Breaks Interstate Park Superintendent Austin Bradley helped reintroduce wild elk to Virginia and created tours that let visitors experience them up close and personal.
Photos Courtesy of Austin Bradley.
A 12-seat sprinter van pursues a bumpy, far southwest Virginia gravel road upward through patches of thick brush and dense forest, then bursts into a high meadow where the world opens onto soaring, 360-degree views of the Alleghany Mountains. The righthand roadside soon falls away into a thin valley peppered with maybe two dozen — deer?
No, elk!
The van stops at a nearby grassy outcropping. The driver gestures excitedly to the left as we passengers about-face to spot a massive bull elk lumbering out from a portside thicket. Our guide — longtime Breaks Interstate Park superintendent Austin Bradley — tells us the animal is probably 7 or 8 years old, 9 feet long, 5 feet tall at the shoulder and upward of 1,000 pounds in weight. His antlers are 20-25 pounds each and span a distance of about 5 feet.
The tableau is arresting. It feels like we’ve taken a time machine to a bygone era.
And in a sense, that’s exactly what’s happened: This is a Breaks-led tour through the otherwise inaccessible Virginia Elk Restoration Zone. The three-hour experiences include multiple stops and a picnic lunch or dinner at a 3,000-plus-foot hilltop pavilion with views of the Cumberland Plateau. They’re led by park biologists who discuss elk, their history in the region and ongoing reintroduction efforts.
“This is one of Appalachia’s greatest conservation stories come-to-life,” says Bradley. When Europeans arrived in North America, millions of eastern elk were found throughout the Appalachian Mountains. “They were part of the landscape, but were hunted to extinction around [1855],” Bradley continues. “Now we have a herd of 300 roaming free in Virginia alone.”
Bradley was instrumental to restoration efforts and masterminded tours that let visitors experience and learn about elk in person.
“I feel so grateful to be able to play a part in this,” he says. “To see the wonder on people’s faces as they spot the majestic animals grazing in mountain fields? It’s pretty miraculous.”
Oddly enough, Bradley found his calling largely by chance. He grew up in rural Buchanan County, Virginia, not far from Breaks in a family of hunters and fishermen, and fell in love with the outdoors early on. The passion grew with time and inspired dreams of a career in conservation.
The interest eventually landed him in the famed Alice Lloyd College environmental science program studying wildlife biology. The school was near Kentucky’s new elk restoration zone, which was established in 1997. Field trips brought interactions with the animals and Department of Wildlife Resources biologists, which helped Bradley get a nonprofit gig leading nature tours for at-risk youths.
He loved the animals and the job wasn’t bad, but Bradley had bigger ambitions. They soon landed him in Johnson City, Tennessee, working as a Boy Scouts administrator. The position was a lot of fun and Bradley used professional development incentives to earn an MBA hoping it would open doors to promotion.
Then he spotted a 2010 Breaks help-wanted ad for a naturalist. “It was my dream job and I applied on a whim,” he says. An offer wasn’t long coming and Bradley chose “to drop everything to go do what I loved.”
Bradley’s arrival coincided with discussions about how to reverse economic declines due to the region’s collapsed coal industry. Wildlife management struggled to contain elk wandering in from Kentucky. The region was rich with natural beauty, but didn’t have a marquis draw for visitors. Breaks was home to the deepest and arguably most scenic canyon east of the Mississippi — in addition to a restaurant, taproom, water park, lodge, campground and fleet of cabins.
Bradley pitched partnering with the Nature Foundation to use the park as a headquarters for managing a Virginia-based elk herd. The effort would beautify thousands of acres of reclaimed mining lands and transform them into attracting assets. Higher-ups ran with the idea and the Virginia Elk Restoration Zone was established in 2012 on a more than 100,000-acre network of public, private and corporate lands across Buchanan, Dickenson and Wise counties.
Bradley was subsequently tapped to lead and spearhead development around public tours. The venture started with a small regional ad and 12-seat bus. Excursions sold out immediately and were a huge success. Offerings and infrastructure quickly snowballed, and Bradley was promoted to superintendent in 2013.
Annual tour participants now number in the thousands, helping Breaks set overnight lodging records for four of the past five years. And Bradley, now a father of four, is using the funding to add new recreation options like mountain biking trails and an onsite paddling outfitter.
“Sometimes I look back on all that’s happened and scratch my head in wonder,” says Bradley. He calls gambling on a dream the “best decision I ever made. It enabled me to make a difference doing what I love most, and I wake up each day feeling blessed to have that opportunity.”
Want to Go?
Breaks Interstate Park offers elk tours in the fall and in the spring. For more information: breakspark.com/elk-tours
The story above first appeared in our September / October 2025 issue.
