The Nantahala National Forest — over half a million acres, North Carolina's largest, and some of the densest black-bear country in the East.
All this green rolling country you've been driving through is the Nantahala National Forest — and it is enormous. Over half a million acres, the largest national forest in North Carolina, set aside back in nineteen twenty when folks finally realized the great logging companies would cut every last tree if somebody didn't stop them. Most of what you see is second-growth that came back after the saws, and it came back magnificently.
And it is full of bears. Western North Carolina holds one of the densest black-bear populations anywhere in the eastern United States — the number's roughly doubled in the last couple of decades — and a big chunk of this forest has been managed as a bear sanctuary since the nineteen-seventies. So keep your eyes on the roadside, especially at dawn and dusk: a black bear ambling across a clearing, or a sow with cubs up a tree. If you're lucky enough to see one, admire it from the car and give it all the room in the world.
This is deep, wild country — the kind of roadless, laurel-choked mountains where, not so long ago, a man with a still could disappear and never be found. Which, as Boone will tell you, is exactly what a lot of them did. Roll on.
Photo: Harrison Keely · CC BY 4.0
