Pisgah National Forest
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The Pisgah National Forest is a National Forest in the Appalachian Mountains of Western North Carolina. It is administered by the United States Forest Service, part of the United States Department of Agriculture. The forest gets its name from Mount Pisgah, the highest mountain in the forest. Cold Mountain, made famous by the novel and 2003 major motion picture of the same name is also located within the forest in the Shining Rock Wilderness.
The Pisgah National Forest was the first National Forest established in the United States.
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[edit] Geography
The forest covers 1,076,711 acres (4,357 km²) of mountainous terrain and is draped across the southern Appalachian Mountains and parts of the Blue Ridge and Great Balsam Mountain chains. Elevations reach over 6,000 feet above seal level and include some of the highest mountains in the Eastern United States. Mount Mitchell, the highest mountain east of the Mississippi River, is just outside this National Forest's boundary within Mount Mitchell State Park. The area also includes tracts surrounding the city of Asheville, the town of Brevard and the French Broad River Valley. Recreational opportunities, including hiking and backpacking, abound within its boundaries. The land and its resources are also used for hunting, wildlife management, and timber harvesting, as well as the North Carolina Arboretum.
[edit] Administration
The Pisgah National Forest is divided up into 4 Ranger Districts: the Grandfather, Toecane, French Broad, and Pisgah districts. The Grandfather and Toecane Ranger Districts lie in the northern mountains of North Carolina and include areas such as the Linville Gorge Wilderness, Wilson Creek, the watersheds of the Toe and Cane rivers, Roan Mountain, Mount Mitchell, Craggy Gardens, and the Big Ivy/Coleman Boundary area. The French Broad Ranger District stretches along the Tennessee border from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park north to Hot Springs. The Appalachian Trail passes through this section of this National Forest.
[edit] Rivers and Trails
Bent Creek, Mills River, and Davidson River - three major streams and tributaries of the French Broad River - are located in the Pisgah Ranger District, which lies on either side of the Blue Ridge Parkway south of Asheville, along the Pisgah Ridge and Balsam Mountains. Three long-distance recreational trails - the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, the Shut-In Trail, and the Art Loeb trail travel through this district. Also included in the Pisgah Ranger District are the Shining Rock and Middle Prong Wildernesses. The Blue Ridge Parkway transects this National Forest, and many National Forest and Parkway trails intersect.
[edit] History
It can be said that American forestry was born in what is now the Pisgah National Forest. The Cradel of Forestry is located in the southern part of the forest that was, in the late 1800's and early 1900's, the site of the first school of forestry in the United States. The school was opened and operated at the direction of George Washington Vanderbilt II, builder of the Biltmore Estate in Asheville and owner of the lands that would one day become the Pisgah National Forest when they were sold to the federal government establishing the first National Forest in the United States.
