DarkSky Virginia's 2025 recap e-newsletter included the announcement that DSVA had joined the Paris Mountain Alliance opposing commercial development at Ashby Gap, above Sky Meadows State Park.  Here is a full position statement: 

DarkSky Virginia is among the twenty organizations belonging to the Paris Mountain Alliance.  The alliance formed in September 2025 to oppose 'Eastwind Blue Ridge', a proposed high-end hotel and restaurant development on 150 acres of the Blue Ridge at Ashby Gap near the Appalachian Trail and just above Sky Meadows State Park, one of Virginia's five Dark Sky Parks. 


 The elevated location of the proposed development encompasses sensitive steep slopes, core forest habitat, a critical wildlife corridor, and already overtaxed water resources. The presence of artificial light at night on the mountainside—exterior, interior, and vehicle headlights—would add to the development’s habitat destruction.  Artificial light alters the behavior and influences the physiology of all species, interfering with communication, orientation and navigation, foraging, and reproduction. To quote the National Park Service report Artificial Night Lighting and Protected Lands:  “The only 100 percent wildlife-friendly light is one that is switched off or never installed.”  

The area’s residents and visitors, including those to Sky Meadows' evening astronomy programs, would no longer look upon a naturally dark mountain illuminated only by moonlight. Artificial lighting from the resort would be visible, regardless of mitigating design, and there is no mitigation for vehicle headlights from restaurant patrons and hotel guests. The scarring of the mountainside would be visible for miles to the south and east by night as well as by day.  

The southeastern slope of Paris Mountain overlooks the state and nationally listed Crooked Run Valley Rural Historic District and the Village of Paris as well as Sky Meadows State Park. Public lands and private land conservation come together here to protect a beloved landscape, which Scenic Virginia recently named to its “Treasured Views” register, and is the result of generations of devotion from local conservationists. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy, a member of the Paris Mountain Alliance, has determined that the resort development would be visible from destination viewpoints, degrading the Appalachian National Scenic Trail (and that resort traffic would increase risk to public safety).

DarkSky Virginia shares the Alliance's position that Paris Mountain is a place deserving of protection, not commercial exploitation that would do irreparable ecological, cultural, visual, and community damage.  The proper use of the mountainside is conservation. The appropriate lighting zone for such conserved land, as defined by the Illuminating Engineering Society and adopted by DarkSky International, would be NLz:  Natural conditions where no artificial lighting allowed.  This zone applies to areas where the natural environment is adversely affected by anthropogenic lighting at night.  Land use examples include: Any area where the protection of the natural nighttime environment is critical.  This includes wilderness, backcountry, natural parks, preserves, protected wildlife areas, and sizable areas surrounding observatories.

DarkSky Virginia stands with the Paris Mountain Alliance in unequivocal opposition to Eastwind Blue Ridge and any commercial development of this fragile environment and conservation priority.

DarkSky Virginia is an independent organization and does not represent DarkSky International in this capacity.