BREVARD – As she hiked deeper into the brand “new” state forest Thursday, under the cool shade of towering oaks, maples and pines, Cydney Phillips got goose bumps.

They weren’t from the cold. They were from the excitement of what lay ahead.

As the trail narrowed, closed in by thick rhododendron, and became muddier underfoot, she could hear the water rushing, and then there it was – the gold at the end of the rainbow, Gravely Mill Falls, a waterfall she had never seen.

Phillips, of Salem, South Carolina, was one of about 100 people who attended the official unveiling Thursday of Headwaters State Forest, North Carolina’s newest swath of conservation land. The forest sprawls across 6,730 acres through mixed hardwood forest surrounding the French Broad River headwaters.

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“It’s rare you get to see a state forest being born,” said Phillips, who retired from the Navy and lives 25 minutes down the road from Headwaters. Phillips leads hikes for veterans and their families.

“This is neat to be able to show new waterfalls," she said. "I think it’s wonderful that this is being protected. I’ve had chills all day.”

Indeed, it’s not every day such a large parcel of undeveloped property is added to public conservation lands. Headwaters is now the 10th forest managed by the North Carolina Forest Service, a division of the N.C. Department of Agriculture. The last established was DuPont State Recreational Forest in 2000.

Headwaters ranges from about 2,000 to 3,600 feet in elevation and is crisscrossed with streams, waterfalls and hiking trails near the South Carolina border. It will help preserve and maintain water quality in the headwaters of the French Broad River, which flows 218 miles from Transylvania County into Tennessee.

It is managed by a current staff of one – Michael Cheek, assistant regional forester – as a working forest, and by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission as a game land.

Headwaters opens to the public Saturday, coinciding with the opening of hunting season for deer in Western North Carolina.

Forest has congressional ties

The land deal leading to Headwaters creation has been nearly a decade in the making.

Efforts to protect the area began in 2009, when The Conservation Fund worked with the N.C. Forest Service and Conserving Carolina, a Hendersonville-based land trust, to negotiate a contract to purchase up to 8,000 acres for the state in a sale from former Congressman Charles Taylor and his family, said Justin Boner, The Conservation Fund’s real estate director for North Carolina.

The property carried a market value of $47 million, Boner said.

Public funding, from a variety of sources, including the Land and Water Conservation Fund, came to $25.2 million. Fred and Alice Stanback provided $3.7 million. The Taylor Family donated $18.2 million in land value.

Taylor, 77, who served 16 years in Congress, attended the forest’s unveiling with his wife, Elizabeth, two of this three sons, Owen and Charles Robert (son Bryan serves in the U.S. Army), and a multitude of grandchildren.

“I started managing land 61 years ago when I was 16. I started my first company, in timber and tree farming,” Taylor said. “I became interested in forestry from members of my family going back to the turn of the last century and 4-H projects.”

He became a registered forester before earning a law degree from Wake Forest University and serving in Congress. In the early 1980s, Taylor acquired “tens of thousands” of acres near his home in Brevard, from Champion Paper.

“The boys climbed rocks, we camped there. Scouts were encouraged to use it. We had a good 30-40 years of use of the property,” Taylor said. “My wife and sons and I felt it would be better to put it into permanent conservation for the public to use forever, for hunting, hiking, and fishing, and to protect the water.”

The land was never developed, and hasn’t been timbered in at least 30 years, Cheek said.

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The N.C. Forest Service partnered with Conserving Carolina and The Conservation Fund to acquire the land. Funding for the acquisitions came through the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund, the former N.C. Natural Heritage Trust Fund and the U.S. Forest Service Forest Legacy Program, which is funded by the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund.

“Persistence, dedication and partnership over the last nine years allowed for the vision of Headwaters State Forest to now become a reality,” Boner said.

“Headwaters State Forest is a landscape that will benefit North Carolina’s economy and environment for generations to come, and we thank our elected officials for championing the effort to reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund and our state conservation trust funds.”

Pulling together money took the effort of many public and private partners. It includes $9.3 million in federal funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund through the Forest Legacy Program, $14.7 million in grants from the North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund, and key support from Salisbury philanthropists Fred and Alice Stanback.

The conservation fund is a bipartisan, federal program that uses a percentage of proceeds from offshore oil and gas royalties — not taxpayer dollars — to acquire critical lands to protect country’s best natural resources and recreational access.

The fund will expire on Sept. 30 unless Congress reauthorizes the act.

Headwaters State Forest is classic example of the importance of the 50-year-old fund, and how local economies can benefit, said Jay Leutze, president of the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy in Asheville, a member of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Coalition.

“The LWCF includes the Forest Legacy Program, which is administered by the state. So it’s federal dollars that the state gets to decide how to use. It’s an awesome, flexible tool and it allows for working forests,” Leutze said.

Leutze said the LWCF Coalition is confident the bill will be reauthorized if Congress will take up a vote. Sen. Richard Burr is the lead sponsor of the Senate bill and Congressman Patrick McHenry is a co-sponsor of the House Bill.

“Rep. Mark Meadows supports all the LWCF projects that come up in his district. It’s because of WNC’s outdoor recreation industry, its natural beauty and the beer industry, that our delegation is so supportive,” Leutze said. “We just need other states’ delegations to follow North Carolina’s to get it reauthorized.”

In a statement, Burr called the Land and Water Conservation Fund “America’s most successful conservation program that operates at no cost to taxpayers.”

“Conservation efforts like this show how important it is to reauthorize the LWCF,” Burr said. “I will continue to work to renew this critical program so places like Headwaters can be enjoyed for generations to come.”

“Protecting the Headwaters forest land is a tremendous accomplishment for our environment and state,” state Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said at the forest’s ribbon cutting ceremony. “Our forests and farmlands define our state, providing not only beauty to our landscape, but providing the essentials for life.”

What can people expect to see and do at Headwaters?

Leading a hiking and driving tour through the new forest, Cheek pointed out highlights people will see in the forest, which is buffered by 100,000 acres of conservation land in South Carolina.

It includes the now-under-construction Sassafras Mountain Observation Platform, on the 3,553-foot-high summit just off the Foothills Trail, with views sweeping across the Pisgah National Forest and the Blue Ridge Parkway, as far as Mount Pisgah, as well as into South Carolina and Lake Jocassee.

None of the land within the forest will ever be developed.

“It’s the headwaters of the French Broad River, a drinking water source, and a recreation source,” Cheek said. “There are 60 miles of streams that all flow into the French Broad. Protecting the headwaters is the most important aspect of protecting the forest.”

In addition to filtering water to keep it clean for drinking, tubing or floating, the streams on the property are now open to fishing, and form at least 25 waterfalls, three of which are named – Gravely Mill, East Fork Falls and Reese Place Falls.

There are some 25 miles of old roads and trails, including 9 miles of the Foothills Trail. These will only be open to foot traffic, Cheek said, meaning hikers, hunters, anglers, bird watchers, and dog walkers – and dogs must be on leash.

The forest is not open to mountain bikes or horseback riders. Camping is not allowed.

One of the main access points is the White Oak Bridge Access off Glady Fork Road, about 10 miles south of Brevard, which leads to the 40-foot-high Gravely Mill Falls.

However, he says the falls are “use at your own risk. There is hardly any cell service in here. Due to the remoteness and the response time for first responders, waterfall safety is a big concern,” he said.

Safety signs will be going up warning people not to climb on the rocks around and above the falls, considering the high number of waterfalls-related deaths this year in WNC, he said.

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Cheek said the Forest Service is working on a management plan, which will include natural resource management and thinning of the planted white pine and other second-generation trees to improve forest health and restore native plant communities, such as pitch pine and short leaf pine.

The forest is also home to threatened and endangered species, including Southern Appalachian bog habitat, the state-listed threatened green salamander and the federally endangered rock gnome lichen.

Margot Wallston, coordinator for the Hemlock Restoration Initiative, said the forest contains some 3,000 hemlock trees that are being treated for the devastating hemlock wooly adelgid infestation.

The forest is filled with common critters, too, including black bear, turkey and white-tailed deer. Archery season for deer opens Saturday, so hunters need to wear blaze orange, and others using the forest are advised to wear bright colors as well, he said.

This is a no-frills forest. It will remain pretty much in its current state. While some parking areas are planned, there will not be any structures such as visitor centers or bathrooms that can be found in DuPont or Holmes State Educational Forest, Cheek said, and will be managed differently than those forests.

The mission of Headwaters State Forest is to manage the lands to provide high quality water, natural resources, forest products, dispersed recreation opportunities, and education.

“The most important thing to me is that this land is protected,” said Phillips, the local hiker. “You never know what you will find. It could have the cure for cancer. It’s a legacy, whereas condos and housing developments, not so much.”

Learn more

For more information on Headwaters State Forest, visit the North Carolina Forest Service website.