Displaying items by tag: forest
America’s newest national park is wild and wonderful — and nearby

New River Gorge National Park preserves paddling and climbing paradise
When you think of national parks within a day’s drive of East Tennessee, what comes to mind? Great Smoky Mountains National Park, of course. Or perhaps Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, or Virginia’s Shenandoah. You have a new option.
New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, created by Congress Dec. 27, 2020, by way of a pandemic relief bill, is America’s 63rd and newest national park. Located in southern West Virginia, the 72,186-acre park and preserve protects land along both sides of a 53-mile stretch of the New River, which is famous for its world-class whitewater. It’s walls rise up to 1,400 feet, attracting rock climbers from across the country.
The New River Gorge, known locally as “The New,” currently welcomes about 1.4 million visitors a year. It’s within a day’s drive of 40 percent of the U.S. population, and is expecting an initial 20 percent increase in visitation this year because it is now a national park with national attention.
Local merchants and business owners are already touting the economic benefits, including new jobs in in-store retail and dining, two industries decimated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We’re super excited about it,” Cathedral Cafe manager Cassidy Bays said. She said the cafe, just minutes from the park, plans to increase staff and extend hours. “We’re even building an outdoor patio to increase dining space,” Bays said.
And this is not your grandfather’s West Virginia: Locavores can find locally sourced food and lean into a vegan juice bar. Several community-supported agriculture (CSA) and co-op farms are a main source of the cafe menu. “We actually cater to locavores. We are a farm-to-table restaurant” Bays said.
- new river gorge national park
- new river
- paddle
- paradise
- white water
- rock
- climbing
- economic
- retail
- job
- dining
- locavore
- farm to table
- concession
- hunting
- trail
- river
- new river gorge national park and preserve
- multi use
- parachuting
- permissible
- new river gorge bridge
- bridge day
- event
- single span
- arch
- mining
- town
- appalachian mountains
- species
- fish
- human
- history
- overlook
- oldest river
- fishing
- rapids
- hiking
- biking
- cross country
- skiing
- mountain biking
- coal
- hydrology
- endangered
- salamander
- amphibian
- hellbender
- unfragmented
- forest
- migratory
- flyway
- bird
- breeding
- habitat
- visitor
- sandstone falls
- grandview
- thurmond history district
- visitor center
- canyon rim
- backcountry
- camping
- fire ring
- campground
- appalachian trail
- great eastern trail
- allegheny trail
- american discovery trail
- river guide
- outfitter
- west virginia
- permit
Marking points in time: The Hal DeSelm Papers

A life dedicated to the flora of Tennessee
Dr. Hal DeSelm clambered around the crest of Cherokee Bluff in the heat of a late Knoxville summer 22 years ago. The Tennessee River flowed languidly some 500 feet below. Beyond the river stood the campus of the University of Tennessee Agriculture Institute. The towers of the city center rose to the northeast beyond the bridges of the old frontier river town.
DeSelm was not interested in the views of the urban landscape below. He was interested in the native trees, shrubs, herbs and grasses that clung to the ancient cliffside with firm but ultimately ephemeral grips on the craggy soil.
The retired UT professor, a renowned ecologist and botanist who died in 2011, had been sampling the terrestrial flora of Tennessee for decades. The life-long project took on a new urgency in the early 1990s, when he accelerated his data collection in hopes of writing the authoritative guide to the natural vegetation native to the forests, barrens, bogs and prairies of pre-European Tennessee.
Between 1993 and 2002, DeSelm collected 4,184 data points from 3,657 plots across the state. Many of those plots have since been lost to development, highways, and agriculture, or overrun by exotic species, but he assembled an invaluable baseline of the native landscape. Many of the sites he recorded have since been lost to development.
- science
- botany
- botanist
- Tennessee River
- native plant
- native tree
- native herb
- native grass
- native shrub
- Tennessee
- University of Tennessee
- terrestrial flora
- barren
- cedar barren
- ecologist
- Hal DeSelm
- Cherokee Bluff
- University of Tennessee Agricultural Institute
- native landscape
- preEuropean Tennessee
- natural vegetation
- sampling plot
- 1993
- 2002
- exotic species
- invasive species
- Todd Crabtree
- Tennessee State Botanist
- Natural Heritage Program
- conservation
- understory
- canopy
- ground cover
- herbaceous growth
- geology
- bedrock
- soil type
- forest
- conservationist
- database
- collection
- baseline data