A view of Linville Gorge Wilderness
from Hawksbill Mountain, one of only
three Wilderness areas designated in
the entire eastern United States when
the 1964 Wilderness Act was passed.
The
is Nearing
Its 50-Year Anniversary
Brent Martin
Story by BRENT MARTIN | Photos by BILL HODGE
M
ost Western North Carolinians are familiar with
Significant for North Carolina, Shining Rock and Linville
popular and iconic places like Shining Rock and
were two of only three areas designated in the entire
Linville Gorge Wilderness areas, yet most are not familiar
eastern United States when the 1964 Wilderness Act was
with the law that created and protected them permanently. passed. Most of the east was overlooked at that time,
Fifty years ago this coming
under the false assumption
September, these two areas,
that the east lacked any
along with nine million acres
“Wilderness quality” lands.
across the remainder of the
In the years following the
United States, will celebrate
act, this assumption, and
the anniversary of one of the
attempts to impose a “purity
most important and uniquely
standard” on the creation of
American conservation laws
new Wilderness, made it all the
in our nation’s history: the
more difficult to protect public
Wilderness Act.
lands permanently in the east.
When this act was signed
The 1975 Eastern Wilderness
into law in 1964, it established
Act nullified this argument,
A Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards crew’s temporary
the legislative means to
however, and with its passage
“Leave No Trace” campsite in Shining Rock Wilderness.
designate and permanently
new Wilderness in the east
protect federally-owned public lands from resource
became a reality and a promise.
extraction, road building, and development—setting the
Since most of the east had been cutover and burned
stage for two more Wilderness bills in North Carolina
catastrophically prior to the Forest Service acquiring
history that would establish the Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock and lands here after 1911, the argument had been that we had
Ellicott Rock Wilderness areas in 1975, and the Southern
no true wilderness left. What the eastern Wilderness
Nantahala and Middle Prong Wilderness areas in 1984.
Act essentially did was make it possible to designate
26 • thelaurelofasheville.com • february 2014
A Southern Appalachian
Wilderness Stewards
BOOT crew prepares
to hike into Shining
Rock Wilderness to
work on trail building
and maintenance
(L-R: Scottie Bowman,
Danielle Bouchonnet,
Nick Biemiller, Aaron
Sandford).
areas as Wilderness that had been cutover and exploited
(most of the forests in Western North Carolina), and to
protect these places permanently for present and future
generations.
The area we now know as Shining Rock Wilderness, for
example, had been cutover by private timber companies in
the early 20th century and catastrophically burned in the
years afterward. This spectacular high elevation landscape
that bordered the Blue Ridge Parkway nonetheless held
tremendous value for recovery and restoration and, with
its official designation as Wilderness, we now enjoy its
numerous trails, forests, and views with little thought of its
highly exploited past.
The burning that followed logging was so severe that
we still see its effects at places like Graveyard Fields,
and along the Art Loeb trail, where the soils have still
not recovered to the point of supporting what should
be spruce-fir forest. For a fictionalized account of this
landscape, there is no better place to start than Western
North Carolina author Ron Rashs novel Serena which is set
in Haywood County during the early 20th century.
The timber barons in his novel ravage the mountains
and its inhabitants without remorse or conscience,
leaving behind a wasteland of exploited human life,
and a landscape stripped of its capacity to create and
sustain any semblance of what it came in and destroyed.
They fought the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains
National Park, and mocked the efforts of those who
believed otherwise. When they moved on, it was to
another place where they could start all over again with
the exact same approach and results. Yet what we know
now is that with time and proper care, these lands can
recover, providing timber and jobs, Wilderness, wild
rivers, and the multitude of experiences we desire and
appreciate from these irreplaceable National Forests that
now surround us here in Western North Carolina.
The next time you make a trip down the Blue Ridge
Parkway and see those magnificent views out to Shining
Rock, remember that protecting these lands was a major
effort by people who cared and who worked for the
passage of something called The Wilderness Act.
Brent Martin has spent most of his adult life working in forest and farmland
conservation in the mountains of north Georgia and Western North Carolina.
Since 2007, he has served as the regional director for the Southern Appalachian
Office of the Wilderness Society. The Wilderness Society (wilderness.org) is the
leading American conservation organization. Its mission is to protect wilderness
and inspire Americans to care for our wild places.
thelaurelofasheville.com • february 2014 • 27