CTNC donates more Blue Ridge Parkway property to NPS

Last week the Conservation Trust for North Carolina announced that they have donated a small but critical tract of protected land near Cumberland Knob to the National Park Service.

Known as the Roaring Fork Headwaters II property, the CTNC purchased the 12.7-acre tract near Milepost 220.6 in August 2011 and transferred it to the National Park Service (NPS) early this month. It joins two more properties in the area that were also protected by CTNC and donated to NPS:

* Saddle Mountain Vista, a 201-acre property acquired by CTNC in 2004 with help from the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund and donated to the NPS in 2007.

* Roaring Fork Headwaters I, a 49-acre tract purchased by CTNC in 2009 and donated to the NPS in 2010.

All three properties are highly visible from several Parkway vantage points including the Fox Hunters Paradise Overlook in the Cumberland Knob National Recreation Area. They all contain headwater streams of Roaring Fork, a tributary of the Fisher River, and headwaters of the Yadkin River, which provides drinking water for a million people in the North Carolina Piedmont, including residents of Winston-Salem.

The three properties are part of a growing landscape of protected land in the area. They lie north of the 3,400-acre Saddle Mountain Wilderness area and south of the 1,000-acre Cumberland Knob National Recreation Area.

The CTNC press release includes a map of the three properties.


Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com