This Land, Your Land

The state's purchase of land around Rumbling Bald Mountain will expand Chimney Rock State Park by more than 20 percent, the Asheville Citizen-Times reports.

The N.C. Council of State agreed Tuesday to pay the Nature Conservancy $4.2 million for 1,222 acres at Rumbling Bald, which is just north of Chimney Rock in the Hickory Nut Gorge.

The tract includes Rumbling Bald Mountain, with its a massive rock face visible from Lake Lure, steep cliffs, granite domes and a mature hickory forest, Nature Conservancy in North Carolina spokesman Debbie Crane told the newspaper.

The state established Chimney Rock State Park in 2007 after buying the Rutherford County tourist attraction from private owners in 2005, and has continued to add adjacent land to it. The park now comprises more than 5,700 acres.

The master plan for Chimney Rock State Park calls for development of three day use areas in phases over the next 20 years. The Rumbling Bald area, which is popular with rock climbers, is to be developed in phase three.

If you're looking for something a little bit different this weekend or next, there's the rock climbing Santa at Chimney Rock State Park. St. Nick will be scaling western North Carolina's biggest chimney at 10 and 11 a.m. and again at 2 p.m. on December 3 and 10. There will also be live holiday music, hot cocoa and cookies, live animals and children's activities.

The holiday event is presented as part of normal admission to the park, a public/private partnership as the state takes control of 4,500 acres in Hickory Nut Gorge.

With a series of guided hikes that start next Sunday, the Nature Conservancy in North Carolina opens three of its preserves to the public for guided hikes this summer and fall.

The first of the hikes are available May 29 at Bat Cave Preserve in Rutherford County's Hickory Nut Gorge and at Bluff Mountain Preserve in Ashe County.

Bat Cave Preserve, which includes Bat Cave and Little Bat Cave, below, is the site of the longest augen gneiss fissure cave in the world and forests that harbor a number of threatened or endangered plants, such as broadleaf coreopsis and Carey’s saxifrage.

Click on the photo or the link above for a look at the hike we took to Bat Cave Preserve with the Nature Conservancy.

In recent years, the caves have been closed to avoid spreading white-nose syndrome, a disease that has killed a half million bats in the northeast and as far south as Virginia, but there's plenty more to see.

Hikes at Bat Cave Preserve are set for May 29, June 26, July 31, August 28, September 25 and October 23. The hike is two miles, with parts that are fairly steep and strenuous. The hike takes approximately two to two and a half hours. Make a reservation or ask questions at batcavehikes@gmail.com or 828-290-9217.

Bluff Mountain Preserve is one of the most ecologically significant natural areas in the Southeast, according to the Conservancy. It includes a broad, high plateau containing a one-of-a-kind wetland, a southern Appalachian fen, an old-growth Carolina hemlock forest and a rare flat-rock plant community.

Bluff Mountain Preserve hikes are set for May 29, June 24, July 3, September 3 and October 14. The cost is $10 per person. Get more information at bluffmountainpreserve@gmail.com or (336) 497-1972.

Big Yellow Mountain hikes take you through hardwood forests to the mountain's open, grassy 5,540-foot peak in the Roan Highlands.

Big Yellow hikes are set for June 4, July 23 and September 10. For more information or to make reservations, drop a line to bigyellowmountain@gmail.com.

The July issue of The Steward, the State Parks newsletter, provides an overview of May's public airing of the ongoing development of a master plan for Chimney Rock State Park.

The park encompasses some 4,300 acres in the Hickory Nut Gorge area at Lake Lure, including the formerly private Chimney Rock Park tourist attraction.

Nearly 200 people, most of them from the area, attended the day-long public planning session in Lake Lure.

The article describes three types of development plans:

- The “conservation-focused” alternative, which considers protection of eight significant natural heritage areas to be paramount and would allow limited public access. "It includes about 10 miles of hiking trails, two new day use areas, and a visitor center near Lake Lure, but otherwise, very little development outside of the existing Chimney Rock access."

- The “low impact recreation” alternative proposes using only previously disturbed areas for future park development. It would establish a visitor center at “the Meadows,” which is at the lower elevation of the existing Chimney Rock Park and would serve as a hub opening to an extensive network of trails and backcountry camping options on the gorge’s south side. The park would have three day use areas leading to mountain biking, climbing and additional hiking trails, with two of these on the north side of Hickory Nut Gorge.

- The “intensive recreation and use” plan calls for a visitor center on the summit of Chimney Rock Mountain above the developed area, in an abandoned 25-acre orchard. It would be a hub for backcountry and tent/trailer camping, picnicking and hiking. There would be five day use areas on the north and south sides of the gorge with access to camping, mountain biking, climbing, equestrian and hiking opportunities. A secondary visitor center and satellite park administrative offices would be built on the Rumbling Bald Mountain access area – property now under the protection of The Nature Conservancy.

The intensive recreation plan would require either access to the visitor center from the side of the park farthest from the Lake Lure area or construction of a "very expensive" road through the eastern area of the park.

Chuck Flink, president of Greenways Inc., the Durham-based environmental planning and landscape architecture firm responsible for completing the plan this year, said it’s highly likely the final master plan proposal will be a hybrid that sifts the best ideas from all three versions, the article says.

The public comment period for development of the Chimney Rock State Park master plan closed June 23, the Greenways site says.