Kit Trubey and Bill Carson. The brother-and-sister team has rescued some 275 parkway-straddling acres and brought them back to apple-bearing life.

But the orchard was saved by Kit Trubey, a real estate agent in Cary, N.C., who bought the orchard and the surrounding property in January 1995 and recruited her brother Bill Carson to restore it.

At the time, Kit and Bill didn't know anything about the apple business. But they did know that they loved the Blue Ridge Parkway, which they had been visiting since the early 1960s to stay in an aunt's cottage in Little Switzerland. And they couldn't bear the thought of seeing the orchard turned into a subdivision of vacation houses that would have dominated the view from The Loops and the North Cove overlooks, which bracket the orchard.

So when Kit noticed an ad in the paper for the property, she immediately -- literally -- called up and arranged to buy the property: 275 acres in all, straddling both sides of the parkway. At the time, the orchard -- on 80 acres clinging along the inside curve of the parkway's southern exposure -- had fallen into disrepair. The apple trees were overgrown. The packing house was peeling and boarded up. The absentee owners in Florida had given up on making the orchard a going concern. The land, having been neatly terraced for orderly rows of apple trees, could have been regraded for a subdivision with a minimum of effort.

In fact, shortly after she bought the land, Kit learned that a local developer had already prepared a plat showing just how he intended to subdivide the property into lots.

"We really did get it just in time," she says.

Three years later, the orchard is again providing residents and visitors alike with a steady supply of luscious red and gold fruit, including several heirloom varieties such as Virginia Beauty, York Imperial and Grimes Golden.

In the fall, visitors to the spruced-up packing house can watch the packing line in operation as 20-bushel crates of Red and Golden Delicious, Staymans and King Luscious are fed into a motorized conveyor and sorted, graded and packed. But under Kit and Bill, the packing house has become much more. It has become a center for local mountain crafts and culture.

From Memorial Day through the first week in November, the orchard welcomes visitors with displays of the handsome works turned out by local craftspeople in clay, wood and cloth. Last year, Bill started displaying directions to their studios, which is part of his campaign to use the orchard to boost the area's economy.

The packing house also features delicious (personal experience here), locally canned preserves, jellies and pickles. For visitors with sweet teeth, Bill offers ice cream and fudge made fresh on the premises -- 17 varieties in all, including such exotics as creamsicle (vanilla and orange), pumpkin and amaretto.

"We sold a ton of it last year," Bill says. "I plan on selling two tons this year."

"I say it's a little like taking driver's ed and reading a book, and then going out on the road," Bill says. "No amount of studying and preparation prepares you for doing it." A case in point: After buying the orchard, Bill concentrated on putting the trees bearing Stayman back into production. But it can be hard to tell one kind of apple tree from another at pruning time when they're not bearing. Come that first harvest, Bill said, "All my Staymans turned into Yorks."

Bill and his crew of three have restored about 2,000 trees back into production. This is about half the orchard's total. Lodi, Blaze and an early Winesap start bearing in mid-July. A handful of MacIntosh ripen in late August. Then in late September, the classics of fall are ready for harvest: Rome, Red and Golden Delicious, York Imperial, Stayman, and Grimes Golden, to name a few. To boost the early-September harvest, Bill planted 160 new trees this year, 40 each of Gala, Sansa, Jonagold and Gingergold.

Also new this year is a deck that Kit and Bill added to the back of the packing house, from which guests can drink in a spectacular panorama of McKinney Gap, Rocky Ridge and Linville Mountain.

On weekends, you can sample authentic mountain cooking from Nita Young's lunch truck, perhaps the only mobile kitchen in America with a wood cook stove on board.

Weekends also bring free hayrides around the orchard, and music -- bluegrass, mountain and folk on Saturdays; gospel and easy listening on Sundays.

This fall is the orchard's third harvest under Kit's ownership. It has yet to turn a profit. Although a profit will be necessary at some point, Bill says that there are limits to what they will do to make money, because that's not why Kit bought the orchard.

An example: Some trees in the orchard are approaching 80 years old and they're long past their prime for bearing.

"But if we replanted the orchard we couldn't get the same kind of trees we have now," Bill says. "I want to do enough good with the apples that it helps pay for this preservation project we've got going, but our primary motivation is not getting the most money out of the orchard. It's really to preserve the flavor and the character of this place, and part of that is the flavor and taste of these apples."

The Orchard at Altapass is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. seven days a week from Memorial Day through the first week in November. 704/765-9314.