Land Trust celebrates acquisition of Gauley River tract

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The Charleston Gazette
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Land Trust celebrates acquisition of Gauley River tract
By Rick Steelhammer, Staff writer

KESSLER’S CROSS LANES — On a hike down the Pierson Hollow Trail on Friday, Ashton Berdine pointed out three species of ferns, a cluster of towering, 300-plus-year-old hemlocks and three trail-traversing copperheads.

Berdine, the lands program manager for the West Virginia Land Trust, was leading a group of hikers into the Trust’s most recent acquisition — a 665-acre tract of Gauley River canyonland wedged between the state-managed Civil War battlefield and the federally owned Gauley River National Recreation Area. As trail began to descend steeply into Carnifex Ferry Battlefield State Park, the roar of the Gauley River rapids filled the air, and the trail passed into the newly-acquired tract. Soon, the Gauley came into view just as a series of rafters and kayakers drifted silently past headed toward the notorious Pillow Rock Rapids, just around the bend.

“The Gauley River Canyon is one of those iconic places we try hard to preserve,” Berdine said. In addition to thundering whitewater and tall timber, the newly purchased land — which will eventually be added to the Gauley River National Recreation Area — is home to endangered Indiana and Virginia big-eared bats and seldom-seen eastern hellbender salamanders, which can reach two feet in length and weigh up to five pounds...

...The new Land Trust acquisition stretches in a narrow band to include nearly six miles of shoreline. It is mostly on the river right, or Carnifex Ferry side of the Gauley, but also encompasses both walls of the canyon downstream from Pillow Rock....

- See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140928/GZ01/140929304/1118#sthash.VQir7aur.dpuf

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