Friends of DuPont Forest’s new Share the Trails Campaign aims to help visitors share and care for the forest’s 80-plus miles of trail this summer and beyond. 

Danny Bernstein’s fascination with DuPont State Recreational Forest began soon after she moved to Asheville in 2001. 

“The first hike I took in DuPont Forest was to High Falls,” Bernstein wrote in her new book DuPont Forest: A History. “Like other visitors, I gawked and stared at the falls as I clicked one shot after another. It was a spectacular waterfall. Then I turned around and spotted a tall chimney on a hill. I walked up the wooden steps and saw that the chimney had a fireplace on two sides. A date had been engraved in the concrete. No other clue, no plaque, no sign — I was not in a museum. But I knew there was a story here beyond the waterfalls.”

Dupont State Recreation Forest and neighboring Holmes Educational State Forest are closed in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

A handful of lucky hunting parties were about to embark on a special bear hunt in DuPont State Forest last fall when wildlife managers realized they had gotten themselves in a bit of snare.