Relative to the uniqueness and scenery of the Plains, the foot trail system is clearly inadequate, though in recent years the Forest Service (USFS) has invested heavily in improving the area’s four foot trails. There are exceptionally scenic places on the Plains that visitors can get to only via the area’s Forest road (FR70) and its pipeline swath. Numerous other exceptional areas are, for all intents and purposes, totally inaccessible and largely unknown to all but the most dedicated explorers. In any other part of the MNF or the West Virginia Highlands, scenery of similar quality would have received the attention of at least one foot trail and would be highlighted on visitor maps.

Whether this apparent neglect is by design or accident is not known. Areas on the MNF with well-developed foot-trail systems (e.g. Dolly Sods South and Otter Creek) tend to be increasingly over-used. Areas of similar or higher scenic quality (e.g. Dolly Sods North) without extensive foot trail systems receive nowhere near as much use. The USFS, with one eye on its budget and the other on the future, may see a minimal trail system as its only real option for protecting these major assets over the long term. The USFS’s lack of enthusiasm for developing a foot trail system in Dolly Sods North offers evidence of this strategy. Whether this strategy (if it is that) will work in the long term depends on the area. Dolly Sods North has an extensive system of informal trails, and maps of these trails are becoming increasingly well known. You just have to know the right people. For the Plains, a minimal-trail-system strategy for protecting the area could work, because informal foot trails there are fewer and harder to come by due to the area’s vegetation and ruggedness. Politically speaking however, increasing forest usage in areas not well used can be used to justify larger Forest budgets, and can generate the public support for expanded budgets. It might even save money. It would cost taxpayers a bundle of cash to subsidize logging on the steep slopes and thin, rocky soils of most of the Plains. So increased recreational use could generate public support for resisting industry pressures for budget-busting timber "sales."

Take a longer view. Recreational uses are becoming increasingly large components of the package of benefits national forests provide. In some western national forests, jobs related to recreational use outnumber timbering-related jobs by 20 to 1. It is gradually becoming clear to all concerned that, over time, recreational users must start paying their share of the costs of national forest management. Failure to do so can only wind up hurting recreational users -- for example, an inadequate foot trail system on the Plains and the inability to buy key tracts of land needed to connect to Spruce Knob NRA. (One analysis noted that if the USFS received just $2 per visitor-day of recreational use, it would be up to its eyeballs in cash.) So realistically we must expect to pay for our national forest visits -- probably in the form of windshield stickers.

Then the USFS will see recreational visitors in a whole new light, for then there will be ways to pay the costs of keeping forests from being degraded via recreational over-use.

The most glaring inadequacy of the foot-trail system on the Plains is the lack of a "backbone" trail running along or near the eastern continental divide that runs north to south through the area. Were such a trail in place, opportunities would be created for other trails that could connect with the backbone trail to form a logical trail system covering the entire Plains to a degree worthy of the area’s attributes. A backbone trail would run through much of the most outstanding scenery of the Plains -- right along the rims of the valleys of the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac, Roaring Creek and Long Run (ending on the overlooks on Haystack Knob). It would run through the Plains’ two largest campsite areas. Despite its high elevation, the route has adequate water supplies close to the trail. Also, because of the severe climate along the eastern continental divide, vegetation tends to not be the dense type that makes trail construction and maintenance hard -- and that limits views. In fact, a backbone trail could be built largely by volunteers.

North Fork Mountain Trail has been named West Virginia’s most outstanding foot trail by Outside Magazine. It would probably keep that title even if several adjoining states were thrown into the running. Views along the Plains’ backbone trail would be as spectacular as those along North Fork Mountain Trail -- and would be far more varied despite being somewhat fewer in number. The local scenery, environment and opportunities for exploration would also be more varied and interesting along the backbone trail. Also there would be more campsite opportunities. Also the North Fork Mountain Trail has no water sources and has problems with private ownership on parts of its route. Steep climbs along a backbone trail would be less severe and less numerous than those on North Fork Mountain Trail despite the ruggedness of the Plains in general. All in all, a backbone trail on the Plains would very likely take the "most outstanding" title away from North Fork Mountain Trail -- and probably be the most popular trail on the MNF by a wide margin. It also would have the potential for being extended a relatively short distance south and joining the trail system on Dolly Sods to that on Spruce Knob NRA. All this would require is the purchase (or gaining easements to) of McIntosh Run, an extremely steep, wild and scenic stream valley that runs down to the major switch-back on a scenic section of US33 and into the Spruce Knob NRA.