Santeetlah – Volunteers formally reopened a section of trail at Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest on Saturday, which had been closed several years because of storm damage.
In February 2020, significant rainfall caused the failure of a retaining wall on the Lower Left Loop segment of the Joyce Kilmer trail. Repairs were completed and a temporary closure order for the area was rescinded.
During the closure, hikers could still walk on the traditional start of a lower 1.2-mile loop through to a memorial plaque. The upper loop – which is 0.8 miles – also remained open, but the trail from the plaque back, across a bridge and to the parking area was off limits.
That section was closed when runoff from a storm caused erosion that undercut a stretch of steeped trail, just past the bridge near the parking area. The rest of that section has fallen into disrepair as well.
Cheoah District Ranger Andy Gaston said the repair work was performed under a $50,000 contract. The closed section was scheduled to reopen by Jan. 1, but work was completed sooner than expected and under budget. The trail was reopened about six weeks earlier than expected.
Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest and an area called Slickrock combine to form a 17,394-acre wilderness area within Nantahala National Forest.
Because of the wilderness designation, there are strict rules that don’t apply in most of the Nantahala National Forest – trail crews can’t use power equipment or motorized vehicles, for example. Signage is limited. Logging is restricted.
Helping was the fact that the afflicted section of trail was determined to be just outside the boundaries of the wilderness area, allowing repair crews to use heavier, powered equipment rather than having to resort to hand-powered equipment.
Volunteers with Partners of Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness were on-hand Saturday to reopen the trail and clear away debris that had grown and collected over the past several years. A work crew from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians was on-site earlier last week clearing away heavier debris and fallen trees.
Natural resources
National forests provide forest-resource management, which includes recreation, timber harvesting and mining, but wilderness areas require special protections.
While having a resource like Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock within the national forest is not unique, it is unusual. Many regard Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest to be among the Nantahala National Forest’s crown jewels.
Between 30,000 – 40,000 people visit Joyce Kilmer to see unspoiled forests that somehow went untouched during logging operations since the 1800s. There are old-growth trees along the upper loop trail that are hundreds of years old.
Gaston said Graham County provides a “whole spectrum” of regionally-significant recreation assets within the Cheoah Ranger District, including Cheoah Point Day Use Area, Rattler Ford Group Campground, Tsali Recreation Area, and numerous trails for hiking, equestrian and mountain-bike use.
He also noted that there are around 100 camp sites around Lake Santeetlah, as well as Horse Cove and Snowbird Creek.
“The Cheoah district has a really good footprint for recreational facilities in Graham County,” Gaston said.
The 3,800-acre Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest was set aside in 1936 as a memorial to the author of the poem “Trees,” Joyce Kilmer, who was killed in action in France during World War I.
The forest has been called one of the nation’s most impressive remnants of old-growth forest.
The forest contains examples of more than 100 tree species – many over 400 years old, and some more than 20 feet in circumference and 100 feet tall.
There are also plans for a trail crew to make repairs to the entire 2-mile loop trail, with work expected to start until next year.
Also, funding has been authorized to hire three more recreation maintenance workers – two in Cheoah and one in Tusquitee.
There was just one full-time person (and seasonal part-timers) assigned to maintain recreational facilities in two of the Nantahala’s three ranger districts: the largest, Murphy-based Tusquitee Ranger District; and the smallest, Robbinsville-based Cheoah Ranger District.
COVID-19 led the National Forest Service to temporarily close its Cheoah District headquarters off Massey Branch Road and low visitation led to what will looks to be a permanent closure of the Cable Cove campground near Fontana Lake.