Pisgah Nantahala Forest Plan Updates

Linville Gorge, Short Off, Looking Glass Rock, Whiteside, Big Green, Cedar Rock, all boulders in National Forest, Sam’s Ice, The Dump, and so many more of our beloved climbing areas will be affected by the Pisgah Nantahala Land Management Forest Plan. The Forest Plan will guide forest management for the next twenty years. At the CCC, we have been a part of the planning process since 2012 along with our access partners, Access Fund, and dozens of partnering stakeholders. In each step of the Forest planning process, we have worked directly with forest supervisors, forest plan writers, climbers like you, and the Pisgah Nantahala Forest Partnership to ensure that components of the Forest Plan were favorable for the future of climbing throughout the National Forest. If you submitted public comments to the Draft Plan last summer, thank you! In the Final Plan, we are seeing some positive climbing-based changes that the Forest Plan writers incorporated. There were also some climbing related items that were amiss and we are reviewing those items for potential objections filed to the Forest. Please know that in these final months of review, we are hard at work protecting and enhancing the climbing experience in Pisgah Nantahala National Forests. We hope that our decade long involvement influences the Forest Plan to support and celebrate climbing in the National Forests. Access Fund has been critical in this process. Thank you Access Fund!

What can you do? Read up on the Forest Plan as well as the Final Environmental Impact Statement. If you submitted your public comments last summer, thank you! The public comment period is over but because the CCC and Access Fund have been a part of the planning process since the Plan’s inception, we are allowed to file objections to the final plan. Once the Foirest planners receive and review stakeholder objections, we will see the final, Final Plan later this year. Please know that when you support the CCC and Access Fund, you are supporting this lasting policy work.

Forest plan link: https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fseprd987300.pdf

Final EIS: https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fseprd988846.pdf