The 2,150 mountainous acres in Huntsville's Monte Sano State Park are among the most popular outdoor places in north Alabama. Hikers love them, and so do mountain bikers, bird watchers and blanket day-dreamers.

But Monte Sano's large expanse is a postage stamp compared to the nearby mountain acquired for the public five years ago this December. That land is called Jacobs Mountain, and it covers 11,364 acres in Jackson County.

The State of Alabama bought Jacobs Mountain for $9.3 million in December of 2012 with help from a $3 million federal grant and $1 million raised privately by The Nature Conservancy of Alabama.

What makes it matter

What makes Jacobs Mountain so important, and what makes the anniversary of its purchase worth celebrating? It starts with its location in a line of mountains and valleys that runs from Huntsville to Chattanooga, Tenn. The area around Jacobs Mountain has been called "among the most important in the entire Southern Appalachians for its wildlife habitat and breeding areas."

That makes Jacobs Mountain, which runs from mountaintop to slopes to isolated coves, important in its own right. But it has also been key to preserving even more land for the public. "Just having that big block of land has allowed us to get some other key parcels in the Paint Rock (River) watershed," state forester Drew Nix said this month.

Jacobs Mountain allowed the state to connect other parcels touching it to what is now a 65,000-acre tract of public land called the James D. Martin-Skyline Wildlife Management Area (WMA). Part of it is the well-known Walls of Jericho hiking area, and parts have been a popular hunting grounds for years.

(Directions to Walls of Jericho hiking area: From Scottsboro, take US 72 West approximately 4.8 miles to AL-79. Turn right on to AL- 79 and travel north approximately 26 miles to the hiking trail parking lot (you will pass horseback trail parking lot).

Some areas in the WMA are gated during spring and summer to protect nesting and newly born animals, but those gates are open from Sept. 15 through April 30. And even when they're closed, Nix said, "You're welcome to set your mountain bike over the gate and bike."

Hiking and biking are known as "non-consumptive recreation." Consumptive recreation is hunting for deer, wild turkey and other wildlife that call the area home. There are scheduled hunts and open seasons, and Nix said most non-hunters wisely stay away from the scheduled hunts.

Otherwise, the land is open to hikers, bird-watchers and bikers. It's always a good idea to wear a brightly colored hat or vest and ,if you carry a firearm, you may be asked to show a hunting permit in season.

The land's history

Jacobs Mountain's owner put the property into the Wildlife Management Area in the 1960s and gave the state permission to open it for public hunting for two decades. In the 1980s, however, leasing land to hunting clubs became popular, and Jacobs Mountain was pulled out of the WMA, Nix said. "But he always told our manager up there, 'If I ever get ready to sell this, the state will have the first choice of getting it,'" Nix said.

Meanwhile, the state worked with the Nature Conservancy and later Forever Wild to acquire other land on the Cumberland Plateau. Jacobs Mountain "was a natural fit" and a land connector when the owner was ready to sell.

As North Alabama's population grows, look for the 65,000 acres in the Skyline WMA to become even more popular. Only 5 percent of the American population hunts regularly now, so mountain-biking, hiking and other recreation could assume a larger role in the area.

And if 65,000 acres seems like a lot, Nix notes that Alabama has 800,000 acres under public management. Mississippi has 1.6 million, Georgia has 1.7 million and Tennessee has nearly 2.4 million acres.

(Updated Nov. 29 at 8 a.m. CST to make minor editing fixes)