Dan Casey

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We'd just rounded another corkscrew bend on Tazewell County's diabolically steep Route 623 when Burkes Garden began to unfold. About 1,400 feet below our inching minivan, the vast oval bowl shone olive green in the November sun.

I and four cycling pals -- Jon Cawley, David Reed, Eric Brady and John Coates -- were there to investigate this 10-mile-long and 4.5-mile-wide geographical curiosity. Roughly a three-hour drive southwest of Roanoke, the remote farming settlement is Virginia's highest valley, elev. 3,100 feet. It's isolated by a 4,500-foot-tall mountain that rings it completely.

Fewer than 300 people live along the rolling, grassy swells of Burkes Garden, and virtually all of them are farmers. The remake of the movie, "Lassie," was filmed here. About 20-odd miles of well-maintained yet sparsely traveled roads connect the large open tracts. Perfect for an afternoon bike ride, we figured.

We were right. The 25-mile ride -- we doubled up on a few roads -- was a romp.

The garden's stiff winds whipsawed us; later on we shivered when the sun made its early-afternoon dip behind Garden Mountain. We hit a dead end. There were some minor mechanical problems.

No matter.

Burkes' resolute quietness, sapphire sky, pastoral beauty and dearth of cars made us forget all that. As the five us cracked beers at ride's end, we vowed that we'd be back.

Heart of Appalachia Bike Route

It was an e-mail that brought us to the garden. Frank Sellers wrote that he'd been driving in the southwest corner of Virginia and noticed signs marking the Heart of Appalachia Bike Route. Did I have any idea what that was? Sellers asked.

A bit of checking revealed that the 128-mile route was dedicated this year, and that it has been detailed on a map published by the Virginia Coalfield Regional Tourism Development Authority.

The route, which runs along paved and unpaved roads, runs west from Burkes Garden to Guest River Gorge, a stone's throw from Virginia's borders with Kentucky and Tennessee.

The loop marked at Burkes Garden seemed the ideal way to work a taste of the Heart of Appalachia route into a day trip.

An improbable potato patch

White settlers' discovery of the garden came about three decades before the Revolutionary War. It is named for explorer James Burke, who found the mountain-ringed bowl, and a peculiar potato patch that arose out of its fertile soil. Writer Beth Macy recounted the legend in a 1993 Roanoke Times article.

Burke was hunting one day in 1745 when he followed a wounded elk into the bowl and found a hunter's paradise. In exchange for 400 acres there and 10 English pounds, Burke showed his discovery to a group of surveyors for the King of England. Macy writes: "Cooking breakfast for the surveying party one fall morning, the story goes, [Burke] left behind a mound of potato peelings covered with brush. When the surveyors returned the next year, they found a bed of potatoes - and Burkes Garden got its name."

How the bowl got there to begin with is more geology than legend. In Highroad Guide to the Virginia Mountains, Deane and Garvey Winegar explain it like this:

"The ridges of Garden Mountain are made up of erosion resistant sandstone, while the material that once filled the valley was highly erodible limestone and shale. Much of the limestone and shale, eroding over the millennia, gradually disappeared through a canyon on the north side, and some has dissolved in waters that sink beneath the porous base."

Sinkholes that dot the Burke's wavy fields are evidence that this process is still continuing.

'This place rocks...'

The garden's population peaked early in this century at around 1,000 people. Today, barely 260 remain. Most of them are descendants of longtime garden dwellers who were loath to sell land to outsiders.

George Washington Vanderbilt found that out in the early 1800s, when he was looking to build what would become the largest private home in America. His first choice was Burkes Garden, but the landowners there wouldn't part with an acre. Vanderbilt ultimately settled for Asheville, N.C., where the Biltmore Estate stands today.

To a certain extent, that attitude prevails today. Five years ago, three Amish families from southern Maryland moved to the garden to escape Washington D.C.'s quickly spreading suburbs. But their attempt to lure other Amish families has failed, says Arlene Newton, who works at the Burkes Garden General Store.

"Nobody would sell them any more land," Newton says. Today, those Amish farms are for sale.

Most of the garden's visitors show up in warmer months, she says. The tourist season peaks with an annual festival, spread out among the bowl's 45 square miles, on the last Saturday of every September. About 10,000 people showed up this year, she says.

"This place rocks in the summer," Newton adds.

Not enough, however, to sustain the garden's only bed and breakfast. Joe and Pauletta VanDyke had high hopes for the James Burke Inn back in 1993: a mini-resort-restaurant-health spa that would have live music and serve alcohol. Today, the inn stands empty along Route 625, with a 'For Sale' sign in its front yard.

The ride

One of the great things about a bike ride in Burkes Garden is that it's impossible to get lost. All of the valley's roads lead into each other, or are dead ends. You can concentrate on the stunning scenery and on getting up the next short rise rather than not missing a key turn.

Another thing in its favor is there are hardly any cars to share the road with. I counted fewer than 20 in a 4-hour ride around the valley.

Although flat in comparison with much of southwest Virginia, Burkes Garden's roads can be challenging. The turns are tight, and the valley's pavement is pretty much continually rolling. The winds can be fierce. On a difficulty scale, I rate it a 4 on a scale of 10, with 10 being the hardest.

The General Store, which sells a variety of snacks and staples, is a good place to start the ride. Beginning there would allow cyclists to ride the garden's roads in a figure-8 pattern, and repeat part of the route with a minimum of backtracking.

A couple other points of interest:

The Amish farms are along a dead end of Route 727. Although currently for sale, the families remain. Look for the telltale horse and buggies and horse-drawn plows in the fields.

The quaint and historic Burkes Garden Lutheran Church stands on a prominent knoll on Route 623. Behind it is a cemetery with headstones dating to the 1700s.

A short distance north of the church on Route 623 is the Burkes Garden Post Office, a small wood-framed building that looks like it hasn't had a coat of paint in 50 years.

The garden is a birdwatcher's delight. Rough-legged hawks head south from the arctic tundra to summer here. And sightings of gold eagles and the rare red-headed woodpecker have been reported.

Getting there:

Burkes Garden is about 130 miles southwest of Roanoke, just a few miles east of the town of Tazewell. There are three ways to get into Burkes Garden, but only one of them is paved. The paved route is probably the longest way in, but it's also the one I recommend. Unless you have a four-wheel drive, don't even think about attempting an entrance any other way. And even if you do take the road, be very careful in the winter.

Take Interstate 81 south from Roanoke, then Interstate 77 north toward Bluefield, W.Va. From 77, take Virginia 61 south. Follow it more than 10 miles, until you see a BP gas station on the left. Take a left here on County Road 623, perhaps the most twisty and steeply switchbacked road I've ever driven. This will lead you up and over Garden Mountain and into Burkes Garden.

For more info, call the Virginia Coalfield Regional Tourism Development Authority (1-888-798-2386).