Timber interests nearly scalped the mountains in a boom that culminated a century ago. The healing continues today. But some of the region's steepest slopes and most remote corners escaped full-scale destruction. They were too rugged, too steep, too far from roads, and thus impractical for large-scale timber removal. And here lies a dispute.
Most stands initiate from some kind of disturbance.
Some areas were not cut. In other cases early loggers culled out choice trees, but left forest processes intact. We're talking about some of our last bastions of high-quality habitat and interior forest. There's no comparison with lands that were clear-cut. Working with the Coalition and the Western North Carolina Alliance, Messick has been hiking North Carolina's most challenging mountainsides for four years, looking for and charting old growth.