Like turkey hunters, accomplished bass anglers were few in the 1960s. In the Roanoke Valley you probably could count up to 10 of them if you studied on it. The hunter and fisherman has been joined in the outdoors by hikers, by bikers, by paddlers and by bird watchers. The Appalachian Trail is all but secure on its 2,000-mile Georgia to Maine journey. Mountain bike trails are being developed, some of them single-track affairs, such as the new one at Virginia's Explore Park.
Paddlers challenge white water in new breeds of boats and send their sea kayaks across placid water.
Bird feeding has become a billion-dollar business and the number of birders who can identify just about anything that peeps or flies has grown significantly. They are skiing in the South. That was more than 30 years ago. I watched other ski areas develop in Virginia and in West Virginia and North Carolina. There was a boom period when a new resort open almost every years.