The loop trail was not long, but it contained the most remarkable collection of giant tulip poplar trees I had ever seen. Although the trees were easy to see from the trail, everyone seemed drawn to walk right up to touch them. The result was that each massive tree had a small path to its base. I worried that these trees were being loved to death many feet compacting the soil and damaging the roots. Even though I know better, I, too, was drawn to the base of more than one. There is an inexplicable energy shared between humans and trees when physical contact is made. It is possible to feel it with small trees, too, but in my experience, the older the tree, the stronger the feeling.
Where Is North Carolina Located
Where is North Carolina? North Carolina Map Location Photo Gallery
I am using words like “gigantic” and “massive,” but when scientists compare forests they use the measure of “basal area,” the area covered by the trees’ trunks. The same researchers who measured and documented the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest also measured another forest, Ravenel’s Woods, described as “a virgin hemlock forest near Highlands, North Carolina.” The local people called it the Primeval Forest. Bob Zahner, a friend and forester who visited the forest as a young boy, tells its story in his blog, The Mountain at the End of the Trail.
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The Primeval Forest originally “belonged” to the Cherokee Indians, but in 1819 a treaty took a vast area of land away from the Cherokee and gave title to the state of North Carolina. From the 1840s to the 1860s, the state awarded land grants to various white settlers. In the 1880s, the Ravenel family began to buy up land all around Highlands, including the Primeval Forest. Their son, Prioleau, continued to buy land when he came of age, and eventually he owned more than fifteen hundred acres. By 1913, most of the other private forest lands in North Carolina were a chopped-down mess, but the Primeval Forest remained intact.
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Around this time, the federal government began buying forest land to create the national forests. The Primeval Forest was considered for purchase, but Prioleau Ravenel did not want to sell. Perhaps he had an emotional attachment to his forest. He generously let others use it and study it. In 1939, researchers from Duke University and the University of Nevada documented the impressive old-growth forest, but there were no land trusts or Nature Conservancies then, and Ravenel did nothing to protect the forest beyond his lifetime.
Where Is North Carolina State University Located
North Carolina location on the U.S. Map
Map of North and South Carolina
Atlantic Beach, North Carolina Tide Station Location Guide
