Western North Carolina bicycle crash data

I was curious to see how many cyclists have been killed in western North Carolina. The North Carolina Department of Transportation, Division of Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation is the keeper of the data. Here’s what I found:

 

Musical Interlude: Lo Siento, Spanishburg, West Virginia

Last night I heard this song on public radio station WNCW – a nice one from Knoxville based Americana songwriter  Scott Miller. Have a listen.

Blue Ridge Commons author, Newfont, at Malaprops April 30

I’d like to pass on the word that Blue Ridge Commons author, Kathryn Newfont will be speaking at Malaprops in Asheville on Monday, April 30 at 7PM. I’m currently reading her book and have really enjoyed it. If you spend time in the forest’s of Western North Carolina, I think you’ll enjoy it too. Rob Neufeld wrote a review in the April 22 edition of the Asheville Citizen-Times. I teach on Monday’s so will miss out, but suggest you stop by and pick up a copy.

 

Blackrock Mountain – Plott Balsam Range, North Carolina

Plott Balsam Range, NC 360 from Blackrock Mountain from HOMAGETOAPPALACHIA on Vimeo.

 

Here’s an awesome hike to consider sometime if you’re near Sylva, NC or as one of my friends likes to say: Syliva. Blackrock Mountain is now, in part, encompassed by the Nature Conservancy’s Plott Balsam Preserve. You can reach the mountain from the Blue Ridge Parkway or from the Town of Sylva’s watershed park on trails maintained by Western Carolina University – hence the purple and yellow blaze (see slideshow). From the watershed parking lot to the summit is an eight mile round trip with a really big climb up. From the Parkway it’s roughly two miles from the road, however, the trail-head is unmarked.

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USFS Purchase details in NC

Here is where the $1 million from the USFS will be allocated in North Carolina. I know the Mills River area well – and that’s been a developing area. I’m also a big fan of the Roan Mountain area – though I’m curious to see a map of the pending purchase.

A 76-acre Mills River inholding adjacent to North Mills River Campground and under threat of housing development; 225 acres in Caldwell County with unique high-elevation habitats and large tracts of old-growth forest; 295 acres on Mulberry Creek in Caldwell County with a high percentage of riparian and wildlife habitat; and 136 acres on the Roan Mountain National Trails adjacent to the Appalachian Trail.

One hundred years of National Forests in western North Carolina

One hundred years after the Weeks Act, there’s still work to be done. The USFS recently announced:

WASHINGTON, April 6, 2012 – Agriculture  Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced  the U.S. Forest Service will dedicate $40.6 million for 27 exceptional land acquisition projects in 15 states that will help safeguard clean water, provide recreational access, preserve wildlife habitat, enhance scenic vistas and protect historic and wilderness areas.

“In keeping with the Obama Administration’s America’s Great Outdoors conservation initiative, USDA is committed to conserving and restoring our forests and bringing jobs to rural America,” said Vilsack. “Through our partnerships with states, communities, tribes and others, it is vital that we step up our efforts to safeguard our country’s natural resources.”

A portion of the project will fund:

North Carolina Threatened Treasures, National Forests in North Carolina: Nationally, land managed by the National Forests in North Carolina rank second in recreation visits but are among the most vulnerable to adjacent commercial and residential development. Forest fragmentation is a major issue and the acquisition will help to ensure recreation access, ecological integrity and watershed values on adjacent federal lands and for downstream resources. $1 million

Historian Kathry Newfont of Mars Hill College (NC) in her recently published book, Blue Ridge Commons: Environmental Activism and Forest History in Western North Carolina, does a through job of explaining the history and process of acquiring land in Western North Carolina to establish the first southern national forests. She explains that between 1911 and 1916 was the largest acquisition activity in NC. 1911 was the passage of the federal Weeks Act which permitted the federal government to purchase private land in order to protect the headwaters of rivers and watersheds in the eastern US.

In the southern Appalachians, the government acquired 1.25 million acres. In 1914 the FS purchased 87,000 acres from Edith Vanderbilt which led the way to establish the first official Appalachian national forest in 1916. Vanderbilt requested that the name “Pisgah” be kept.  In fact, writes Newfont, 80% of the Pisgah National Forest came from 29 sellers only (mostly lumber companies and private estates). Newfont argues that this is one of the nation’s great conservation stories – and, to be sure, a different one than the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, The Blue Ridge Parkway and many TVA projects in which  more aggressive acquisition techniques were used.

Despite the large presence of the federal government in Western NC, says Newfont:

Even the largest national forests included small islands completely surrounded by private lands. Long fingers of private property reached into the public forests, and national forest tentacles extended into private lands. Any eastern national “forest” was not so much a single forest as a collection of assorted forests woven across the fabric of the landscape…the NC national forests were “in everybody’s backyard” (page 96).

Stand Up That Mountain

Jay Leutze will be releasing his book, Stand Up That Mountain, published by Simon & Schuster (Scribner) on June 5th.

Here’s the schedule of North Carolina events:

June 7th – McIntyre’s Books at Fearrington Village, Pittsboro, NC
June 13th – The Regulator Bookshop, Durham
June 19th – Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh
June 27th – Malaprop’s, Asheville
June 28th – Flyleaf, Chapel Hill

I interviewed Jay for a story about the massive conservation project in the Roan Highlands near his home. He’s done quite a bit to advance conservation efforts in western North Carolina.