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Location: Avery, Burke and Caldwell counties, North Carolina, 20 miles southwest of Blowing Rock, Pisgah National Forest, Grandfather Ranger District
USGS Topographic Maps: Chestnut Mountain, Grandfather Mountain
Harper Creek is just south of Lost Cove, separated only by a forest road. Sugar Knob is best seen as an extension of Harper Creek to the south. Both consist of the ridges and valleys that fall some 2000 feet in elevation southeast to Wilson Creek from the Parkway.
Sugar Knob has no Forest Service special status other than having been identified during forest planning in 1994 as a "Semi-Primitive Non-Motorized" area. Lost Cove and Harper Creek are congressionally-designated "Wilderness Study Areas", (WSA) which means that they must be managed as wilderness pending congressional action.
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Approximate Size: 7,430 acres
Roadless acreage:
7,351 acres
Old growth acreage:
224 acres |
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In the most recent Forest Plan (1994) the Forest Service recommended Harper Creek, a black bear sanctuary, for wilderness designation. The area streams are full of falls, large and small, North Harper Creek Falls and South Harper Creek Falls being particularly spectacular. All are trout streams.
There are pockets of old growth forest in the most inaccessible areas. The trail system is well developed and extremely popular, especially in the Lost Cove and Harper Creek WSA's, making many backpacking/camping loops possible. The Mountains-To-Sea Trail (Section 12) also runs through these areas.
Geologically, Lost Cove is within the Grandfather Mountain Window, an erosion feature exposing ancient rocks where the once-overlying Blue Ridge Thrust Sheet has been eroded away. The forces of erosion have been at work here for over 300 million years, since the Appalachian Mountains were thrust up by the closing of the proto-Atlantic Ocean in the late Devonian Period. The land has never been covered by glaciers or oceans, leading to the uninterrupted evolution of the remarkable biodiversity so special to the Southern Appalachians. |
