In February, Scenic America, an advocacy group, designated the stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway that cuts across the Roanoke Valley a "Last Chance Landscape." It’s easy to see why.

Heading north from Bent Mountain on a hot June day, the haze is nearly thick enough to hide downtown Roanoke. Only the muted reflection of sunlight off the copper-topped Wachovia Tower gives it away.

The Lost Mountain Overlook seems aptly named. The mountain it’s named for is nearly buried under housing developments with streets named after the trees that used to stand there.

As drivers approach the spot where the parkway crosses Cotton Hill Road, there’s a quick flash of a two-story vinyl-sided house before trees block it out. Then a whole line of houses leaps up — more than 20 of them with decks and large windows that offer beautiful views of the parkway and the cow pasture beyond. People on the parkway get a view of those houses’ back yards.

At the parkway’s intersection with U.S. 220, a steady whine of traffic is punctuated by the sputtering of trucks gearing down for the traffic light at Buck Mountain Road. Lots of red dirt is being moved around by red dump trucks and yellow bulldozers and front-end loaders. Eventually, the sleek, smoky-glassed buildings of a high-end auto dealer will be part of the scenery.

The Read Mountain Overlook offers a view of houses where orchards used to be and houses climbing the side of the mountain. The Bonsack Wal-Mart is so close it’s easy to read the sign near its entrance. Mixed in with the bird calls is the hum and beep of heavy equipment preparing a building site for a Lowe's Home Improvement Center next to the Wal-Mart.

There’s a stand of fast-growing white pines about 90 feet from the edge of the overlook.

Before long they’ll block the view of everything except the top of Read Mountain, 1,100 feet above. That’s the only part of the view that looks the way it did when the overlook was built.