May 14 Dupont Forest

Dupont State Forest features scenic waterfalls. My hike plan was to visit 5 of them. Beginning with Hooker Falls above, it was an easy and short hike. It certainly looks like this place gets some visitation. The parking lot was large and had a couple port a potties. The "beach" below the falls has a new restroom just opened by the Friends of Dupont Forest. At every trailhead I saw signs lining the road advising visitors to not park along the road. I later met a bicyclist who confirmed that parking lots fill often in season. Otherwise the forest is so large that it can absorb the people.

Next up is Triple Falls. In this view you can make out the 3 drops which comprise Triple Falls.

Here is the first 2 drops of Triple Falls.

Moving on to High Falls. This one grabs you attention. It is less than a mile from the Visitors Center.

I thought High Falls would be hard to beat, but Bridal Veil Falls is stunning and my favorite, I did visit another waterfall, Grassy Creek but it was not as showy as the others.

Water glides over one side of Bridal Veil Falls

Bridal Veil Falls

After the waterfall tour, I set my sights on Pink Lady Slippers. I heard a Ranger say there were hundreds along a trail which had a burn a couple years ago. After the burn, Lady Slippers were everywhere. I thought I might see a few but not the mother lode. Once on the trail, within 50 feet I see a colony of 20. Another 100 feet down the trail, I counted 185. Another 100 feet and another colony of 79. I'm certain I undercounted. 

Below is a very interesting account of the battle to acquire the forest which I have copied from the Friends of Dupont Forest website. The forest was once owned by Dupont. Their factory made X-Ray film. As film was phased out in favor of digital imaging, the property was sold and the fight began.

Big Fight for the Waterfalls

Triple Falls, High Falls, and Bridal Veil Falls, which were not part of the original State Forest, were protected from residential development only after a controversial, two year struggle.

Sterling Diagnostic Imaging put the 2200 acre waterfall tract up for sale during the winter of 1999. The Conservation Fund again represented the State of North Carolina in an effort to bid for the property through a private sale process. Sterling rebuffed all  public pleas to work out an agreement with the State, and insisted on a private, secretive bidding process.   By July, Sterling announced that the property was awarded to developer Jim Anthony of the Cliffs Communities for $6.35 million. The Conservation Fund announced it had bid $5.5 million.

Despite numerous appeals from the public, Governor’s Jim Hunt and George Bush, Sterling leaders did not allow the State to match the winning bid. Numerous questions and allegations were raised in the local press and in the local community suggesting collusion between the developer and the shell company created by Sterling’s Houston-based investors months before the property was put on the market. These allegations are still unproven – indeed, the private land sale produced no public records whatsoever to substantiate the unusual bidding process.

Just after the sale, the developer initially stated in the Hendersonville Times News that he had no plans to develop the property, but planned to keep it as a private retreat. In fact, Sterling’s land deed filed at the Transylvania Courthouse flatly stated that the property could not be used for residential purposes. Over the ensuing months, however, it became apparent that Anthony was planning a massive upscale gated residential development in the center of the State Forest, using the waterfalls as the central attraction. Only later did the public learn that the complex legal agreement between Sterling and Anthony was unenforceable, leaving Anthony free to backtrack on his promises.

In retrospect, it appears that the vague land use restrictions served to suppress the appraised value, and consequently the Conservation Fund’s bid for the property (on behalf of the State).

During the fall of 1999, then Sierra Club president Chuck McGrady and local attorney Sam Neill met with Cliffs Communities officials to see if there was any way to secure protection and public access for High Falls and Triple Falls.  Though more assurances were received from the developer, the coming weeks proved these assurances false.  The developer filed plans with Transylvania County to build a massive real estate development on the property, and quickly began construction of the High Falls bridge and a large road system.

Neill and McGrady began an effort to raise awareness in Raleigh of the impending real estate development and its impact on the waterfalls and the Forest.  The realistic objective of this was to pressure the developer into making real concessions concerning protection of the natural resources and public access to the waterfalls.  What sprung from this effort, the condemnation of the entire waterfalls tract, was almost more than either man had hoped for.

In the winter of 2000, Attorney General Mike Easley, public suggested that the waterfalls in the center of the Forest be protected from development with guaranteed public access. He threatened that, if necessary, the State should use its power of eminent domain to acquire the waterfalls. On April 4th, Governor Hunt and the Council of State surprised many by declaring that the entire 2200 acre tract should be condemned if suitable protections and public access could not be negotiated with Anthony.

Friends of the Falls, a grassroot group of Forest users and waterfall lovers, formed several days later and rallied a large wave of public support to protect the property from development. Many thousands of letters, faxes, phone calls, and emails were sent to Governor Hunt and the Council of State urging bold action to protect the crucial “Heart of the Forest”, easily outnumbering opposing contacts.

Property Rights advocates, including virtually all local Republican leaders, objected loudly to the Governor’s proposals.  After six months of negotiations, the State’s attorneys were still unable to obtain enforceable public access to the waterfalls. At the governor’s request, the board of directors of the Clean Water Management Trust Fundauthorized funding for State acquisition of the property.

In late October, Anthony breached the negotiations by ending a voluntary building moratorium and subdividing the property – thereby daring the governor to act or back down just before the election. To the surprise of many, on October 23, 2000 Governor Hunt and the Council of State unanimously voted to invoke eminent domain on the tract. Approximately $12.5 million was paid to the developer for the initial payment (another $12 million was paid in 2003 when both parties settled before trial).

After three weeks of intense volunteer trail work, the waterfall tract opened to the public on December 17, 2000. Triple Falls thundered violently on the clear icy day as hundreds of joyful waterfall lovers made the brief journey up from Staton Road – many for the first time. The entire 2200 acres has since been integrated into the Forest, and has become one of the region’s major tourist and recreational attractions.