghany Outdoors and Mr. Josh Taylor, who is the Executive Director of the Alleghany Highlands Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, good morning, Matt, understand you are a board member of the Alleghany Highlands Trails Alliance. Can you tell me a little bit about what they do? Sure.
Matthew Fischer 0:36
So the trail Alliance was started several years back by Mike scales and Seth Ellis were kind of the main driving forces. There were some other people there, but Mike scales has really done a lot of work over this past several years. We formed a committee about a year ago, and the main objective here is to re establish trails that have been here before and clear those out, and let’s
Gene Mundy 1:00
bring them back, you know, bring them back into use, yeah, bring them back into use. Interesting, yeah. And Josh, what do you have any relationship with that?
Josh Taylor 1:09
Yeah, we support the Trails Alliance. We love them. What their work does. It’s so important to tourism, you think about it, we’ve talked about an area that’s 50% National Forest. Sometimes those trails can become overgrown. There’s weather events that knock trees down. And when you have visitors that are coming to the area, they basically just have maybe an all trails link, or our trails brochure, or something like that. When they get out on the trail, it’s a different story. And so being able to have a really clean path out there for the visitor who doesn’t know where they’re at, it’s so important to tourism. It’s so important to them having a positive a positive experience. And we know when they have a positive experience, they’re going to talk positively about the area and they’re going to return. So the work that the Trails Alliance is doing is so important to tourism, especially in an area that has hundreds of miles of trails and it’s 50% National Forest. So we’re so thankful for the work that they’re doing, and we hope to see them continue
Gene Mundy 2:00
to grow. Tell us about how Alleghany Outdoors got started.
Matthew Fischer 2:04
Alleghany Outdoors got started seven years ago, with the concessionary mind, with the building of the Jackson racial trail by the county. The two guys that started were John and Dan Mays out of Twin Rivers and Buck cannon. They hired me to become the manager. Cut to five years later, their concessionaire license ran up. They asked me if I’d be interested, and I said, Yes, I have a long family history here. Been drawn back to the area. Love the recreation this area. Love recreation for a long time. So took a walk on the trail. Couple boats on the river said, Yeah, let’s do it. That was you. That was me.
Gene Mundy 2:44
Tell me about the opportunity. Like, how did you what opportunity did you see? Like, what was the gap that needed to be filled?
Matthew Fischer 2:52
This felt like there was a gap here that, you know, with the 50% of national forest that surrounds us and all the recreation that’s here, that’s been here. You know, cut back to time. Doubt is one of the first state parks. We have one of the oldest resorts here. So eco tourism has been a driving force here for a long time. And, you know, there’s a, you know, environmentally, there’s a lot of negativity here, but there’s also just a lot of surrounding beauty, with the Jackson River, the doubt that state park trails and Lake, Moon Mall? Doubt it cow pasture. It’s not many places you can drive out 20 minutes and hit five different bodies of water, so
Gene Mundy 3:30
beautiful surroundings for us, absolutely. Who do you see as your primary customers?
Matthew Fischer 3:36
For me, you know it is tourism, for sure. Say it’s 85 90% of my customers, whether it be the weekend warrior, coming from a 45 hour and a half drive, Staunton, Lexington, Roanoke, those places, or, surprisingly enough, Ohio Valley belt there, through the Pennsylvania and into Northern Virginia.
Gene Mundy 3:57
So let’s talk about from a from a high level tourism perspective, what is the chamber seen as primary economic drivers for the community,
Josh Taylor 4:10
in terms of tourism and the visitors that we’re seeing? What is bringing them here? Outdoor recreation is a huge deal. It’s this area is 50% national forest lands, so the outdoor opportunities are abundant. They’re really it’s we’re surrounded by the outdoors here, so that’s really king when it comes to tourism. But we are seeing a lot of growth in the performing of visual arts scene. What’s going on in Clifton Forge? You can walk within four or five different arts venues. The Arts Council, who rotates between here and Covington at Kirkman Hall and historic Masonic theater, puts on World Class performances. So there’s a lot of really momentum going on in the art scene that we’re seeing and really transforming both our downtowns in that manner. And then we’re also seeing the scenic drive motorcycle market become a really big thing. If you’ve ever heard of the back country discovery route, that route, there’s several of them throughout the country. And they run for multiple states, and the back country discovery route on the East Coast runs right through Covington. So if you’ve ever seen those motorcyclists in the area with on road, off road motorcycles, they’ve got the packs on the back. They’re traveling through I see them daily, and so they’re stopping and getting gas in our gas stations. They’re eating our restaurants and oftentimes staying in the hotel. So that’s a really big driver of tourism as well. And then I would say the last thing is really that cultural heritage tourism, there’s a lot of history in this area. We have va 250 coming up this year, celebrating the 250th commemoration and partnership with Virginia tourism. So we’ll be celebrating that in our community. We already had the Mobile Museum here at street scene this year to kind of kick things off. There’s a lot of historical areas, like humpback bridge on the national register of historic monuments, falling springs, falls. Thomas Jefferson’s visited that and had a really great quote about that. You think about green pastures and the story out there, the Oakland church and places of that nature. So there’s a lot of areas in this community that drive that cultural heritage tourism as well. So there’s really four major areas where I would say that senior drive, motorcycle, the cultural heritage, the arts and outdoor rec. And all of those are a different type of visitor. So when it comes to marketing to them, you’re doing that in various different ways and manners to reach those people. It’s kind of niche marketing in a set, in a way where you’re advertising in certain places to reach the outdoorsy person, and you’re advertising in other places to reach a traveler who may be of a certain age and wants to see certain things. And so you’re doing different strategies behind it so that you’re reaching all of them, but in different ways.
Gene Mundy 6:34
Following that thread, you know, where do you see the next frontier for outdoor recreational growth in this area. Yeah.
Josh Taylor 6:42
So like I said, we’ve got a lot, there’s, there’s 50% national forest lands. I would love to see some of I would love to see more people know about Alleghany Outdoors. You know, what we have in this area is a lot of outdoor opportunities. But there was never like this plate. It’s never a system where it’s like, you can have an outfit or go out there and do it for you, until Matt came along. And so it’s really important what he does to be able to push a visitor and he can tailor trips for them. We don’t have anything outside of that. And I said I’d love to see that happen, where he’s serving and doing a lot of different things for our visitors, as it relates to outdoor recreation. And I know he’s he’s doing an incredible job and growing every year on that you look at like a place like Lake memo, it’s a hidden gem. Southern Living just ran an article on how it’s the bluest water in Virginia. But there’s infrastructure upgrades that we need to make up there to really make that an incredible spot. It’s a hidden gem right now, but once we get people there, we want them to come back right now we’re working on some grant funding to apply for to make some upgrades at the wayside park at humpback bridge. All the weather events that we’ve had over the years, the erosion has taken its toll, especially on the love sign and the bank. And so we’re applying for some funding to redo the love sign. Really cool idea one of our employees had is the V at humpback bridge always served as the tree was the V, right? And a recent storm broke it and split it in half, and now it’s just really kind of dying and sprouting off random things at this point. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna work with Union church mill works to remove that tree, and they’re gonna turn that tree into an actual wooden V. That’s a great I’ll put it there with a plaque under it showing that was the original tree, and the local business is going to do that for us. So hopefully we can get that funding and make that happen. And then I think a long term goal that’s huge is I would love to see a separate viewing platform at falling springs falls, maybe down near the bottom. Yeah, that would take a lot of leg work. I think there’s some rare moss that grows down there, and some environment environmental aspects you wouldn’t want to encroach on, but that’s a big deal that I’d love to see happen as well. And I think, you know, as tourism grows, and it is continuing to grow, the number one thing that we will always need is more lodging. This area has just a great base of b and B’s Airbnb market along the rivers and in the mountains, and just really great places to stay in that nature. But you’re not they can only have, you know, four or 5678, rooms, maybe at max, right? So you’re really missing like the bus market and things like that. They can bring in these large amounts. And you’re also betting on the fact that people were really their, their vibe is an Airbnb, right? You know, some people want that continental breakfast that at a, you know, a chain hotel. That’s me, and so you we have, we have chain hotels, but I think you know that there’s a lack of three star above chain lodging in the area, and we really want to grow that, and we’re exciting. I know in Clifton Forge, an announcement was just made that there’ll be 16 rooms added there at the old rail station. So that’s going to be a huge win for tourism. We’re so excited about that, but continuing to seek and find opportunities to create more lodging here, because. Oftentimes, if there’s not enough room in these Bnbs, people still come. They still visit, they visit the trail, they go to humpback, they go to the falls, and then they just stay in a nearby community. Yeah, and so, you know, I’ll stop talking in a minute, but we, we a big strategy for 2026 is connecting the experiences that we know people are doing when they come here to our lodging. So we’re going to start a lodging stakeholders group. We already segment our tour, our outdoor rec and our arts groups, so starting in January, we’ll have a lodging group and getting those people together. And what we’re thinking is like, for example, the Evergreen Inn. It steps away from the Jackson River. Yeah, right. We should have had him here today, yeah. We’ll get him in here. Yeah. But John, his name is John Fitzgerald that owns that him and his wife, Laurie. And he does. He’s a very he can teach fly fishing. So think about in the Jackson River is a blue ribbon trout fishery, right? And it steps away. So you can connect a fly fishing experience with that, or, you know, a kayaking experience, because you could throw a rock at Matt’s building from the house. You think about in downtown Clinton Forge. You could pair that with a really nice show at the Masonic theater or a class at the School of the Arts. So we’re going to try to take these experiences that we know people are coming here to do and pairing them with a place to stay locally. And so we’re capitalizing when they’re here, but we’re going to make sure they’re staying
Gene Mundy 11:15
here as well. We Josh brought up a good point about your you know, outfitting business, and you know, we’re talking about trails, but I think if you look at the broader perspective, it’s not just trails, it’s not just the river. Like you said, there’s two great lakes here. Tell us a little bit about how you’re outfitting business as you kind of getting into that market. How, how do you do that? And how do people get in touch with you? For that.
Matthew Fischer 11:40
We have great logistics because of all the boat ramps that have been put in and the location we’re at, the county got, I don’t know how lucky they got. You know, for years we’ve tried to get up here at other locations, it just didn’t work out. But I don’t think it could have worked out any better than where we’re at, where mile markers zero on the Jackson river Scenic Trail, and we’re at the last mile mark, or last river takeout before you get an industrial zone on the Jackson river. So everything that we do we we’re going to take as far as kayaking. We’re going to take you upstream. We can take upstream to 10 miles, and it’s a day trip back to us. So we have a take you up to Smith bridge, about 10 and a half miles. We take you to Indian draft, seven and a half miles, and petticoat for our short trip, four miles. Then our tubing trip is a really unique experience as well, and it was a big hit during covid Because it’s completely shuttled. Shuttle is so you don’t have to take a shuttle to get into our get onto the river, which kind of blows people’s minds. But if you look at a map or an aerial view of the Jackson River, where we’re at intervale, you can get on the Jackson river Scenic Trail walk three tenths of a mile right above John Fitzgerald’s house. Actually, if the hill wasn’t there, you could see each side of the river and it loops. The river will loop or take a big bend, Horseshoe Bend, two miles around Dressler estates. So you can literally walk five minutes and two for an hour and a half to two hours. It blows people’s minds away, especially when they’re from the flat land or too many people call me. Are you sure this is right? We’ve only walked two minutes, you know?
Gene Mundy 13:16
So Josh, one of the questions I’d like to ask is, we think about ecotourism. What are the micro ventures people might want to consider here to get into that tourism revenue opportunities?
Josh Taylor 13:32
Yeah, I mean, as you a prime example is right beside me with Alleghany Outdoors. I mean, he said most of his business is from visitors, and so he’s really hitting those bikers and along the trail, and then in the water recreation as well. But you think about mountain biking is really growing as well. At Dowth State Park, the trails at dowthat are considered to be some of the best in the state. So having outfitters there, when bike repair shops, food trucks to support people that are out along the trails and the outdoors, these mobile ventures like that. But really tourism complement small business that is existing in a big way as well. A quick point I’ll make is we talk about Douthat State Park. We see about 200 to 250,000 visitors a year. 75% of doubt that State Park is in Bath County. But every single person there has to get groceries, they have to get gas. They want to eat dinner because there’s not a restaurant on site now. Clifton George cliftondale Park. Every place they’re going to spend money at is in Alleghany County. Yeah, all those 202 150,000 people, so, so important to market to them. But all of those people are coming into our community to shop. Think about our outdoor events and the economic impact that surrounds those. All of those individuals are coming down in the community. We’re pushing them afterwards. We’re giving them coupons here and there, and they’re welcome bags. We’re pushing them into the communities afterwards, so they’re coming out and they’re eating and they’re getting gas and they’re staying in the hotel, so they’re doing a great big job of supporting our community when they’re coming here for outdoor activities and really activities in general.
Gene Mundy 14:56
Great question for both of you. We’ll start with Matt. Matt, what project or idea that you have would lead to help transform this region in the next three to five years?
Matthew Fischer 15:11
I think the first one comes to me is the Clifton forge reservoir, and connecting the reservoir by trail to the Town of Clifton forge that could be a flagship trail head marker there, with the reservoir and the connections to Douthat and Covington by trail.
Gene Mundy 15:27
Great idea. Josh, same question,
Josh Taylor 15:30
just real quick. I think I’d like to grow with the signage that we’ve got here. We’ve got this incredible new downtown way finding system that has been put in phase three, is finally finished as a 10 plus year project, and that’s really navigating people off the interstate in our communities and throughout our downtowns. So I want to take that same signage and that same branding and put it in our outdoor spaces along the kiosk of the Jackson River, scenic trail mapping on the kiosk of the Jackson River, all with that Alleghany Highlands color and logo, and you’re really getting people from website to on site in our communities, and now they feel comfortable when they’re out along the trail systems and our blue way and our outdoor spaces, everything is connected as the Alleghany Highlands region, we really become known as this, this outdoor destination that’s very visible and known now because our branding is everywhere, I think that’s a huge deal. And of course, there’s other things, what we talked about with infrastructure that we can certainly upgrade, humpback bridge and falling springs falls are by far the most photographed places and visited places in our community, continuing to make infrastructure upgrades there and making those, those places more accessible. Because when you come to this area, that’s probably the first place, those two places that you’re going to go, you don’t have to spend a lot of time there, but you have to see them, and so you can kind of knock that out. So a lot of times, those are the first impression of the impression of the visitor to our region. And so I think it’s important to really take great care of those assets in our community. But there’s another thing, and obviously, lodging. It always goes back to lodging.
