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TOPIC: Holmes Educational State Forest. WNC
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/ddebc99a5a974516?hl=en
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== 1 of 2 ==
Date: Mon, Oct 15 2007 9:53 am
From: James Parton

ENTS,

Yesterday while Will Blozan was climbing the Leaning Tower hemlock in
Cataloochee, I was at a church picnic at Holmes State Forest which is
located between Hendersonville & Brevard NC on Crab Creek Road. Holmes
is a nice place to visit with displays of forestry equipment, a
helicopter, ground clearing machine & a fire tower. The fire tower was
from Spivey Mountain in which I have been on many times. I grew up
near there & had even been in the tower when it had been operational,
before it was taken down & moved to Holmes around 1990. Anyway, There
are places to picnic and fields to play in. But my favorite is the
trails. The most popular is the half-mile Talking Trees loop trail. It
has speakers giving information about a specific tree at spaced
intervals. Press a button and you will hear " I am Yellow Poplar, etc.
" Kids love it!, but it is quite informative. Unfortunantly it has
been recently disabled by lightning and they have information up at
the display that you can read about the specific tree displayed.
Hopefully they will get the exibit fixed soon. Other trails are
Wildcat Rock and the much longer Forest Discovery Trail. It is about
2.5 miles long if my memory is correct.

After the Dana UMC picnic yesterday I walked the Talking Trees,
Wildcat & part of the Forest Discovery trail. Most of the forest in
Holmes is fairly young. It was a white pine nursery at one time, but
they are some sizeable trees on the north side of the mountain. I
found several nice oaks & tuliptree that were about 3ft dbh and
Fraisier Magnolia were very common. The large leaves being greenish-
yellow this time of year. Beautiful! One Fraisier I found was close
to 2.5ft dbh. I need to get me a good tape for precise measurements!
I also found 4 American Chestnut sprouts which run from 1ft to 5ft
tall. It was a nice walk and picnic. Hearing Greg play banjo at the
picnic was a treat also!

Check out the website. http://www.ncesf.org/HESF/home.htm 

James Parton.

== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Mon, Oct 15 2007 10:06 am
From: James Parton

ENTS,

I have forgot to mention that they have a large red oak cookie that
shows the trees age relative to past events. Check it out if you go
there.

JP.