This Land, Your Land

A U.S. Forest Service program will provide $605,000 to reduce wildfire costs and severity, and to fight hemlock wooly adelgid in two popular recreation areas of the Pisgah National Forest, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a news release today.

The grant is among $40 million to be allocated for 20 forest and watershed restoration projects under the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration program.

The 10-year project is meant to restore natural fire-adapted vegetation in the forest, lower wildfire severity and fire suppression costs, and help threatened and endangered species in and around Linville Gorge and the Wilson Creek Wild and Scenic River corridor.

The proposal for the grant calls for prescribed burns, thinning mature trees and planting shortleaf pine in 36,795 acres of pine and oak forests. Other work includes "removing white pine, red maple, yellow poplar and other mesophytic species from oak-hickory and yellow pine Ecological Zones" to "improve species composition and structure on 1,850 acres of upland forests." Another 2,740 acres will be treated for non-native invasive plants.

The Grandfather Restoration Project (it's named for the ranger district) will also include treatment of 540 acres of eastern and Carolina hemlock for hemlock woolly adelgid within the first two years of the project and then indefinitely thereafter.

Additional plans call for bank stabilization, species reintroduction, and removal of artificial fish barriers and non-native invasive plants on a total of 16 miles of streams in the project area.

The proposal says the work involved, including harvesting and selling wood products, will create 12.6 full-time-equivalent jobs.

The National Forest Service has announced plans for prescribed burns in Burke and Haywood county locations in the Pisgah National Forest in the next few weeks.

The Haywood County burn is to include two projects covering about 950 acres near Harmon Den (home to a horse camp closed for the season) and the Max Patch bald. These include aproximately 500 acres between Harmon Den Road and Cherry Creek Trail, and about 450 acres between Max Patch Road and Buckeye Ridge Horse Trail.

The Burke County project is to burn approximately 1,250 acres near near Dobson Knob south of Forest Service Road 106 to Black Fork and Yellow Fork Creek.

The fires are to be set between now and "early December," weather permitting, the Forest Service says in a news release

Prescribed burns reduce the buildup of dead wood, shrubs and other vegetation, and decrease the chance of severe wildfire, the release says.

"Numerous native plants and animals need fire in their habitats to reduce competition from invading species, and to add nutrients back into the soil," according to the Forest Service. "Prescribed burning also helps support strategic goals of restoring ecological systems to their natural resilience, restoring native vegetation, and protecting people and resources from catastrophic fires."

The threat of bear activity that closed several campgrounds near Mount Mitchell has abated and the recreation areas have reopened, the Forest Service said Monday.

The following were to reopen by the end of the day:

* Briar Bottom Campground.
* Black Mountain Campground.
* Neals Creek Road.
* Buncombe Horse Trail - from Forest Service Road 472 to the intersection the Big Tom Gap trail (TR 1918).
* Mt. Mitchell Trail - from Black Mountain Campground to Mt. Mitchell State Park.
* Mountain to Sea Trail - From N.C. 128 to Black Mountain Campground.
* Higgins Bald Trail (TR 1908).

Camping at Mount Mitchell State Park has been suspended at least through August 29 because of black bear activity, the state Division of Parks and Recreation said today.

Bears have been reported rummaging for food in the campground area, and similar activity has prompted the U.S. Forest Service to close campgrounds and trails in the adjacent Pisgah National Forest, a news release says.

The National Forest Service closed the Black Mountain Campground, Briar Bottom Group Campground, Forest Service Road 472 and Neals Creek Road today, and previously closed the Mount Mitchell Trail between Black Mountain Campground and Mount Mitchell State Park, and portions of the Buncombe Horse Trail and the Higgins Bald Trail.

The Mount Mitchell campground has nine tent-only sites.

Closing the campground will likely encourage bears to abandon the area to seek natural food sources, the state says.

The U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service on Friday marked the purchase of 8,100 acres of timberland near Marion a century ago to begin the movement to create national forests.

That tract became part of the Pisgah National Forest and the first of 1.2 million acres of national forests in North Carolina.

The initial purchase followed approval by Congress of the Weeks Act, which allowed federal money to be used to buy forests for watershed protection.

The Weeks Act eventually led to the creation of 52 national forests in 26 Eastern states and the addition of 19.7 million acres on national forests and grasslands across 41 states and Puerto Rico, the U.S. Forest Service says in a news release.

An exhibit commemorating the Weeks Act was unveiled Friday at Laurel Knob Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway (Mile Post 349.2), which overlooks the initial Pisgah tract about an hour north of Asheville.

This is not usually a commentary blog; we're trying just to update folks on what's going on in parks, forests and other public recreation land in North Carolina.

But one thing we advocate on the main Carolina Outdoors Guide site and elsewhere is do not screw around at the top of waterfalls. It's way too easy to lose your footing and wind up dead. It happens every summer.

On June 7, a 28-year-old Asheville woman wading in the pool above Rainbow Falls in the Pisgah Forest was swept over the 125-foot falls and killed. Two friends hiking with her saw her slip, and pulled her body from the river below the falls, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times.

"The Rainbow Falls death is the second at a Western North Carolina waterfall in less than two weeks," the newspaper said.

"A Wake County man died at Elk River Falls in Avery County on May 29. The following day, a man and woman were injured in an accident at Upper Whitewater Falls near Cashiers in Jackson County."