6-a - Approval of Planned Mountains to Sea Trail Route Through Orange County

Browse Search

November 2016 1 NC Mountains-to-Sea Trail through Orange County Frequently Asked Questions What is the NC Mountains-to-Sea Trail? The NC Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST) is a 1,000-mile trail that will traverse the state from the Great Smoky Mountains in western North Carolina to Jockey’s Ridge State Park on the Outer Banks. Partners across the state are helping to plan and build the trail that will link communities and serve as the backbone of a growing system of land and water trails in North Carolina. In 2000 the NC General Assembly authorized the MST as a unit of the North Carolina Parks System. A map showing the Mountains-to-Sea State Trail across North Carolina is available at: http://www.orangecountync.gov/MST_statewide_map__0612_Status_.pdf How many miles of the NC Mountains-to-Sea Trail are finished? Over 600 miles of dedicated trail — well over half the planned length— has been completed to date and is open for hiking. A series of interim roadway connectors (bicycle routes and back roads) have been identified by the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail organization that knit together the completed sections of the MST across the state. Some examples of completed trail in this area include the following: • In Durham and Wake counties there are 77 miles of the trail along the Eno River and Falls Lake • Raleigh and Clayton completed a 33-mile Neuse River Greenway from Falls Lake Dam to Clayton • Alamance County has 15 miles of trail – including 8 miles from Glencoe to Town of Haw River • Hillsborough completed the 1.3-mile Riverwalk and Classical American Homes Preservation Trust extended the trail another 1.5 miles. A third bridge over the Eno River opened in July 2016. How was the planned MST trail corridor chosen? The NC Division of Parks and Recreation held stakeholder meetings in 2005-2007 to identify a suitable MST planning corridor through Alamance, Orange and Durham counties. Trail planners began by identifying existing trails on public lands and connected them to key natural areas across the region. The result of that effort was a MST Trail Planning Corridor sent to local governments for consideration. The Orange County Board of Commissioners endorsed the MST Planning Corridor in 2010 following a review by three of its advisory boards and the towns of Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro. The planning corridor for southwestern Orange County (Segment 11) was part of the MST State Trail master plan that was developed in 2014-15 and released in July 2015. County staff are working in collaboration with the State Trails Program (NC Division of Parks and Recreation), Eno River State Park, the Town of Hillsborough, the Friends of Mountains-to-Sea Trail (FMST), Orange Water and Sewer Authority, and others to develop specific plans for the MST in Orange County—thereby transitioning the trail planning corridor to an actual “trail alignment.” The initial focus is to determine the trail alignment through the County’s Seven Mile Creek Preserve and linking the Preserve with Occoneechee Mountain and the Hillsborough Riverwalk. A secondary focus is working with the Orange Water and Sewer Authority (OWASA) to identify a potential trail alignment through OWASA’s Cane Creek Reservoir lands, and then linking the Reservoir lands with the Alamance County section of the MST along the Haw River. 8