For several years, Toler worked as a logger himself. But he believes Kanawha State Forest should be left alone, left to the squirrels and birds, to the ferns and trees, to the people who love untouched natural lands. Kanawha State Forest was once logged and mined. Seventy years later, it has returned to a magnificence, filled with mature red oaks, white oaks and poplars. Fallen trees put nutrients back into the ground.
Insects live on the decaying wood.
Birds eat the insects. That's the cycle of life. We want to see life's cycles as we hike. The only thing that should take down a tree is old age or a windstorm. Toler and Goad see a bad omen in what happened recently when state Division of Forestry officials allowed a natural gas company to build a road through the forest to reach a well site on private land outside.