Cathedral Tour May 26
 
 
 
(Note -- one lengthy paragraph due to the importance of understanding the language deception being used in the tour announcement: "The tour is sponsored by Teachers for the Forest and Appalachian Forest Heritage Area," which should give you at some serious Red Flags. Near Aurora, West Virginia, in Preston County, my Rand McNally map shows Cathedral State Park, but not Cathedral State Forest. Cathedral State Park is described here http://www.asecular.com/forests/ -- at the "Forests of the Central Appalachians Project website -- as "A 133-acre ... remnant of ancient primary forest in West Virginia's Allegheny Mountain sub-province." http://www.asecular.com/forests/cathedral.htm This group intends to close roads and "obliterate" them in forests, as is made clear in this excerpt: "...it must be stressed once more that the Bald Mountain Road must be closed and obliterated to salvage what remains of the biodiversity of Shenandoah Mountain and to create the Ernie Dickerman Wilderness. Virginians for Wilderness have called for this closure for two decades now, as they have for an end to the destructive and out-dated policies of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries that are represented by this road." located here: http://www.asecular.com/forests/reddish.htm. It appears, from a search at the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources website http://www.wvdnr.gov that both are correct. Either way -- or both -- this state landholding is a prime candidate to be gobbled up by a National Forest and/or National Park and become a Federal landholding, another puzzle piece to connect The Wildlands Project that will soon have a padlock on it to public access. A search at www.Google.com for this search string: "Cathedral State Forest" turned this up "May 1 by anaiselise Wandered around awhile looking for the trail. We probably should have picked up a trail map on the way in. This sure is a pretty place. I did some reading about this area and logging at http://www.patc.net/history/archive/virg_fst.html. Before 1750 there were 10,000,000 acres of virgin forest in West Virginia. Now, there are only 263 acres remaining, here at Cathedral State Forest and at Gaudineer Knob Scenic Area. My Grandfather grew up near here, in a town called Dobbin. He told me about a job he had when he was young, taking newspapers to the men in the remote logging camps. He would get a bundle of papers, then ride on the logging trains delivering papers from camp to camp. Being in this park made me think about what it must have been like then, and how much things have changed." at: http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:kS_EP9JRETwJ:www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_

logs.asp%3FID%3D10487+%22Cathedral+State+Forest%22&hl=en. At the Cathedral State Park home page http://www.cathedralstatepark.com/ you'll find: 'On May 20, 1983, the Society of American Foresters recognized Cathedral in its National Natural Areas Program. As an "outstanding example of vegetative community in a near natural condition"..."with its associated biotic, edaphic, geologic and aquatic features dedicated for scientific and educational purposes". The area was registered because it is "maintained in the natural condition, by allowing physical and biological processes to operate, usually without direct human intervention."' [emphasis mine]. Speaking of things being closed: "The greatest threat to the [allegedly endangered] Indiana bat is disturbance by cavers. Eight caves in West Virginia are closed to protect this endangered bat." http://www.dnr.state.wv.us/wvwildlife/nongame/newsletter3.htm)

 
May 21, 2005
 
 
Subject: [ESAFHA-L] Cathedral Tour May 26
 
From: Phyllis Baxter phyllisb@mail.meer.net
 

You are invited to participate in an educational, guided tour of Cathedral State Forest on May 26, 9 am to 12:30 pm.

The tour is sponsored by Teachers for the Forest and Appalachian Forest Heritage Area.

Presenters will include:

Dr. Kenneth Carvell on history and special attributes of Cathedral State Forest;

Dr. Jim Rentch on What is Old Growth?;

Dr. Tom Schuler on research on the Cathedral forest structure;

and Bob Beanblossom about the State Park.

The tour is free and open to anyone, but RSVPs are needed to:

Dave McGill dmcgill@wvu.edu

304-293-2941 x 2474
 
Fax: 304-293-2441
 
Dave will have more information and directions; he also has a nice brochure for the tour if you would like to have that emailed to you, but the file size was a bit large for me to feel comfortable sending it to the list.
 
Hope some of you can make it!
 
Phyllis
 
===== Additional researched, related, recommended reading:
 
AFHA - The Appalachian Forest Heritage Area http://ahc.caf.wvu.edu/heritage/; AFHA is a regional, grassroots effort by West Virginia University’s Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences and WVU Extension to integrate central Appalachian forest history, culture, natural history, products and forestry management into a multi-state heritage tourism initiative to promote rural community development. "The goal of this project is to create a sustainable heritage area based on the unified theme of forest heritage. Existing and potential forest-based historic sites, artisans, manufacturers and working forests are being developed into a network of tourist destinations that provide high-quality products, programs, educational experiences, events and visitor services." - Jeremy Morris, program coordinator. Jeremy.morris@mail.wvu.edu or 304-293-2941, ext. 2456. http://ahc.caf.wvu.edu/heritage/Participants.htm.htm Map of AFHA: http://ahc.caf.wvu.edu/heritage/map.jpeg.htm Documents: http://ahc.caf.wvu.edu/heritage/documents.htm Main website: http://www.appalachianforest.us Ten-year Strategic Plan: http://ahc.caf.wvu.edu/heritage/Final%20Strategic%20Plan%20Final.doc AFHA’s Governing Council: http://ahc.caf.wvu.edu/heritage/AFHA_Nonprofit.htm “Growth Rings”, the AFHA newsletter: http://ahc.caf.wvu.edu/heritage/Vol%202%20No%202.doc. Be sure to read the list of AFHA’s ‘Project Partners:’ http://ahc.caf.wvu.edu/heritage/projectpartner.html
 
LHBs - Large Habitat Blocks. I'm not talking about habitat for people, either.  A quick search at www.Google.com for "large habitat blocks" turned up 319 results.

 
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