Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
31 <br /> VOTE: UNANIMOUS <br /> b. Mountains to Sea Trail (MST) Update <br /> The Board received an update on the activity of staff and other project partners on <br /> acquiring and constructing the segment route of the NC Mountains to Sea Trail (MST), a part of <br /> the NC State Parks system, within Orange County. <br /> BACKGROUND: <br /> In January 2018, the county adopted a route map for the portion of the NC Mountains to Sea <br /> Trail in Orange County. This action was the culmination of several community meetings and <br /> planning exercises to identify, refine and address the planned route of this trail through Orange <br /> County. The NC Mountains to Sea Trail is a continuous off-road trail linking Clingman's Dome in <br /> the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to Jockey's Ridge State Park on the state's Outer <br /> Banks. The MST is part of the North Carolina State Parks system, with over 680 miles of the <br /> roughly 1,000-mile trail route open for use and road connecting sections identified by the <br /> Friends of the Mountains to Sea Trail (FMST) organization to allow hikers to complete the trail <br /> in areas where road routes are needed. <br /> A statewide MST Master Plan was completed and approved in 2015 with an established <br /> corridor for the trail across the state, broken into defining segments. The plan included <br /> information about each segment, prioritization and plans for further work, centralized web- <br /> based content about trail progress, and a set of tools and guidelines to assist trail planning <br /> partners. <br /> One of the regions in the state where the trail corridor was in need of further identification and <br /> refinement was the Eastern Piedmont section, from Greensboro to Durham. Segments of the <br /> adopted MST corridor traverse Orange County, entering from southwestern Orange County at <br /> the Alamance County line and running northeast through lands owned by the Orange Water <br /> and Sewer Authority (OWASA) around Cane Creek Reservoir. The MST corridor then continues <br /> northeast to the Orange County Seven Mile Creek Natural Area, before entering Occoneechee <br /> Mountain State Natural Area and into Hillsborough along the Town's Riverwalk. The trail then <br /> heads eastward into Eno River State Park and toward Durham. <br /> Because almost all of the MST located east of Hillsborough will be within Eno River State Park <br /> and its master plan, the State and the Eno River Association have taken the lead to addressing <br /> the trail from Hillsborough Riverwalk east to the Durham County line. <br /> Orange County's responsibility is to connect the trail from Alamance County to Occoneechee <br /> Mountain State Natural Area, and it is this area that has been the area of focus since 2018. As <br /> shown in the current and prior Capital Investment Plans (CIP), the first area of emphasis was to <br /> extend the trail west from the Hillsborough Riverwalk through Occoneechee Mountain and to <br /> the Seven Mile Creek Natural Area. This would extend an existing section of the trail, and <br /> significant progress has been made by the county, Town of Hillsborough, Eno River Association <br /> and State Parks. This is addressed in the attached Project Summary of Recent Activities in the <br /> section "Riverwalk to Seven Mile Creek Natural Area." <br /> The second area of emphasis as per the adopted plan and the CIP was the subsection from NC <br /> 54 to Buckhorn Road, encompassing the Cane Creek Reservoir lands of OWASA. Working <br /> with several willing and interested landowners, staff has secured sections of trail corridor as well <br /> as a future trailhead on NC 54, and is finalizing trail easements with multiple property owners <br />