This Land, Your Land

Cape Hatteras National Seashore has set the 2010 season for its four campgrounds, maintaining fees at 2009 levels but changing a couple of phone numbers.

Oregon Inlet, Frisco, and Ocracoke campgrounds will open to the public on Friday, April 2. Cape Point Campground will open Friday, May 28, for Memorial Day weekend.

Oregon Inlet and Frisco will close after Columbus Day, October 11; Ocracoke will remain open through October 25, Cape Point will close on September 6.

The campgrounds accommodate tents and RVs up to 35 feet long. Each campground provides rest rooms, potable water, unheated showers, grills, and picnic tables.

Camping fees at Oregon Inlet, Frisco and Cape Point are $20 per night. The camping fee at Ocracoke is $23 per night. Group camping at Oregon Inlet requires a reservation two weeks in advance and costs $4 per person for seven to 30 people. Holders of the Interagency Senior or Access passes and the Golden Age or Golden Access passes can get a 50 percent discount on campsites.

No more than 6 persons and two vehicles may occupy a single campsite.

Reservations for Ocracoke can be made by calling 877-444-6777 or through www.recreation.gov and can be made up to six months in advance. The group camping reservation number is 252-441-0882.

The federal government has agreed to pay $52 million to Swain County in lieu of building a road along the northern shore of Fontana Lake through Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., announced the deal today, ending a decades-old controversy. Swain County commissioners are expected to approve the agreement on Friday, according to The Charlotte Observer. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Gov. Bev Perdue will appear at a signing ceremony in Bryson City on Saturday.

When the government moved families off their land and flooded the land with the Fontana Lake hydroelectric project during World War II, it vowed to replace one of the roads covered by the reservoir's waters to re-establish access to family cemeteries. The government started then stopped construction of a road that would have gone through the wildest parts of Great Smoky Mountains National Park when environmentalists fought its completion.

The North Shore Road, which became known as the "Road to Nowhere," would have sliced through the unbroken mountains north of Fontana Lake in the national park and crossed the Appalachian Trail near Fontana Dam, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, which has a map and a re-cap of the controversy at the link.

Though affected families continued to fight for the road, the county saw the benefit of a monetary settlement, and a government environmental analysis recommended taking the money.

"Four million dollars has already been authorized, and another $8.8 million will be paid after the agreement is signed, said Shuler, a Swain native," according to The Observer. "President Obama’s 2011 budget includes the first of 10 annual payments for the remainder."

"The President’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget for the National Park Service requests $2.7 billion and makes investments of $35.3 million in park operations increases. The budget underscores cost containment, program consolidation and management efficiencies to meet federal fiscal realities, yet provides the resources necessary to effectively carry out the National Park Service’s mission," says a news release from the National Park Service.

The request of $1.6 billion for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service "will focus funding on the agency's highest priority conservation initiatives, while containing costs through management efficiencies and other savings to address government fiscal realities. Among the top strategic investments are increases of $18.8 million for Climate Change Adaptation and $4 million for work to review planned renewable energy development to ensure they do not place threatened or endangered species at risk, as well as an additional $15.8 million for ecosystem restoration and $20 million for Federal land acquisition.

Elsewhere, "the National Wildlife Refuge Association expressed disappointment over President Obama's proposed $499.5 million operations and maintenance budget for the National Wildlife Refuge System (part of the Fish and Wildlife Service) for next year ... . Because refuges need at least $15 million annually to cover fixed costs, the proposed $3.3 million reduction represents an $18.3 million cut," says a release from the NWRA. "“If enacted, this budget will mean a loss of jobs and economic opportunity in communities across the country," said Evan Hirsche, president of the NWRA.

The budget also includes includes $4.939 billion in gross discretionary funding for the Civil Works program of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, offset in part by a proposal to cancel $52 million of prior year funding. It designates $64.3 million for projects in the Corps' Wilmington District. Among the projects funded are a major, multiyear rehabilitation project at John H. Kerr Dam and Reservoir in North Carolina and Virginia, several environmental restoration projects, a preconstruction engineering and design study for coastal storm damage repair at Surf City and North Topsail Beach, and money to continue studying the N.C. International Terminal in Brunswick County.

The National Forest Service has announced a shortened season at Roan Mountain Recreation Area this summer to allow for renovation work.

The recreation area, which is near Bakersville in the Pisgah National Forest, will be open only from June 6 through July 7, a news release says. It is normally open from May through September.

Renovations are to include replacing the dilapidated 1960s restroom near the Cloudland parking lot with an eight-unit accessible restroom, resurfacing the trails to the observation deck in the Rhododendron Garden and replacing the observation deck, and resurfacing the main paved road leading to the Cloudland parking lot.

Renovations are to be paid for with $700,000 from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the Stimulus Bill).

The Appalachian Trail, which runs through the area, will not be affected by the closure. However, the access trail from the AT to the Cloudland parking lot will be closed.

The National Park Service has announced a 25 percent discount on Cape Lookout National Seashore's rental cabins this summer.

The discount will be offered from June 1 through August 30 on rates for the Great Island Cabin Camp (on South Core Banks across from Davis) and Long Point Cabin Camp (on North Core Banks across from Atlantic), a news release says.

Grand Island rates run from $54 to $168 per night, depending on the cabin. Long Point rates run from $84 to $145.

The discount applies automatically reservations already made for the time period.

Each cabin has bunk beds, a bathroom with shower, hot and cold running water, and a gas stove. Visitors must furnish their own cooking and eating utensils, linens, and ice chests. (There are no refrigerators.) Some cabins have electricity; at others visitors may bring their own generator or other light source.

Pets are not permitted in the cabins.

Phone numbers for reservations are at either link above. The NPS page has ferry information.

Congressmen from North Carolina and Virginia are joining to sponsor legislation that would authorize $75 million over five years to buy up to 50,000 acres along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The Blue Ridge Parkway Protection Act would mark the 75th anniversary of completion of the 469-mile scenic drive between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Virginia's Shenandoah National Park.

Companion bills were introduced and referred to the respective committees in the House and Senate on January 26.

The Conservation Trust for North Carolina, a nonprofit group that has worked to protect the parkway's corridor, proposed the legislation.

"The Parkway generates $20 billion per year to the economy of the region through which it passes," says the CTNC. "But its spectacular scenery, streams, forests and farms are under constant threat."

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has awarded a $4.9 million contract for a 17,840-square-foot regional visitors center to be built on Roanoke Island, the Department of Interior said Wednesday.

The Gateway Visitor Center and Headquarters at Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge will educate visitors about wildlife and conservation in the area and house the refuge’s 30-plus staff members.

Money for the project comes from $3 billion the Department of the Interior received in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, aka the Stimulus Bill. "This investment will also create jobs for the local community," the Fish & Wildlife Service's news release says.

MWH Constructors, Inc., of Broomfield, Colorado, will design and build the center.

The FWS said previously that it anticipates 200,000 visitors annually to the center, which will include a book store, exhibit space, an environmental education classroom, a multi-purpose room and exterior interpretive facilities.

The FWS operates 10 coastal National Wildlife Refuges in North Carolina to safeguard wildlife populations through habitat preservation, which offers prime opportunity to view or photograph birds and other wildlife. The refuges also offer hunting, fishing, boating, hiking and other recreational activities when they are considered compatible with the refuge's wildlife preservation mission.

If you have kids out of school on Monday and need something worthwhile to keep them occupied, consider the North Carolina Aquariums, where the branches at Fort Fisher and Roanoke Island are waiving admission fees for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Normally, admission to the aquariums is $6 for ages 6 to 17, $8 for adults, $7 for seniors and free for those younger than 6.

The Fort Fisher aquarium is next to the Fort Fisher State Recreation Area and just down the street from the Fort Fisher State Historic Site.

Fort Fisher was a major Civil War fortress, keeping North Carolina's port of Wilmington open to blockade-runners that supplied necessary goods to Confederate armies inland. The historic site presents a state-of-the-art museum and ruins of the fort.

North Carolina State Parks had record attendance in 2009, topping 2008's 12.48 million visits by 13 percent and the record set in 2007 by 5 percent.

The state parks system, which includes 34 state parks, four state recreation areas and a system of state natural areas, had 14.16 million visits in 2009, the Division of Parks and Recreation said in a news release.

Among parks and recreation areas, 22 reported increased attendance in 2009. Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Dare County reported the highest attendance at 1.4 million visits, an increase of 2 percent over last year.

Gorges State Park, which reopened in May with new trails and other features, had 74,803 visits, a 306 percent increase over 2008. Elk Knob State Park, a relatively new park being developed near Boone, had a 21,859 visits, a 264 percent increase for the year.

Several parks did have attendance declines, including Jones Lake State Park, which was down by 17 percent, Haw River, down by 11 percent, and Merchants Millpond State Park, down by 10 percent.

The North Carolina Bartram Trail Society has developed a new map of the trail that it plans to distribute by the end of March, the society said last week.

The map of the Bartram National Recreational Trail will be the first to cover the entire length of the 118-mile trail, according to the organization. It will describe the primary features of the trail - water sources, campsites, vistas, road accesses, etc. - as well as driving directions to trailheads. Volunteers walked the length of the trail with high-precision GPS equipment and a distance measuring device (a "wheel").

The map "will also contain information on William Bartram, his contribution to the history of the area and his encounters with the native Cherokee, as well as interpretive information on the natural and cultural history of the region," the society says.

Eighty miles of the trail wind through the Nantahala National Forest in North Carolina, running northwest from near Rabun Bald just south of Highlands and ending at Cheoah Bald. It joins the Appalachian Trail at two points, including at Wayah Bald. In Georgia, 38 miles of the trail run south-southeast from the state border to the Chattooga River and then head northeast paralleling the river to the Ga. 28 bridge.

"Underappreciated, the Bartram Trail covers much of the same (spectacular) terrain as the Appalachian Trail in Georgia and North Carolina, but offers a much more solitary experience," says the GORP site.

(We first saw info about the N.C. Bartram Trail Society's new map at Smoky Mountain News.)