Hemphill Bald Hike
Date: Saturday, February 9th
Time: 10 am – 3 pm
Difficulty: Strenuous (8 on a scale of 10) — 5 miles
Cost: Free but registration required
Join the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy on a hike to the breathtaking heights of Hemphill Bald in Cataloochee Ranch. Hemphill Bald, directly adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, was the first tract of land to be conserved by SAHC in the Cataloochee area in 1993. Translated from Cherokee into English, the word “Cataloochee” means “wave upon wave.” From the summit hikers will indeed be able to see wave upon wave of Blue Ridge Mountains including other SAHC-conserved properties such as the 8,000 acre Waynesville Watershed (protected in 2005); the Plott Balsam conservation easement protecting the top of Plott Balsam Mountain (2003 and 2006); the Crawford Creek conservation easements at the base of Cold Mountain (2000); and the high ridgetop properties of one of SAHC’s primary farmland focus areas: Sandy Mush, Buncombe County.
Registration has filled for this hike, if you’d like to be on the wait list email israel@appalachian.org
31 volunteers and staff rallied to help the Smokies on Saturday, July 28. In a partnership with Nature Valley (the granola bar company) and the National Parks Conservation Association, several SAHC projects are underway at the protected Cataloochee Ranch (directly adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park) to improve animal habitat, plant life and water quality.
In the 1990’s, 67-year-old Maggie Valley resident Tom Alexander realized that he would have to do something to be able to hand down his beloved land, 1,000 mostly undeveloped acres adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, intact to his children. The land had been in his family for 60 years, but development in Haywood County had greatly increased over the past few decades and the value of his land was doubling in value about every three to four years.
