A new North Carolina state forest is available to hikers, hunters, anglers and others who love the outdoors this weekend after the public dedication of Headwaters State Forest in Transylvania County on Thursday.
The 6,730-acre forest is about 10 miles south of Brevard between the towns of Cedar Mountain and Rosman. The land surrounds the upper reaches of the East Fork French Broad River.
The state forest is open to the public for low-impact recreation, including hiking, hunting, fishing, and wildlife viewing, the North Carolina Forest Service says.
Among the forest’s scenic features is the 18-foot East Fork Falls (below), which Romantic Asheville says is a short walk from East Fork Road. About nine miles of the Foothills National Recreation Trail is in the forest.
Most of Headwaters State Forest will be open to the public for hunting as part of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s Game Lands program. All waters will be designated as Public Mountain Trout Waters and classified as Wild Trout Waters.
Headwaters State Forest is managed by the N.C. Forest Service and N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. They plan to teach and lead research forest management techniques there for schools, forest managers, industry and general public.
Forest property is rugged and remote and there is no development other than limited parking at roadside. It is illegal to park on the road; vehicles parked along the road must be completely off the pavement. A few, small access points are to be developed across the property in the future, the Forest Service says.
Cell phone service is very poor or non-existent throughout most of Headwaters State Forest.
Land for the forest was purchased with $9.3 million from the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Legacy Program, through the Land and Water Conservation Fund; $14.7 million in grants from the North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund, and key support from Fred and Alice Stanback, a news release from The Conservation Fund says.
Efforts to protect the Headwaters area began in 2009, when The Conservation Fund worked with the N.C. Forest Service and Conserving Carolina to negotiate a contract to buy the land for the state at a bargain price from former Congressman Charles Taylor and his family.
A portion of the forest’s southern edge borders South Carolina, and more than 100,000 acres of conservation lands surround it in both North Carolina and South Carolina.
North Carolina’s Dupont State Recreational Forest, Gorges State Park and several popular sites in the Brevard area of the Nantahala National Forest are in the same area.
Bladen Lakes State Forest in southeastern North Carolina is also open to the public for hiking, primitive camping, hunting, fishing and horseback riding.
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