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Exploration Local
Come journey with us as we explore and highlight the people and places that make the Blue Ridge and Southern Appalachian Mountains special and unique. We explore the towns, trails, rivers, scenic byways, businesses, and people that fuel the life & adventurous spirit in these mountains. Listen in on this relaxed conversational style podcast as host Mike Andress interviews Authors, Business Owners, Photographers, Athletes, Adventurers, Travelers and Friends who have a deep connection to the outdoors and directly influence the culture of the Blue Ridge. We’ll even explore the many ways nature & the outdoors can positivity influence our health and well being.
Exploration Local
South Yellow Mountain Preserve: Park Greer Reveals The Work And Wonder Behind Protecting A Rare Appalachian Preserve
In this episode I sit down with South Yellow Mountain Preserve manager Park Greer to share the full, behind-the-scenes story: the surprise Earth Day donation, the eight months of deed work and surveying across a 33-mile boundary, and the careful plan that turned a generous transfer into a resilient, living landscape.
Park brings a rare mix of park ranger experience and land surveying chops, and it shows. He walks us through the amphibolite bedrock that fuels calcium-rich soils and exceptional biodiversity, then threads that geology into the mining legacy of Spruce Pine—mica, feldspar, and world-class quartz. From rare plants like Gray’s lily and Roan Mountain bluet to a closely monitored peregrine falcon site, we talk about how data, training, and seasonal protections guide every decision, down to when and where people can visit.
We also dig into the human side of stewardship: school groups that put down their phones and pick up field guides, citizen scientists mapping species with iNaturalist, and volunteers hauling out legacy trash from old mine dumps. You’ll hear how invasive species removal, pollinator habitat plans, and watershed protection keep clean water flowing to Spruce Pine’s reservoir and downstream wells. And you’ll see why guided access, local partnerships, and humble storytelling create ambassadors who carry the work beyond any boundary line.
If you care about Appalachia, clean water, wildlife corridors, and conservation that honors history as much as habitat, this story delivers both heart and detail.
Mike Andress
Host, Exploration Local
828-551-9065
mike@explorationlocal.com
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A 7,500 acre gift can change your region, but only if someone knows how to care for it. In this episode, we head to the South Yellow Mountain Preserve, one of the largest conservation gifts in the history of the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy. My guest, Park Greer, manages this remarkable landscape. He shares how SAHC balances watersheds, view sheds, and wildlife corridors while honoring the families and farms that shape these hills. Park's path from Tennessee State Park Ranger to land surveyor to full-time steward offers a rare window into the skills and persistence behind land conservation. He takes us behind the scenes of the Surprise Earth Day 2021 donation that created the preserve and the eight months of surveying, deed research and due diligence that follow. But the story goes beyond boundaries and bakers, cemeteries, old homesteads, and a working community farm near Asheville connect people to place through SAHC's outings, education, and volunteer programs. If you care about the future of conservation in the southern Appalachians and how land trusts like SAHC protect the lands that define this region, this conversation brings both the details and the heart. You're listening to Exploration Local, a podcast designed to explore and celebrate the people and places that make the Blue Ridge and Southern Appalachian Mountains special and unique. My name is Mike Andris, the host of Exploration Local. Join us on our journey to explore these mountains and discover how they fuel the spirit of adventure. We encourage you to wander far but explore local. Let's go. Today I am joined by Park Greer. He is the manager of the South Yellow Mountain Preserve with the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, or SAHC, and they are an organization protecting some of the most breathtaking and ecologically vital lands in the Southern Appalachians. Park, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, thank you so much for having me today. It's uh an exciting day to be on the Exploration Local Podcast.
SPEAKER_01:So for people who may not know SAHC, who you are and what you do, let's just talk about the big picture.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, or you might hear us call it just SHC going forward because it is a mouthful to say Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy every time. But so F SAHC is a conservation land trust that was founded in 1974, and since then has protected over 90,000 acres of the Southern Appalachian Highlands, and that extends from the northern end of North Carolina and then all the way down towards um past uh Brevard, um, as well as over to the Smokies and into Tennessee. Um most of the protected land is in the North Carolina, but we also have a lot of properties that we try to uh protect and conserve in Tennessee as well. A lot of people know us from our kind of earlier days and then kind of our flagship, which would be protecting the Rhone Highlands. And many, many people from across the the globe uh know of the Rhone Highlands and how special they are. What we protect is land and water. We steward what we conserve and connect people to these places through outings, education, and volunteer programs. You could essentially say that we protect watersheds, we protect view sheds, we protect wildlife, and we try to connect people to those areas.
SPEAKER_01:Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah, that's a great description because as you're kind of describing that, that's exactly what I feel like Carson and I got a chance to experience. And we got sort of that last component of it, which was us coming in and being able to kind of understand what this land is, walk it a little bit, see the views, hear the sights, smell, all the things. And it was an area that we had never been to before. And so, yeah, we got a chance to experience it, hopefully as you intend and want people to experience the property.
SPEAKER_00:And it's not necessarily just some of those big like the where you and Carson, uh what you and Carson got to experience. It's not just those big properties like South Yale Mountain Preserve, which we'll dig into a little later. Uh, we also have opportunities, um, or not opportunities, but protections kind of closer to Asheville, like the community farm, which is about 140 acres. And that is a wonderful program where not only is it protecting an Appalachian farm, but it's also a kind of essentially a research where the the manager of that property is, who's someone you should totally have on this podcast at some point, uh uh Chris Link, he also works with local farmers and local producers to try to connect people to good farming practices and good management practices for for that kind of stuff. We also have a farmland protection program that goes into various areas around the the Southern Appalachian Highlands and helps to continue on the legacy of farming, which is something that a lot of places are being developed. So it's it's that that's another aspect to SAHC. It's not just the mountain peaks, it's not just the watersheds, it's also the the communities and the the history of the region.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I love that. Yeah, and y'all are rich on understanding the history of the regions and trying to protect and preserve that for as long as you possibly can, I think. In perpetuity. In perpetuity. In perpetuity.
SPEAKER_00:And it's uh and the the his the historical aspect is something that I am interested in, and the the whole staff is interested in as well, and a lot of our volunteers as well. It's the the storytelling component when it comes to protecting these lands is we're not just going in and saying, all right, here's, you know, 100 acres here, here's 500 acres there. Uh cool, we're just gonna monitor it, we're gonna make sure that there's no invasive species, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's also the, okay, well, who used to live here? Are there any, you know, cemeteries? Are there any like stories of homesteads? You know, what is the history of the land, not just what it is currently and not just what we want it to be in the or what we're trying to uh foster it to be in the future, but also it's like what what is the tail? And a lot of the times when you're trying to connect people to land, you have to go back, not just forward. And that kind of just ties in across time, essentially.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, yeah. And I'm sure we'll talk about it here in a little bit, but even seeing that just the little cemetery that you took us to was pretty, pretty amazing. And and it it allows you to experience that land in a different way. It's not just a place to go and a place to visit, but as you say, I think it kind of connects you to the past. And I think for well, maybe getting a little ahead of myself and we'll unpack some of that stuff. But I think for a lot of people that really are in the the realm of protection and conservation and easements and all these things, that's one of the things that they're really drawn to is not just what is it today, what is it going to be in the future, but really how does this tie us in this in this moment, in this place? Right.
SPEAKER_00:And that's a very human aspect is you know, we're we're trying to figure out, you know, who was walk or who walked this land before us. And sometimes on some of our outings and hikes and or even just our podcasts like this, or some of our YouTube videos, we go even further back, like billions of years. And and we'll talk about that too when we get to the geologic portion of South Yellow Mountain. But the story doesn't just start or stop with humans. It it extends far beyond the the wildlife story or the animal story, the the migration story, the ice age, and the geologic story of the land because where we live has been shaped for eons.
SPEAKER_01:That's great. All right, so you're here now, you're the manager of this South Yellow Mountain Preserve, but that's not where you always started your career. You were a park ranger in uh another part of your career. How did you get associated with SAHC and then specifically this property?
SPEAKER_00:Uh yes, sir, that was uh that was a wild story. Uh I you're correct. I did start as a park ranger for with Tennessee State Parks. I worked at South Cumberland State Park, which is about an hour west of Chattanooga, um up on the Cumberland Plateau, which is very different geology than here. So I was I I started my career with like sandstone and limestone and caves and cliffs and waterfalls, and then did that for about four, four, four and a half years. Uh, and then my wife and I, we did a couple seasonal jobs in between, and I decided to uh my next career path was going to be as a land surveyor. So I worked with a uh local land surveying company out of Swantanoa um doing streamwater restoration surveys, and that very well tied into uh being a park ranger, uh, because it was, you know, I was outside, but I was in the woods and I was working with with aquatics and I was working with land. And then um I was looking to make a change at some point, and my wife said, Hey, here's this job by the through the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy. They're looking for someone who has park ranger experience and land survey experience. And perfect. That world does exist. It's just very small. So I decided to throw my hat in the ring and you know, just see what happened. And I'm I'm very, very happy and very blessed to have been accepted for this incredible role. Uh and I'm now realizing, not now, but previously realized the responsibility that it takes to manage the the this kind of a property um and to tell the story of the preserve. So it's uh yeah, land surveying, park rangering, and then just essentially loving being outside. And I have to shout out to my father for introducing me to the Rhone Highlands and taking us on hikes. So hey Dad.
SPEAKER_01:That's great. Yeah, Rhone Highlands, man, what a special place. Just incredibly. Oh my gosh, yeah, it's amazing. And so we know that there's another land manager for this, and we'll talk about uh here in a little bit. This is great. I wish people could actually see this because we have maps and we have different areas and regions that SAHC protects and preserves and manages, but you are part of this South Yellow Mountain Preserve, which is huge. This is why this is one of the only properties that you're managing right now. And I wonder if you can kind of speak to that a little bit because as you said, it you know, we were gonna we've been trying to get this together for a while, and you are so busy trying to manage this enormous parcel of land. Talk a little bit about how there's managers and then those managers types of properties that they uh manage, and then why you are just doing just this one.
SPEAKER_00:Right. So actually, that's an excellent question. Uh for reference, uh, my supervisor um I I I think she has over 40 properties that she has to manage, and then other parts are our other um stewardship staff, they have also other properties that are in those dozens of numbers. And being an accredited land trust, we have certain responsibilities for monitoring. And that means making sure the boundaries are well marked, making sure that we're we're documenting and addressing encroachments, um, and then sometimes more on the uh biological or the ecological stewardship side, you know, removing invasive species, uh, and as well as working with the outings program to bring people and connect them to these lands. So there's the monitoring, there's the actual uh ecological science that goes with it, as well as the uh connection uh connecting people to these lands. So most of these properties, like I said, my supervisor has over 40, and I it's even the total number of her acreage is still less than my one property. But they're spread out all across the Rhone Highlands. So when this property, and we'll talk a little bit about the acquisition history in just a second, but because of the size of this property uh being uh specifically 7,498.36 acres. To be exact. To be exact, we'll we'll just say 7,500 acres for now. But because of the size and the contiguous of this property, it would have been difficult to manage this without having someone dedicated to that property. Okay. So that was the uh the impetus to hire a manager for one preserve, as opposed to, you know, um a manager for 20 preserves or 40 preserves or or or the other the stewardship team uh management team. With with that, there has been many challenges, many successes, but also this kind of realization of while it is just me for right now, it would be fantastic to kind of grow the team in the future because it it's such a special piece of land, as are all of our preserves, but it's such a special piece of land that um it growing the team in the future would really help to properly manage this and take care of the special features of it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, uh having been up there and now looking at the map before we started to record, I can understand that because you have this big map and we're looking at basically what it amounted to like, you know, a pintop, you know, a pinpoint. I mean it was just it's really, really small. So the 7,500 acres is huge, and we were out there for, you know, four or five hours. And I can only imagine it's what that's the thing that Carson and I kept talking about as we were leaving there is how in the world does one person manage all of the 7,500 acres? It's just huge.
SPEAKER_00:It well, there was a little bit of serendipity that came into that. Um it was thought, so the I guess to start with a little bit of history, the land started being acquired through a LLC that was not SAHC, but a different LLC conservation organization uh over a decade and a half ago. And we started getting a little worried because we were seeing this this LLC was buying up a lot of properties. It's like, okay, uh, what's going on? Is that gonna be development? Is it gonna be sold off for anything? Uh and then it was announced on Earth Day, so April uh 22nd of uh 2021, that it was going to be donated. That whole 7,500 acres is gonna be donated to the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy. So woo-hoo.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, amazing.
SPEAKER_00:The the announcement for the job didn't happen until a year later. There was a thought that it could have happened uh uh fairly quickly, but when you're talking about a 33 plus mile boundary, there's all the due diligence that goes into that. The from an being in a creative land trust, we do have to do a lot of due diligence. We we can't just it's like, okay, here, take the land here, or here, let's donate the land. All right, cool, thanks. There's uh the the land survey that has to go on, and that was uh done by a cup excuse me, a company that I think they took eight months to do the survey. And coming from a land survey background, I am impressed. And I was out there with the surveyors a couple times and just some of the boundaries that they had to survey were really nice, you know, along ridgetops, but then some of them would just turn and go straight up a ridge and then straight down a ridge. And some of these properties haven't been surveyed in a very long time. So there was the eight months that came in of the survey, and then there's all the legal due diligence that comes in after that, you know, uh various uh easements and water rights and things like that that are uh described in deeds, and that gave me the amount of time to ex essentially to explore the preserve. Because we we couldn't accept the property until all that work was done.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So once while that work was being done, I while yes, maintain or uh building partnerships in the local communities and trying to get to know the adjacent landowners, uh I essentially was just wandering the property. And uh as an example of why that's valuable, the the mining history of the town of Spruce Pine is incredible. And the original report mentioned that there were like 11 or 12 or something uh remnant mines, so you know, abandoned mines. And through my explorations, I found forty-six to date. And many of them were just they were not blowing. Mind blowing. They were uh not reported to the government, so you just had to go find them in the woods. Um it also allowed me time to identify and find rare plant species that are out there and to really get a handle on where uh uh trespassing is is a big issue versus where it's not, uh to meet the locals, uh, to meet the the school groups, to meet the the business owners, and to kind of share the story of who SHC is and what we're trying to do and what the purpose of South Yellow Mountain is. Really I was blessed to have that several months to almost a year to just figure out what it exactly, to get to know it, to figure out what's there and then start planning. Okay, how are we gonna monitor this? You know, what do we need to do? Um, who do we need to talk to? Who do we need to bring out here? That kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about some of the we've mentioned the geology and some of the formation of the preserve. Let's kind of dive in a little bit because it is incredibly diverse, the biodiversity up there. And you had a chance to point out so much to Carson and I, including a couple of caves that we walked into, which was really remarkable.
SPEAKER_00:Uh yeah, absolutely. So technically they're not caves, they were mines. Mines, mines, mines, yes. They uh so the the caves typically you'll find in like limestone, like in Linville Gorge or over in Tennessee. But a lot of those remnant mines and the Spruce Pine Mining District, which encompasses a huge area around that, is is at many times in history has been globally important. The reason it's important is the the Appalachian Mountains are some of the oldest mountains, actually, if not the oldest mountains in the world. Our mountains have been suscepted to incredible geologic forces, and that creates some interesting rocks. What makes South Yellow Mountain interesting is while most of the Southern Appalachians in sp uh specifically around here, like from the Rhone Highlands down to Mount Mitchell and the Black Mountains and all that, um, are granites and gneisses or sorry, gneisses and uh schists and other kinds of that, uh South Yellow Mountain is this little pocket of what's called amphibolite, which when it erodes um through erosion like water and wind and erosion forces like such as such as those, uh, it puts potassium and magnesium and calcium and iron back into the soil, which creates this really rich um kind of uh soil layer for an incredible amount of biodiversity in plants. And then when you have an incredible biodiversity in plants, you also get that with the animal species that are uh an animal and insect and species that are associated with that. So there's three main pockets of this amphibrolite. There's the amphibolite mountains up in Ash County, uh north of there, and then there's the South Yel Mountain Preserve, and then there's another pocket of this type of mountain down towards uh, I think Franklin Highlands area. So while yes, it is an ancient mountain formation, and while yes, it is uh part of the Blue Ridge Mountains or or the Southern Appalachian Mountains, it's a different kind of rock. And in that rock, over those courses of uh growth and erosion, there were other there was another type of igneous rock that was intruded. In those intrusions, there were pegmatite and granodiurite, and you could view pegmatite as essentially big crystal granite, which is if you look at your granite countertop, you'll see like primarily three constituent minerals, which is uh quartz, feldsfar and mica. Uh and they're they're kind of tiny, like millimeters in size. But in the pegmatite and the granodiurite and a couple others, they're big. They can be centimeters to inches in size and sometimes much larger than that. And really early on, we're talking Native American days, mica was a very important mineral, primarily for decoration, um, for for jewelry or ornamentation. And then as time moved on uh and settlers started coming into the region, it was used as early electrical insulators. Um, you could find big sheets of it. We're talking sometimes feet wide that people would use for, you know, very early rudimentary windows. If they couldn't afford glass, they could at least have mica and it would keep the wind out. It wouldn't necessarily be uh thermally insulative, but it would at least keep the wind out. And then it also was used in a couple instances as an anti-glare that would be adhered to uh fighter plane windows. And then now it's you could find it often in cosmetics, you know, paints and things to make it shiny. Uh so mica was one of the first ones, and then feldspar was primarily used early on for and even today in ceramics and glass making as well as pottery. And the quartz didn't really become important until the invention of uh transistors and semiconductors.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:And now spruce pine and that whole area is globally important for quartz. From a geologic standpoint, it not only shaped the the history of the region for being a prime a huge mining district, but a little later on, as people started paying attention to plants and amphibians and uh other species that uh lived in the area, they're like, oh, because of this geology, uh it it amounts to you know incredible biodiversity for rare plants specifically, as well as just this amazing viewshed when you're or not viewshed, but this amazing wilderness that you're walking through.
SPEAKER_01:I know this is going to be a r almost sound like a rhetoric question, but why is it so critical to make sure that areas like this are preserved? Because the common person might drive by this area just as I did for years and never know that this exists and that all of this biodiversity is there. How do we make the case that this is incredibly important?
SPEAKER_00:That's actually a really good question. And I think it it ties into a lot of different disciplines. And in general, biodiversity is good. It's kind of like, you know, if you're looking at even just talking about genetics for, you know, as an example, you want a wide variety of genetics when you're having a species to continue, and not just, you know, in plants and animals, but you know, us as well. Otherwise, you start getting some weird issues. It also it in the lack of a natural community is when you can get invasives, which come in, you know, something that is introduced normally fairly quickly, um, as most people are aware, you know, kudzu, there's also Tree of Heaven, there's uh Royal Polonia, um uh Vinca Minor is another one, or Periwinkle, I think uh most people know it as. So when there is not a healthy ecosystem, it it's almost like it's almost like not having a healthy diet, where it's like you're susceptible to something that can attack if you don't have a healthy ecosystem. Now that's not a hundred percent applicable in every case, um, but as most people know in of the Southern Appalachians, uh it was completely logged from like late 1800s to the early 1900s, and sometimes even more recent than that, and it was not replaced with anything native, so or it w it wasn't focused replaced with anything native. So it opened up this um essentially a scar that whatever was just floating around in the wind or whatever was being accidentally transported via uh trucks or whatnot would just fill in that niche because it was it was a scar. And so we when we talk about protecting biodiversity, we won't really be able to get back to the way things used to be, say, let's say pre-Columbian.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:It's just some of those trees are completely gone, some of the native the species are completely gone. But uh a good way to kind of picture biodiversity is it's not there's a bunch of plants. It's what insect species um uh host on those plants or feed on those plants, what mammals or birds or amphibians or reptiles uh feed on those insects, and then uh continuing down the line, like what mammals um uh s uh thrive off of uh other mammals and insects and and birds and whatnot. So it's like when you take away a certain component of that that food web, which I think a lot of people probably remember from the third, fourth grade, when you take a point out of that web, it affects everything else that is attached to that web. So promoting biodiversity is it it's like I said, it's not necessarily that we're trying to get back to something, it's we're trying to just have a healthy uh ecosystem.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Um there there's a couple other projects that uh are trying to reintroduce, you know, previous species that used to be here. Uh there's a couple other projects that are trying to just close off an area and just say, all right, we're just gonna keep this the way it is. Essentially, it connects us all to the world. Uh the food web doesn't stop at the end of the Southern Appalachians and you know the Piedmont is is not a completely different food web. Yes, it's a little different, but there's that transition zone between, say, the Piedmont and the Blue Ridge escarpment that they have an overlap of species. So whatever you affect up here affects downstream, and then also affects going the other way. It's uh the planet is connected through these incredibly intricate webs of uh of of species, both plant, animal, and then geology, which is it kind of hard to imagine that the oh the rocks matter, but they do.
SPEAKER_01:I'd love to camp out here for just a couple more minutes, if we could, and talk a little bit more about some of the other rare species that are in this area. Um wonder if you can kind of share a little bit more of that with us.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. Uh so far the only ones that I'm really can talk about, uh not that anything's classified or anything, it's just that I'm I have you know studied and researched um while I've been on the preserve. Uh many people who hike up at Rhone Mountain are familiar with the Grays Lily.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um and it it normally uh that's where most people see them, you know, when they're hiking on the Appalachian Trail or sections of Rhone Mountain and they see those signs that say, you know, please don't touch the flowers. They're a beautiful little nodding kind of orangey red flower with black spots on it. And uh they are they're imperiled. Um they're affected by something called uh lily leaf spot disease, which um is uh if if I remember correctly, it is a it's a type of fungus, but it can primarily be spread by, you know, people touching the flowers and you know other other vectors as well. But on the preserve, I have a couple areas where there are um hundred species or hundred individuals of that species. So there's one spot that it's not on a bald, like with the the flowers you would find on Rhode Mountain, um, but it's kind of in the canopy and they're they're still there. Uh so that's an example of we go in and when I say we monitor it, we measure it, we count the the whirls, which is the the individual radial leaves that come out from it, we look at it, see if it's affected by the disease, we we see like um we count how many whirls there are. It's it's it takes a uh it takes about a minute per individual. So when it comes time to monitoring, it's not just a you sit there, you look out, and you're like, okay, it's here. It's like, all right, how many are here? Where are they? What's their health? And then you submit, once again, you submit that to people who can aggregate all that data and come up with a management plan for those species. Like there might be an example uh or an example for the Grays Lily. Uh, we might need to open up the canopy. We might not. It it depends on kind of the advice we get from the professionals or that I get from the professionals. Um there's another couple plants up on uh the top of the ridge in certain areas that are their main impact is by trampling. But uh the main thing for the Rhone Mountain Blew It and the Spreading Avens, which are two other federally listed plants up there, they uh they're very special. And on my site, I am counting those plants uh by individuals. I have one where there's three. Now there's other areas where they are more abundant, but specifically on my site, there are three of this or there's twenty of that. And I'm still looking for them, and it's just uh every year I'll go out and I'll count them and measure the or monitor them and and uh submit those to the scientists who then come up and say, Oh, maybe you could trim this a little bit or or maybe block this area off or you know, something like that. Um I've not yet got into any sort of research for propagation. That's that's a future project, and it even if it's warranted. But um so that's a question I get, is like, why don't you just plant more? It's a little more complicated than that. But um but so for a lot of the monitoring of those, so those are three rare plants. Uh there's an old report that mentions a green salamander being on the site, which is a rare amphibian. There's a chance there could be some rare or some uncommon or rare birds on the site. So being the sole manager, I really have to rely on volunteers to for this kind of monitoring. And for rare species monitoring, those are gonna be trusted volunteers.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So I I know we talked about a peregrine falcon um that's nesting up there, and and we could talk about ways that people are gonna be able to get involved. I know this one is high on my list of wanting to be get uh to get involved and volunteer. Um but what are some of the other wildlife, the rare sort of wildlife that's up in this area?
SPEAKER_00:Specifically rare on South Yellow Mountain. Um I I the the Peregrine's kind of the only one that I would consider rare. Okay. Uh there's others that I haven't ver uh uh verified that they're there yet. I've seen old reports. Um but no, the peregrine falcon, apparently uh some people that have been involved in the property before I took uh accepted this position, they've mentioned it's been there for several years before we saw it. But now working with uh North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, we submit monitoring reports of that of that bird. And last I checked in North Carolina there's 13 nesting pairs of uh peregrines. That that number is probably or might have changed since I I last read it. But so those are those are are are bonded pairs, nesting pairs in the state of North Carolina. And there was one day I was up on the cliff and I heard a noise that it sounded kind of hawkish, but it was just a little different. And the we had two interns with us, um uh Duke Standback interns. And they they had uh binoculars with them and a really good camera, and they looked at it and they were like, Oh my god, that's a peregrine falcon. Amazing. I didn't know it was there. And since that initial observation, I have seen it almost every time I go out there. And this it's an interesting monitoring for peregrines. It's it normally starts pretty early. There's a couple ways to do it, but uh the way I'd like to do it is I go out early, um, and it's like a four-hour monitoring period. You sit there, you try to be still, preferably camouflaged, and you're monitoring for vocals and you're monitoring for uh behaviors. And there's a whole checklist of how to do that. Um, so when I say that I need help monitoring for things like that, that's gonna be a training program. Okay. And uh so that's not just gonna be, hey, show up, do this. It's it's gonna be more we're gonna we're gonna work together for a while. Uh but that like I said, we can talk about connections in a minute. But so that's been a beautiful, uh, beautiful interaction with the wildlife, is it it allows me a period to just sit in the middle of the woods and just watch. Not on my phone. I can't read a book because you just have to pay attention. You can also kind of co-monitor for other bird species if you want while you're doing that. But uh when you're up there, it it's just that data goes in to help guide management plans. Um, uh uh the reason you have to be a little careful with specific peregrines is their main predators attack from above. And unfortunately, the only way to see them is a bluff line that is above the peregrines, so that's where that camouflage comes in. And though the wildlife agents or the wildlife commission had mentioned, I was like, hey, you know, we're a thousand feet away. How well can they see us? And he responded, it's like he can probably read your facial or they can probably read your facial expressions. No way. And it's uh so it's they're incredible animals, and it's I encourage anyone to just go on YouTube and type in peregrine falcons, and there's all sorts of fun, fun information on them. Um but it's just we take that data and it's like, okay, well, maybe we might need to close off for that ridgeline for hunters or for activities or whatever, because it's it it would uh negatively impact the the bird. I've there's one that is there consistently. Uh I have occasionally I've seen two. Um I'm not sure what that means, but I'm collecting the data and sending it off to people that can extrapolate or uh interpret that.
SPEAKER_01:And you call this is it social science? Is it citizen science. Citizen science. There you go.
SPEAKER_00:That's the term that you use, citizen science. And citizen science, you can actually do at home uh through apps such as iNaturalist or seek. And anytime you upload that data and make it public, researchers can take that data and be like, oh, we didn't know that that X, Y, and Z plant was there, but someone positively identified it and it's there, so they can kind of change, you know, some other uh management practices. But yeah, citizen science through things like bio blitzes, uh, which is kind of a fun thing if you've never been a part of one. Uh you can do it in a professional capacity, or you could do it in just a uh a regular volunteer capacity. You pick an area, you send people out with either field guides or like those apps such as iNaturalist or Seek, um, and you just identify what's there and you create essentially this biological map of all species, not just plants, also amphibians and mushrooms and birds and uh reptiles and mammals. Uh and it just creates this um this beautiful picture of what lives where.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And allowing people to come in and be a part of it. And and so there are ways for that. And that's one of the things that keeps you pretty busy is that you have groups of people, you have school groups that come in, you have people like myself that come in, um, just small groups of people, but and you stay really, really engaged with that. And I know talking with you, that's a really important part of your role and what you all do at SAHC SAHC too, is being able to kind of pull people in. And my my feeling is that once you experience something like this, you gain knowledge for you know, and there's a connection to the past and the future and the present. Um, but you also have these ambassadors. You are like growing your ambassadorship of people that will be there with you in the trenches and the tranches to be able to help you kind of do the work.
SPEAKER_00:I love that. That that is a beautiful way to put that. Yeah, definitely fostering ambassadorship for various properties, and even if that means you're an ambassador for your own property or your parents' property or just your local park, sometimes sometimes you need to name something before you can see it. And if I could jump into just a quick story about that, uh growing up, I used to hear about cherry wood furniture. I had a cherry wood, I think a a desk in my or my parents' house, and I was the only cherries I knew at that time were like ornamental cherries or fruit cherries. And I was like, How are you getting enough wood out of that? Because it's all twisty and turny and knotty, and and uh and then I took this job, and this is you know me calling myself out, but uh I took this job, and one of the guys I was with pointed out a black cherry, which is you know much, much wider in diameter and much taller and grows much straighter. And I was like, Oh, that's where cherry wood furniture comes from. Okay. And then I went home and I was in my childhood bedroom. I spent 18 years in that bedroom. I looked out my window and there was a black cherry right at my window, and I couldn't see it until I named it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so I think that's where some of these programs come in, like bio blitzes, or even just going out with your local park rangers or um SHC on some of our hikes to identify species around you. It's it's kind of hard to see things that you haven't been taught or that you're not curious about. And it's it just makes the world it makes the world infinitely more complicated or complex because you're starting to see as much more than you were, but it also makes it a little more enjoyable. Yeah, yeah. It's like every time you walk by, you're like, oh, there's a horsetail, or or oh, there's a black cherry, or it's like, oh hey, I know that one. That's a that's a eastern tohe. It's it's it's you can see these things everywhere. And it kind of you you're forming these own connections in your mind um or or in your experience. So my goal for a lot of these hikes is while yes, using the data from citizen science is great. What I would like to see is just more people being curious about what's around them, just even in their own front yards.
SPEAKER_01:That's a good way to put it. You know, I can connect and relate to your story because even this past weekend, uh Carson and I were hiking up at Graveyard Fields. She's constantly kind of pointing out these things. And now when I drive by in the parkway or I see pictures, I have a different frame of reference. And it's not just this is a beautiful view, it's so much deeper. And I just feel like you're a little bit more connected.
SPEAKER_00:I like that. Yeah, I like it's it's a different frame of reference, and and it just grows. Your your frame of reference grows every time you identify something new. Now, sometimes you do have to continually remind yourself of what things are. I've I think on using my iNatural step, I've identified the same plant like seven times, and just eventually I'll remember it. But yeah, it it's uh you start to see those biological connections between not just like we talked about biodiversity and geology, but you start to see kind of like the health of an ecosystem. And one of the things that SHC really works on is protecting watersheds. And when sometimes when people hear watersheds, they only think of like a municipal watershed. You know, it's like that's where the city's water comes from. But watersheds is it's just where water is. It's a it's a a topographical area where that everything drains into that creek from tributaries, first and secondary streams, and and on down to essentially rivers and eventually the ocean. So South Yellow Mountain Preserve protects nine headwater streams, and it's there's over a hundred miles of streams. And like some of those streams are, you know, six inches wide and they're just trickles at the peak. Uh, but some of them are a little lower. The most important one on South Yellow Mountain is the town of Spruce Pines watershed. They uh they they have an inholding where they have a reservoir, and that's 1,700 acres where we can guarantee that no development will happen there, no one's gonna be dumping anything out there. There's no way to get to access that that property to affect the town of Spruce Pines drinking water. So a lot of the times the conservancies, uh including SHC, will protect those watersheds or either through outright ownership or through conservation easements where we monitor uh those areas. And it's just to allow people to have clean drinking water. And on the northern side of the preserve, I have a couple other streams that it doesn't necessarily go into a municipal water supply, but by protecting the headwaters of the streams and the main creeks all the way down, um, anyone that's on a well downstream from that, they can they can know, they can rest assured that that water is not being impacted upstream.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Powell What are some of the other things that you are, you know, in the near future, in the next year or so, some things that you're monitoring and managing out there park?
SPEAKER_00:We I think we pretty much covered all the monitoring from like the animal and the plant species uh fairly well. But I've also been trying to figure out ways to involve community because you know this is taking 7,500 acres from uh most of it in Mitchell County, uh another part of it in Avery County, and figuring out how to involve not just the local communities, but everyone. Just like the the land belongs to everyone out here. Um so how can we involve people in that? And an easy way to do it is to work with the schools, you know, Mitchell County Schools, Avery County Schools, uh Mayland Early College High School, and and other schools in the area. And the the easiest way to do that is just bringing kids onto the land, you know, teaching them the history of the mining by visiting the mine, kind of like the one uh Yumi and Carson visited, teaching people the the local history, uh teaching them biodiversity and ecology and just generally being out in the woods. You know, we're we live in an age of screens and several parts of the preserve, there's no cell signal. And I've seen it before. I led an elementary school group out, and some of them had phones in like the first 30 minutes, every five minutes they're checking. And then I guess they realized that there was no cell signal, and then they were fully immersed in where we were. I absolutely love that. So sometimes you it's it's it's not necessarily that you're teaching a specific plant or a bug or whatever. It's just like, hey, just be present for where you are. So the schools are are a good outlet. Um I'd also like to work with church groups and scout groups and other community organizations on outreach. May and then some other things that I've I'm still trying to shape. But there's also opportunities. Uh, there's one area that I have that I uh am still, once again, still trying to form. It's about a five-acre area that was impacted through some development way like 2009. And it's an interesting area because it's not it's not necessarily overtaken with invasive species, but it hasn't really recovered yet from where it was uh uh impacted. You know, essentially the hillside was dug in or uh it was dug into the hillside and all that soil was didn't have all the seeds and anything to regrow, so it's just a big flat dirt area. And I would love to uh work on turning that into essentially a giant native pollinator garden.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_00:Another kind of that environmental education where you can bring people out, you can uh you know and see kind of how the the natural ecosystems work with with each other. Um, and then what you can do at home. Like you can come here and look at it and say, Oh, I see how you planted this, I can do this on a smaller scale at my own home. And working with the counties as well, because I I think one thing I do want to emphasize about South Yelamount Preserve is one of the conditions is that it can't be generally open to the public. So there won't be like a parking lot you can show up to whenever you want. It's gonna have to either be a guided hike or a volunteer event.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So working with the counties on like how can we involve local community assets such as uh like the Pinland School of Crafts, like what can we do to work with them to bring them out, you know, once again, under a guided situation, maybe for some photography of some really special waterfalls, or to uh for art, like sketching plants, or I'm not really sure ex exactly how that would shape out, but like working with various organizations, uh at-risk youth, you know, maybe we could do something, you know, uh guided hikes or uh other guided events where we could bring people out into the preserve. And I think that's what the the the challenging part is is I came from a park ranger perspective where you you have everything is open. You just show up, you do your thing. But because we can't do that, one to protect all the incredibly rare species that are out there, as well as just uh impact to the the land itself. What can I do? And so I've had several meetings with various people on like you know, uh various projects we can do, and I think uh a lot of it that's where it comes back to me working with organizations.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and that's that's a lot in my brain. I'm sitting here thinking, you know, when I when I left there, I just want more people to be exposed to the area. And one of the things that you for all the reasons we just talked about, but one of the things you had mentioned is that there's you know, sometimes there could be a need of some small projects or just some things that can be, you know, doing some of the the heavy lifting for you. And so for selfish reasons, I love to bring, you know, a group out there, but I also know that your time is limited and there are specific things in some of these school groups and church groups and other things that you would like to see. So, how does the common person, how can they get engaged with South Yellow Mountain Preserve?
SPEAKER_00:That's a that's actually a really good question. And thank you for being responsible for my time as well. Yes, yeah. Prior planning is good. So, you know, feel free to reach out to me and um I'd be more than happy to give out my my number and email on how you can get in touch with me if you have an idea. Uh, I have no problem saying no. Like if someone says, Hey, can we come out here and we want to like do this? I'm like, sorry, I can't do that. But the easiest way to figure out what's going on, not just with South Yale Mountain Preserve, but also with the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, um, is on our website.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:We have uh an events page, and that's got, you know, all of our volunteer opportunities and hike opportunities. Um, I don't have any up there right now, but some of my volunteer opportunities um that will actually feed back into the local watersheds and and biodiversity is invasive species removal. And sometimes that's not fun. Sometimes you're working with things like multiflora rose or Japanese knotweed, but it's uh or kudzu in some areas, and sometimes it's cleaning up an old uh uh uh landfill. Uh on the near the Beaver Creek side on the southern end uh used to be a dump site, and uh we've been clean we've been spending probably about three years cleaning up many of those mines, uh or sorry, old mines that were used as a uh dump area. Luckily, most of it was in like 1960 or earlier, 1970, so it's you know it's less plastic and more just appliances and glass and metal. Um but that's where volunteers come in handy and how that helps downstream, specifically for the people living on Beaver Creek, is now all that water that runs off into the creeks for people that are on wells and not necessarily using the municipal water supply, uh, the water's just a little bit cleaner. And it's it's gonna be a long, long process. But one of my plans is to clean up all the trash, and luckily there's not a lot, but clean up all the trash, so that's a volunteer opportunity. Invasive species removal helps with the biodiversity on the preserve, but it also helps downstream as well, because now you don't have uh Tree of Heaven dropping seeds and then going downstream. But uh primarily, yeah, through the website. And we have, and I I can't necessarily speak to all the volunteer activities that are happening across Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy properties, because we have an incredible team across many, many counties. I think about 10 counties that are always doing something. Um the community farm always has something going on, uh, either volunteer or an educational workshop. And then same thing in the Rhone Highlands and even over into the Tennessee side on the Rhone Highlands, there's always something going on. So that that's the best way to find out.
SPEAKER_01:One of the things that I paid attention to, and you actually had to go to a it's either a town hall or a city council meeting the evening after you toured the property with us, is just how much you actually it's you have the north, you have the preserve, you have the area you're protecting, but you also have a function of being really engaged with the community itself and the people in the community and the governments and the municipal municipalities in those regions as well. So your your job, your function, your role is really broad, uh and it and it extends beyond the borders of that preserve.
SPEAKER_00:I love being on the preserve. I love being out there, I love being involved, I love when I get a chance to take people out, I love when I get to lead hikes, I love when I get to work with school groups and scout troops. But because it is such a essentially a centerpiece of both Mitchell and Avery counties around there, I feel the the a personal need to be involved with the community. And I try to, you know, identify myself everywhere I go. Um, but it I know it sounds weird to say that Mitchell and Avery counties are like big counties, you know, compared to, you know, Mecklenburg or even Bunkham, but uh they are. Like I I can't it's amazing how every time I go somewhere, even to like my favorite little local coffee shops in downtown Spruce Pine or over in Newland or up in Bakersville, how I just keep meeting more people. And what helps from also from a self-rush standpoint, I think what helps me understand the land just a little bit more is every time I meet someone, not every time, but a lot of the times when I meet people, uh, they have a story, a very personal story to that land. Where it's like, oh yes, I remember my dad used to work in the mine, or my granddad used to work in that mine that, you know, now is part of the preserve. And those are little connections that I was like, hey, I'd love to sit down with you and talk about this. Um, you know, do you have any stories? Because it'd be kind of cool to put all this down in a book or a or or just even a expose. Or people talk about, you know, they used to go hunting up there. People talk about they used to hike around. And those are it's those little personal connections that help tie me to the land. Because even though I'm not from Mitchell County or Avery County, I'm from just over the border on the Tennessee side. So I grew up going to all these places. So there's the community side just with the with people. And then working with the local governments is more on, okay, well, how can we help maintain clean water? How can we help uh connect uh the the schools to the area? How how can we help with um other projects that might even be out out, like you said, outside of the boundaries, such as um I don't I'm sure some people know about the uh uh mainland Earth to Sky Park, uh, which is uh uh has a designation through the International Star Dark Sky Association. And so you asked one of my other future projects, and this is down the road, but I would love to work with the the local governments and communities to find ways to maybe find some grant money to get some of those downward-facing lights so that it just uh doesn't affect the the night migration patterns or the bats or the the insects that are flying at night and while still having you know enough light for safety and security for people around. So it while that doesn't necessarily affect South Yellow Mountain alone, it's a way that we and I can use our expertise and connections to help make Mitchell and Avery counties kind of like a hub of ecological education and working with the mines as well. I've noticed with working specifically with uh Saboko and Saboko North America and the Cortz Corporation, um they they're adjacent landowners, so that we have we share some boundaries with each other, and they have been fantastic people to work with. They have a lot of uh uh local community outreach that they do. And we just recently had a meeting with one of them to say, like, hey, how can we help you?
SPEAKER_01:Love that.
SPEAKER_00:It doesn't it doesn't involve the preserve at all, but like what can we do to help, even if it just is helping out at an event or tabling at an event or you know, that kind of stuff. But so the the the mining hist telling the mining history as well as why is it why is it important to protect ecological biodiversity, it's like it that comes into that storytelling.
SPEAKER_01:This has been an amazing conversation. And I said at the outset that you were a master storyteller, and I think that you could tell stories upon stories upon stories, and that's one of the things that Carson and I both very, very much appreciated about our tour and our time with you. And I thank you for the work that SAHC is doing as well. I I know for me, when you learn more about an organization's mission and you touch that mission somehow, it makes you it makes you want to crave more of that, I think. And so the work that you all are doing, I know is amazing. I have wanted to have Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy on this podcast forever, and I'm just glad that this is the mechanism that made that happen for us. So, man, thanks for taking a few minutes out of the day uh with me to share. Um, it's good to see you again. I know that um you're probably itching to get back up on the mountain, but uh I appreciate you you making the trek down to Hendo and kind of unpacking this for us.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, Mike, and thank you so much for having me down here. And I I know I could ramble on about South Hill Mountain and SHC for another couple hours, but I want to respect your uh your time as well. I do want to mention just real briefly that it does take a lot of mix of support from a lot of different places. And sometimes that's donors that donate to the area, sometimes that's members a membership program where you get perks like you know, free hikes through the year and things like that. But also just this podcast format or even YouTube format, having that connection with people. And if anyone has anything, questions, burning questions they want to ask, they can email me. My my contact information is on our website, and I am more than happy to get a cup of coffee with someone and talk about it one-on-one. So even if it's not necessarily just a, hey, cool, I love what you're doing, it's like, I actually have some serious questions. People can reach out to me at any time.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's great.
SPEAKER_00:But thank you again, Mike.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, man. Thank you. The South Yellow Mountain Preserve reminds us that conservation isn't just about protecting land, it's about caring for it year after year. Thanks to the vision and commitment of the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy and the stewardship of people like Park Greer, places like this will continue to safeguard clean water, resilient forests, and the heritage of these mountains. If today's conversation inspired you, you can learn more about SAHC's work and upcoming events at Appalachian.org. And if you enjoy the episode, please follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. It really does help more people discover stories about these beautiful mountains. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook and drop me a note at mike at explorationlocal.com if you ever have ideas for future episodes or you just want to say hello. Until next time, thanks for listening and for caring about the places that make this region home. And as always, I encourage you to wander far but explore local, yes, yes.