Pisgah National Forest

When George Vanderbilt constructed the Biltmore House, he hired forester Gifford Pinchot and, later, Dr. Carl A. Schenck to manage his forests. Over 80,000 of his woodland acres became the home of America's first forestry school and the heart of the East's first national forest formed under the Weeks Act. Now comprising more than 500,000 acres, Pisgah National Forest holds a vast history and breathtaking natural scenery. The forest sits in the heart of the southern Appalachians and includes Linville Gorge, Catawba Falls, Wilson Creek Wild and Scenic River, Roan Mountain, Max Patch, Shining Rock Wilderness and Mount Pisgah. Author and naturalist Marci Spencer treks through the human, political and natural history that has formed Pisgah National Forest.

"A concise guide to the Pisgah District of western North Carolina's Pisgah National Forest. Describes 20 day-hiking routes, 12 overnight hikes, and 29 mountain bike rides with trail details, maps, driving directions and GPS coordinates for 18 trailheads, and user rules and regulations. Includes a section on 22 waterfalls and how to get to them"--

"A history of the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina"--

A timely study of change in a complex environment, Where There Are Mountains explores the relationship between human inhabitants of the southern Appalachians and their environment. Incorporating a wide variety of disciplines in the natural and social sciences, the study draws information from several viewpoints and spans more than four hundred years of geological, ecological, anthropological, and historical development in the Appalachian region. The book begins with a description of the indigenous Mississippian culture in 1500 and ends with the destructive effects of industrial logging and dam building during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Donald Edward Davis discusses the degradation of the southern Appalachians on a number of levels, from the general effects of settlement and industry to the extinction of the American chestnut due to blight and logging in the early 1900s. This portrait of environmental destruction is echoed by the human struggle to survive in one of our nation's poorest areas. The farming, livestock raising, dam building, and pearl and logging industries that have gradually destroyed this region have also been the livelihood of the Appalachian people. The author explores the sometimes conflicting needs of humans and nature in the mountains while presenting impressive and comprehensive research on the increasingly threatened environment of the southern Appalachians.