HCC donates 21-acre tract to Parkway

By Scott Nicholson
The High Country Conservancy has donated property that both expands the Cone Park on the Blue Ridge

Parkway and protects old-growth habitat.

The HCC donated the 21-acre tract after several years of work, with the project originating through a private fund donation.

HCC purchased the land in 2002 from Mary Alice McLean and added it to the parkway’s already-preserved 3,600 acres of park land.

The donated property creates a permanent protective buffer for some of the national park’s most significant trees and stream habitat.

“It buffers some old growth Canada hemlock trees,” said Eric Heigl, HCC’s land protection director.

“It’s entirely wooded and protects a stream.”

Heigl said the tall trees were important in shading the creek and protecting the aquatic habitat.

The forest also protects water quality by keeping the soil intact and fulfills the HCC’s mission of helping provide buffers for the parkway.

Heigl said HCC is working on a conservation easement for an adjoining property, trying to add more territory to protect parkway views and create larger tracts of preserved habitat.

He said such donations protect the areas near the parkway from development and road infrastructure that have been encroaching on forest around the park.

“We knew there was that old-growth hemlock forest there so we made sure we went to those adjoining landowners,” Heigl said.

“This is the first HCC project to expand the parkway.”

The old-growth trees are primarily Canada hemlock, or Eastern hemlock, growing in a contiguous, unbroken 20-acre stand.

Older Canada hemlocks can grow to enormous size, reaching more than 150 feet in height and five feet in diameter.

The largest Canada hemlocks found are in western North Carolina, and the Grandfather Mountain area is especially well-known for its hemlock stands.

Shawn Oakley, a botanist with the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program, said the tract offered rare plants in addition to the hemlocks.

“The tracts are, in part, included in the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program’s Moses Cone Park-Rich Mountain Significant Natural Heritage Area,” Oakley said.

Conservationists say protection of this tract will also provide habitat for area wildlife, and potential habitat for more uncommon species. The property offers suitable habitat for the rare saw-whet owl, among other species. Based in Boone, the HCC has helped protect more than 2,100 acres of significant farmland and natural land in Watauga, Avery and Ashe counties. In 2007, HCC purchased a number of properties through grants and private donations, and then transferred them to Elk Knob State Park.