Friday is another day at the Sandburg NP. Jim, Dave, DR and Neal have all scouted the trails and have lined up plenty of work for us installing water bars and improving trail drainage. They have done lots of preliminary work, so let's get out and finish up the job. Meet in the front parking lot (main lot) at 8. As always, please let me know if you will be out. Bill

Folks, I understand that you didn't get out last week, so it's back to the log pile again this Friday. Meeting place will be Home Depot at exit 44 of I-40 for the Asheville crowd, and Ingles at 7:20 for the Hendersonville folks. There are camp sites to clear for non-log-moving people, so bring digging tools and loppers if that's where you plan to work. Alan, please bring the rope. Howard, bring the repaired cart wheels. We may or may not work the Friday following Thanksgiving depending on how many folks want to go out. In your reply to this note, please let me know if you want to work that day, so I know whether to organize a crew or not. Thanks. Skip

John Soldati's Wednesday Work Crew

Ladies and Gentlemen: We will MEET at Weaverville Wednesday, November 17 at 8:00 AM. Dress for early cold, then moderate cool after 10:00 AM. We will try for H. Rocks on the AT via Whispering Gap. I will ask Jorge to bring a saw. We will be in two groups...hope everyone can turn out. See you at Weaverville...as usual please REPLY soonest. If I can hear from all by late afternoon, it will make it easier for me to plan the day. Thanks. JS

Post Work Report: After six weeks of planning each Wednesday to roll into Yancey County and take on the Appalachian Trail's Whispering Gap to High Rocks section, we finally made it! With our big six out today, we found the entry gate and rode on new planted US Forest Service grass all the way to Whispering Gap. Jane, Bob, Barth, Charlie and our knowledgeable historian and pathfinder, Jorge got us up and back while taking the scenic route the "long way" home. Put in 13 new steps and silt bars; removed more than a dozen trees and cleaned and dug out 15 steps under High Rocks. The new steps are both on the south and north bound trail around H. Rocks. We could have placed another 5 or 6 below our four on the south side, but time was pressing. The AT is clear from just north of Little Bald Mt. all the way to Spivey Gap as well. Good day guys...thanks. Official Report follows. JS

nyone interested in joining the trail crews contact: Hendersonville area-Bill Newton, 828-693-4033, Brevard area-Dick Johnson, 828-884-3685, Asheville area-Skip Shelton, 828-891-3264 or Piet Bodenhorst, 828-298-8371, Misha Lazer, 828-259-9729, lazerm@bellsouth.net , Mike Lang, 828-658-1914, mlang626@buncombe.main.nc.us

Save the date - February 5, 2005 - for the FMST Annual meeting in Greensboro, NC. This years guest speaker will be Deirdre F. Hewitt with the RTCA program under the National Park Service in Asheville, NC. She will tell us all about the RTCA program; you can visit here for more info: http://www.nps.gov/rtca/ . The FMST is discussing along with the Department of Parks and Recreation in using this program for the MST East Plan. This meeting of Task Forces has proven to benefit the MST with reports and planning for the new year. Information will be mailed out in the near future about this meeting. Thanks for your time. Jeff Brewer www.ncmst.org

Volunteers attempt to rediscover Buck Springs Lodge’s elegant era By Becky Johnson (Smoky Mtn. News) • Staff Writer

A group of trail workers with the Carolina Mountain Club led a chainsaw and lopper assault on the Blue Ridge Parkway last Friday (Nov. 5) to uncover the ruins of an 1895 hunting lodge that served as a mountain-top retreat for the Vanderbilt family. The old Buck Springs Lodge — located at 5,000 feet near the site of the present-day Pisgah Inn — had become a forgotten piece of history, little more than a collection of rambling stone walls and foundations poking through rhododendron thickets and balsam branches, oblivious to most if not for the park service sign board commemorating the spot the lodge once stood. Enter Walt Weber. Weber, 76, happened upon the Buck Springs Lodge in 1999 when writing a book on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, which passes by the lodge site. Weber, a Carolina Mountain Club member, has since set in motion a movement to rehabilitate the old ruins and create a cultural and historical interpretive site. “It was just gone, and I wanted to know more about it. The more I found out about it, the more I wanted to get into it,” Weber said. In addition to mobilizing dozens of volunteers, Weber has inspired the Blue Ridge Parkway to prioritize the special site. He has also brought old-timers out of the woodwork to share memories surrounding the lodge. The Biltmore Estate allowed Weber access to its files, a wealth of information from old photos of the lodge to letters between George Vanderbilt and Carl Schenck, Vanderbilt’s manager of the vast forest domain and in charge of the lodge construction. Bill Alexander, forestry historian with the Biltmore Estate, said the information so far culled from the old records is likely the tip of the iceberg. Everything from invoices for food orders at the lodge to famous guest lists likely still lurk in the estate’s massive historical collection that is gradually being catalogued. “This was a wealthy man’s hunting lodge and retreat. It was state of the art,” said Alexander. Alexander specializes in history surrounding George Vanderbilt’s 125,000-acre forest domain — an area that eventually became the cornerstone of the Pisgah National Forest. The term rustic is a misnomer in describing this hunting lodge and would apply to little else other than the hand-hewn log timbers. The house had hot and cold running water, a novelty for any home in the area in the late 1800s, let alone an isolated, ridge-top hunting lodge. It had electric lights powered by a generator that could be cut off using a switch in the main house at night. The lodge was designed by the same architects that designed the Biltmore Estate. It was staffed with an army of cooks and servants. Lady guests strolled the grounds in fancy dresses and parasols, while men went on horseback expeditions that sometimes involved camping.

Among the volunteers swarming through the rhododendron thickets during Friday’s workday was the elderly William Cogburn, who has served as an oral historian of sorts to those who have taken interest in Buck Springs Lodge. The family lived on the steep land at the head of the holler above Cruso, almost to the top of Pisgah Creek. “They say the further up the holler you go the meaner they get. Well, we were the last family at the top of the holler,” Cogburn said. There was little flat land for farming and traditional subsistence methods, leading many in that predicament to the profession of moonshining. But living at the head of the holler, the Cogburns’ luck turned for the best with a string of employment opportunities with the Vanderbilts. Cogburn’s father was a water boy during the Buck Springs Lodge construction in 1895, hauling buckets of water up and down the ridge to the laborers. Cogburn’s father worked for the Vanderbilts from 1912 to 1925 as a forest ranger stationed at the lodge. Cogburn’s predecessor had been shot by a poacher. The job required year-round living at a cabin on the mountaintop that was isolated except for intermittent visits from a Vanderbilt party or exploring expedition, Cogburn said. One of Cogburn’s aunts served as a cook at the lodge. Cogburn’s uncle was paid $10 in gold to build a cabin and complete set of furniture for Carl Schenck, the forester who managed Vanderbilt’s 125,000-acre wilderness domain and who was in charge of the lodge construction. The Cogburn family granted permission for a wagon road to be built across their land to access the lodge. During the lodge construction, men used teams of oxen to haul giant timbers up the mountain from the Cruso area. The only other route to the lodge site was a 22-mile horse trail from the Biltmore Estate that followed the spine of the ridge through Buncombe County — a route now known as the Shut-In Ridge Trail. The horse trail was the primary route used by guests visiting the lodge. But prior to guests’ arrival, a staff of servants would haul the food, luggage and supplies to the lodge over the new wagon road built across the Cogburns’ land. Living at the head of the holler again proved fruitful for the Cogburns with the early onset of tourism on Mount Pisgah. In 1908, a motor road was built to the lodge, under the guidance of Schenck, forging the route later used by N.C. 151. Hiking Mount Pisgah was the trendy thing to do for the hundreds of tourists flocking to Asheville during the 1920s and 1930s. They took a motorcar nearly to the top of Mount Pisgah and hiked a short distance the rest of the way. “It was big doings,” Cogburn said. “They would hire a cab to bring them up.” The road was too narrow for two vehicles to pass, however. Vehicles could start up the mountain between 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., at which point the road at the foot of the mountain was blocked. By 1 p.m., the last car would have arrived up the mountain and the road was opened to downhill traffic until 4 p.m. Cogburn’s cousin had a souvenir stand and sold carved pieces of rhododendron wood etched with the words “Mount Pisgah” and the year. His cousin’s wife had a dining canteen and sold food to tourists.

George Vanderbilt died in 1914. His wife, Edith, sold most of the land to the forest service in 1916 for the creation of Pisgah National Forest. She kept the land surrounding the Biltmore Estate and Biltmore farms, along with 471 acres surrounding the Buck Springs Lodge. Edith spent more and more time at Buck Springs Lodge as she got older. According to George Cecil, the grandson of George and Edith Vanderbilt, Edith spent much of the summer at Buck Springs Lodge during her later years. Alexander said Edith was an avid gardener. Despite the 5,000-foot elevation, she wanted a garden at Buck Springs Lodge. Seedlings started in the greenhouse at Biltmore Estate were hauled up to Buck Springs Lodge and transplanted for the garden to extend the growing season for produce. “The guys at the estate just couldn’t get it to grow right up here, though,” said Alexander. So Edith began importing plants and seeds from Maine, which has a more comparable climate. Edith passed away in 1957. The following year, the family sold the land to the state for the creation of the Blue Ridge Parkway. When the Blue Ridge Parkway was built around 1962, the National Park Service dismantled the buildings. George Cecil toured the property with the Buck Lodge fans this fall, clearing up some of the lingering mysteries, including the water supply for the indoor plumbing. Cecil led the team to a reservoir located a half-mile from the house and the old stone foundation of a pump house. The water was piped to the home using a “ram pump.” A ram pump works by a large pipe funneling into a small pipe. The water pressure created can lift water 10 feet for every one foot of drop on the big pipe. The same principal occurs when someone puts their thumb on the end of a waterhose to send the spray further. There were 10 buildings on the sprawling grounds, including a main lodge, a kitchen/dining room, stable, garage, honeymoon cottage, and a playhouse/school for the Vanderbilt’s daughter. Outbuildings included a cellar and a springhouse — an old fashioned refrigerator cooled by an icy spring running through a structure. “I think it will be interesting for the public when it is all complete,” said John Robinson, a volunteer with Carolina Mountain Club who spent the day lopping vines away from an old cellar foundation.

Hi all. I looks like the weather is going to hold off for this coming week-end but I am a wimp when it comes to camping out in darn cold temperatures! Lets look at just going in on Saturday and working until about 3:30 so we can get home OK. Whatever we get done will be a plus and it could be considerable when you remember how much we accomplished last time. We will be trying to set the sill logs in place which will start to make it look like a shelter. Get back to me with what you think about this. Thanks. Howard

A record of each person certified to operate a chainsaw on trails that the CMC maintains has been added to the web site. The list is intended to serve several purposes. First, the list will show for the first time the names and location of the sawyers that are available to contact to help clear the trails that we are responsible for. Second, the listing also accumulates for the first time our expiration dates for the three certifications that you must have to remove trees for the Forest Service and National Park Systems in our region. The three certifications are: Sawyer, First Aid and CPR. The typical terms of certification are 3 years for sawyer, 2 years for First Aid and 1 year for CPR. the listing may viewed here: Sawyer Certification List

Friday we will head into the Green River Gamelands once again to finish the clearing of those trails. Also a couple of hand rails need repairing. John says there are some 28 blow downs - some pretty nasty - that need clearing. We will form at least two saw groups to work from different locations, and others to work the rails and such. We will meet at 8 AM at the Friends of the Library once again - around in back. This is on the Spartanburg Hwy a block or so before you get to Upward Road - on the East side of the road. A big sign out front with numbers on it, but I don't remember that they are - what are they, Dave? As ever, please let me know if you will be out. Bill

Hi Guys, Skip is out of town and he has asked me to organize this weeks work. So lets have fun!! From various source I gather that many of our regulars are going to be out of town, so I need for all of you who plan to work to let me know ASAP that I can count on you in making the plan. We have three choices depending on who shows up 1.- Back to the Log pile -Shelter 2.- Cutting down trees on two sections of the AT 3.- MST South. Build trail south of Balsam Gap. As you can see all have the same meeting place- Home Depot Exit 44 at 8AM. Howard, please bring your saw. Frank I will let you know meeting place and equip. to bring tomorrow. If weather is bad, look for cancellation before 6:30 AM on Friday. Piet

John Soldati's Wednesday Work Crew

Ladies and Gentlemen: I will be asking Mr. Munoz to take over the Crew for this Wednesday (10th of Nov.). The Crew will go to Chestnut Cove O/L...then take the south bound MTS trail in about 30 minutes to work on two very wet areas...drainage...maybe rock crush etc.; then work on 200 yards (or so) narrow trail doing side hilling etc. Please REPLY to Jorge's email... jmunoz@buncombe.main.n Please MEET at French Broad Overlook on BRP at 8:00 AM. Hope by next week we will (finally) get to High Rocks....on the AT. Be safe...Hope we can get a good crew out tomorrow. Regards, JS

Post Work Trip Report: On a crisp, clear and beautiful morning Don Christensen, Bob Poe, Charlie Hamberger and myself headed on MTS Chestnut Cove heading South. The last jobs done on said section where nice and visible so nice that the two wet spots reported had been already taken care on the previous work day as were many of of side hillings. We did walk and scouted for 45 minutes and started back taking care of spotty areas that needed improvements. In total we did 84 yards of treadwork and cribbing combined. We all came to the conclusion that our last day of work on that section was not acknowledged by the scheduler. So our day was was finished by 12.00 P.M. Four hours work and one hour driving time. Jorge

Mile Lang's Monday Work Crew

Post Work Trip Report: Work Completed-Removed 10 trees including a large quadruple blow down about 1/4 mile beyond the shelter that had not yet been reported. We examined the destroyed privy and planned for its repair.

Work Remaining: We will return next week to make repairs on the privy. Could be more trees down beyond where we stopped going north to Bluff Mtn.