Flattop Mountain - Virginia

It is an unfortunate state of affairs when you can’t even drive down the road. Of course, I’m not talking about the time a certain someone put two huge speed bumps in on Flattop Mountain Rd in front of their Flattop Cabin lol. What a nutty thing to do, but that is a part of Flattop history.

I am talking about poorly educated dog owners. The Recall command is one of the most straightforward commands to issue; your dog should not chase cars down the road or run in front of vehicles. Unfortunately, the dog’s owner only reinforces this type of “allowed” behavior. If you off-leash your dog, teach it properly.

Nobody should risk crashing their vehicle due to your dog. Our roads have soft shoulders and hidden boulders just off the sides of the roads. We risk hitting these ditches, boulders, and shrubbery (scratches to paint) to avoid your dogs because you cannot teach a simple command.

This situation falls 100% on the owner and not the dog. I and others from this point WILL NOT move out the way of your dogs.

I LOVE dogs, so this saddens me. Unfortunately, with the future uptick in traffic, we know this will eventually be an issue.

Comps in the Vicinity of Flattop for RAW land with utility and Road access are around $100k+ for two to five acres.

Yet people on Flattop are being offered and accepting the Tax value. So if someone has approached you and offered to purchase your lot for Tax value or a little higher, they know that the value is worth so much more. So that person is not doing you a favor!

Recently the rumor on the mountain is someone sold a lot with a decent view for around $84K.

The county has been very slow to record Real Estate transactions and court documents. The same goes for Tax records and assessments.

If that person who sold his land for $80K+ had waited just a bit later (October 2021) it would show that Comps in Dyke valley below indicate $120-150K for four acres. If only he did his due dilagnace, he could have made so much more 🙁

The covenants of Flattop Mountain do not include a direct entry point into the Park other than the Fire Trail.

Knowing this is important as many misrepresented easements for walking to the park boundary as “Park Access” but once you hit the Park boundary, do you have deeded rights to enter and walk in? The park is posted with Boundry signs, and the Park fences may have fallen years ago; its remnants are still on the ground and in the trees.

When these easements were put in place, the Park did not charge a Daily Padestrain fee. It also would take an Act of Congress to Blaze an additional trial to intersect the Appalachian Trail.

Most of the trail easements on Flattop Mountain fall under the Private category and can easily be removed with an attorneys help, regardless of wording. In these cases, easements applied to the property and not the mountain as a whole.

If you were sold “Deeded Park Access,” you may have been lied to. If this is not the case, the Association should easily show the Memo from the Department of Interior notifying the residence of Flattop of exclusive rights and uses to the Park and Appalachian trail, ask them where it is.

If you do blaze a Trail from the Flattop subdivision using paint and trimmers, you are breaking federal law.

One thing we do know is that no property on Flattop has every had excluse rights to join a National Park Trail system. 

Rangers were given exclusive rights to monitor lots 90/91. When trespassing make sure you wave to the rangers cameras hidden in the park “(`(エ)´)ノ

With the Pandemic in full force, members of the mountain community have reported and noticed an increase in foot traffic leading into the National Park via Flattop Mountain Roads. Unfortunately, one of the footpaths lies in a dangerous area as it is within 10ft of a down power line and several broken trees that can topple over at anytime.