Agenda - 10-14-2008 - late 2 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

Lands Legacy Action Plan (2008-2010) October 14, LUUtS Background The North Carolina Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST) is a planned 900-mile. trail that will traverse the state from the Great Smoky Mountains in western North Carolina to the Outer Banks on the Atlantic coast. Long a vision of the state parks program, in 2000 the General Assembly authorized this trail as part of the State Parks System. Portions of the trail already exist throughout the state, especially on federally-owned lands in the mountains along greenways and trails constructed largely by volunteers in cooperation with the state and local governments. Issue The corridor for the trail has been defined in the eastern and western part of the state for some time now, but the section in the more-populous eastern Piedmont had not been identified until recent years. From 2005-2007 the State Parks office held stakeholder meetings with staff members from local governments, land trusts and conservation entities across the piedmont to identify a corridor that would connect from Lake Townsend north of Greensboro to Falls Lake in Wake and Durham counties. As a result, in 2007, the State Parks office approved a corridor for the "Eastern Piedmont" section of the trail which includes several alternative routes or "spur" trails. As can be seen on Map 1 (attached), the trail's planned primary route would connect to the future Haw River State Park north of Greensboro and then follow the Haw River (and the Haw River Trail, another planned regional trail) through Alamance County to the Orange/Alamance county line where Cane Creek intersects the Haw. The trail would connect through OWASA-owned land at Cane Creek and proceed northeast to Occoneechee Mountain State Natural Area, where it would follow the Eno River (including Hillsborough's planned River Walk) and Eno River State Park into Durham. The trail continues along the Eno in Durham to Falls Lake. The most complicated segment of the' trail is the proposed overland route through southwestern Orange County. This is the .only portion of the trail in the eastern Piedmont that does not follow a river corridor or an existing public lands network. The trail segments through OWASA lands, from Occoneechee Mountain through Hillsborough, and through Eno River State Park to the Durham line are essentially the only segments where public lands exist (with a few notable exceptions). An alternate route is shown from Lake Michael in Mebane along the US 70 / Southern Rail corridor that connects to Occoneechee Mountain. There is also a proposed "spur" trail alternate in southeastern Orange County, connecting Duke Forest and New Hope Creek to Eno River State Park.