Rustic Visitor’s Guide to Alabama’s Forever Wild Land Trust Properties An Unofficial Companion to the Forever Wild Land Trust Web site: http://www.alabamaforeverwild.com/ By Ken Wills Sponsored By The Birmingham Audubon Society Walls of Jericho Photo By Greg Harber 1 Forever Wild Lands Represent Alabama’s Incredible Natural Diversity From the Mountains to the Sea On November 6, 2012 the voters of Alabama will be asked to vote on Amendment 1 concerning the renewal of the Forever Wild Land Trust program. This guide was developed to help inform citizens about the diverse natural lands the Forever Wild Land Trust has protected for conservation and outdoor recreation around the state. Alabama has a rich biodiversity due in part to its location in the transition from humid temperate to humid subtropical climate which greatly adds to its diversity. For example, deciduous hardwoods forests of the relatively cold Tennessee Valley transition to broadleaf evergreen forests on the warm Gulf Coast. Furthermore, no other state offers so much landform related biodiversity in such a small space. You might be surprised to know Alabama is second only to California in physical geographic diversity. Alabama’s diverse physical geography is due to its unique position at the end of all the East’s Appalachian/Upland provinces and its central location among the various Coastal Plain sub-provinces. Alabama boundaries contain most of the Southeast’s physical geographic regions. This physical geography along with climate variation from north to south has produced the fifth richest biodiversity in the nation. Although largely forested, the state’s geology and fire have produced treeless prairies and glades in various places in the state. An extensive river system developed in our state that contains one to the world’s greatest aquatic biodiversity centers, including a great number of fish, crawfish, aquatic insects, mussels and snails. You could take a one-day car ride across the state if and pass through all 10 major regions of Alabama. Such a ride would take you past Canadian species in the canyons of the Appalachian Plateau, water-carved limestone caverns of the Interior Low Plateau; granite outcrops in the Piedmont, pygmy Virginia pine clinging to windswept quartzite outcroppings of the Blue Ridge Outliers, streams with an unbelievable diversity of fish, snails and other aquatic species in the Ridge and Valley, seasonally flooded cypress swamps in the Fall Line Hills, chalk cliffs of the Black Belt, open pine forests of the Chunnenuggee Hills, beech-magnolia forests of the Red Hills, species-rich carnivorous plant bogs in the nutrient-poor lower Coastal Plain and saltwater marshes in the Coastal Zone. However, we suggest that you slow down and enjoy Alabama’s natural wonders which are conserved on the Forever Wild Land Trust properties featured in this guide. The Forever Wild Land Trust was established in 1992 by a statewide constitutional amendment passed by more than 82% of the vote, a national record for support for such a plan. No funding for the program comes from taxes. The program is funded by earnings on fees paid to the state by natural gas companies who drill off Alabama’s Coasts. The trust is administered by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and it purchases 2 land from willing sellers that its board deems to be in greatest jeopardy. When private land for hunting began to grow scarce in Alabama, Forever Wild was there. When precious land is in jeopardy, Forever Wild is there. Forever Wild lands are open to the public for various form of outdoor recreation including hiking, canoeing, hunting, fishing, bird watching and nature study. These conservation lands also help protect Alabama’s water and air quality as well as contribute to the state’s outdoor recreation and tourism industries. The Forever Wild Land Trust Web site has more information about the trust as well as a variety of biological and recreational information relating to its properties. The Web site includes a great interactive map which links to brochures on the various Forever Wild tracts. The Web address of the site is http://www.alabamaforeverwild.com/ This guide is designed to be an unofficial supplement to the information obtained from the official Forever Wild Land Trust Web site. We hope to provide some more details on the special natural resources and recreational opportunities on the various tracts conserved by Forever Wild. This guide contains few pictures and no maps because those can be found on the Forever Wild Land Trust Web site. However, for those who do not have easy access to the internet, this document includes directions to the sites. This document is a rustic guide put together by a volunteer simply to help raise awareness of the Forever Wild Land Trust. Please note this guide was put together by the author based on information collected from site visits over several years. Forever Wild has acquired additional acreage and developed more recreational facilities in some of these sites since the last visits. As a result, you may be pleasantly surprised to find more lands and recreational opportunities to enjoy when you visit these sites. 3 Rustic Table of Contents- Locating Forever Wild Lands Around The State The Forever Wild Land Trust Interactive Map can be found at the trust’s website or can be accessed directly through this link http://maps.dcnr.alabama.gov/fwlt/ The interactive map is the best way to locate Forever Wild Tracts. However, just in case you don’t have easy access to the internet this document contains a table of contents that can be used to locate Forever Wild tracts in the various areas of the state. Some of the significant cities around the state were used to group tracts in relatively close proximity to them. In the table of contents you will find the tracts grouped by a nearby significant city in two separate conservation categories. The first conservation category includes core conservation areas secured by Forever Wild and the second category includes conservation areas enhanced by Forever Wild purchases. To find Forever Wild conservations areas around the state, review the lists in both categories below and on the next page and follow the numbered sites through this document to the desired site. Consider this list a table of contents for the body of the document as well. Core Conservation Areas Secured By Forever Wild Scottsboro 1. Walls of Jericho Area Florence 2. Blowing Springs Cave 3. Shoal Creek Preserve 4. Wildlife Management Areas of the Shoals Region Birmingham 5. Turkey Creek Falls 6. Mulberry Fork Wildlife Management Area 7. William R. Ireland Sr./Cahaba River Wildlife Management Area Anniston 8. Indian Mountain 9. Coldwater Mountain Rockford 10. Coosa Wildlife Management Area Tallassee 11. Yates Lake/Coon Creek Tuscaloosa 12. Sipsey River Swamp Greensboro 4 13. M. Barnett Lawley Forever Wild Field Trial Selma 14. Old Cahawba Prairie Eufaula 15. Barbour Wildlife Management Area/ Wehle Nature Center Troy 16. Pocosin Camden 17. Red Hills Preserve Mobile 18. Splinter Hill Bog 19. Perdido River/Bay Area 20. Mobile-Tensaw Delta 21. Grand Bay Savanna Conservation Areas Enhanced By Forever Wild Purchases Huntsville 22. Monte Sano Mountain Guntersville 23. Lake Guntersville State Park 24. Cathedral Caverns State Park Fort Payne 25. Little River Canyon Area Birmingham 26. Ruffner Mountain Nature Center 27. Tannehill Ironworks State Historic Park Montgomery 28. Fort Toulouse/Jackson State Historic Site 29. Lowndes Wildlife Management Area Foley 30. Weeks Bay National Estuarine Reserve 5 Core Conservation Areas Secured By Forever Wild 1. The Walls of Jericho Area The 26,000-plus acre James D. Martin-Skyline Wildlife Management Area was partially renamed to recognize the work of Alabama Department Conservation Commissioner James D. Martin. Mr. Martin contributed to the establishment of the Wildlife Management Area and played an important role in the establishment of the Forever Wild Land Trust. Large portions of this wildlife management area, specifically around the Walls of Jericho, were acquired by the Forever Wild Land Trust. Over the last 30 years, the Walls of Jericho had become a famous place that few had seen. That is because this area was private land closed to the public back in the mid-1970s. After years of effort by many, Forever Wild was able to buy several thousand acres surrounding the Walls, which connects to other Skyline Wildlife Management Area lands and lands in Tennessee creating a 50,000-acre conservation complex. The Walls consist of a limestone formation along a creek in the shape of a bowl surrounded by impressive cliffs. The stream creates cascades and small waterfalls as it drops out of the bowl to progressively lower rock ledges. However, the Walls are most impressive after a heavy rain when water pours out of holes in the rock walls. The state has developed a six-mile hiking trail that descends from Alabama 79 down into the canyonlands to the Walls of Jericho. This trail descends 1,000 vertical feet from the top of the mountain to the valley floor below and then requires an additional lengthy hike up a side canyon to the Walls. The hike back out will give you a very good workout, so make sure to give yourself plenty of time to make this hike at a pace that will not overstress your body. The hike down the slope passes through an upland hardwood forest with some limestone outcrops and sinkholes. The forests in this part of Alabama are largely hardwood which is unique in Alabama. The hardwood forests in this canyon country contain a significant amount of sugar maple normally associated with the New England and Canada as well as other northern species.