A plan to conserve more than 900 acres of high-elevation terrain in Jackson County will move forward after the Clean Water Management Trust Fund Board voted last week to award $1.5 million toward its protection. 

To call the view stretching out below the 5,462-foot bald “spectacular,” “impressive” or even “jaw-dropping” would be an understatement. 

It was as clear a day as had been spotted in the mountains this rainy year, skies blue and cloudless ahead of the slowly moving remains of Hurricane Florence. The sun shone on Cherokee to the west, Bryson City visible just a couple folds of land beyond it and the Nantahala Mountains rimming the horizon south and west of the small towns. 

Town and counties never have enough money to provide all the services and amenities that their citizens — in a perfect world — would like. That’s an unrealistic expectation, so when local leaders do make smart investments that are somewhat unconventional, we think it’s worth noting.

The decision by the Sylva Town Board and the Jackson County commissioners to spend $250,000 each to conserve an additional 441 acres adjacent to Pinnacle Park is one of those admirable and wise expenditures. 

Sylva commissioners voted unanimously during their May 24 meeting to contribute $250,000 to a 441.5-acre conservation project adjacent to Pinnacle Park, but the success of the endeavor could hinge on a vote the Jackson County commissioners will take during a special meeting at 11:05 a.m. Thursday, May 31, at the Jackson County Justice and Administration Center in Sylva. 

An effort to conserve a 441.5-acre block of land adjacent to Pinnacle Park in the Plott Balsams is now looking much more feasible than when the possibility was first discussed nearly two years ago. 

The infamously steep trail leading up to Blackrock from Pinnacle Park will soon find itself with a gentler incline following the planned reroute of 0.37 miles of the most severely angled piece of the pathway.

News spread fast last week after the Sylva Police Department removed more than 50 spikes from hiking trails at Pinnacle Park, but a drive by the trailhead two days later showed that the incident hadn’t dampened local enthusiasm for the area. Even at 1 p.m. on a Thursday, the parking area held seven cars whose owners had come to enjoy a sunny afternoon on the trail. 

Sylva resident Amy Schmidt, 33, was one of them. She and her German shepherd Greta come to Pinnacle Park regularly, about three times a week, and though she’d heard about the spikes she didn’t think twice about coming back for their regular walk. But the story did give her pause.

When we got out of the car on Sunday at the parking area in Jackson County at the end of Fisher Creek Road, it was cool, perhaps high 60s or low 70s. Fall is coming, I thought. Despite the favorable temperatures, the walk up the trail toward Black Rock and Pinnacle Peak soon had all of us bathed in sweat, feeling winded and wonderful at the same time.

I’d been on the trail before. That was on a cold April morning a few years back as a pack of crazy trail runners took part in the annual Assault on Black Rock race. The sheer exhaustion I suffered during that run erased any real memory of the trail, and so this time it might as well have been my first time maneuvering up the rocky path.

A meeting seeking feedback on an emerging plan to turn Sylva’s Pinnacle Park into a mountain biking destination drew about 70 people to the Mad Batter Food and Film last week, and after a night of fielding questions and taking comments, the folks behind the effort are feeling positive about its future. 

For the past decade, Sylva’s Pinnacle Park has had Sae Smyrl envisioning a lofty future for the hiking area. A mountain biker for the past 40 years, Smyrl would walk the trail and think how great it would be to ride his bike through the 1,100-acre forest. Bikes are allowed on the existing trail, but it’s way too steep for the sport to be fun. 

A plan is now afoot to make Smyrl’s dream a reality, with the Nantahala Area Southern Off Road Bicycling Association pursuing a goal to bring some 30 miles of biking trail, featuring loops of various difficulty levels, to the Fisher Creek watershed.