St. Patrick’s Day is coming up and HRI is celebrating by hosting a Green River Green Love & Good Luck hike on Friday, March 13th in the Green River Game Land!

Over the last three years, HRI has treated over 8,000 lucky hemlock trees in the 14,331-acre game land, managed by the NC Wildlife Resource Commission. The approximately 6-mile, mostly downhill hike will take us past several hemlock trees treated in early 2017 and 2018 by HRI and partners, as well as some untreated trees for comparison. As we descend, we’ll have views of the Narrows, a section of the river known for its difficult rapids, where PHHAT* volunteers, who are all extremely skilled whitewater kayakers, have helped us to treat large and otherwise inaccessible trees by boat. For the last half of the hike, we’ll be walking along the lovely lower section of the Green River.  As we hike, we will observe and discuss the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA), its impacts and control strategies. Along the way we’ll use a few trailside hemlocks to teach you how to apply CoreTect tablets, a simple HWA treatment method that requires minimal equipment and exposure to chemicals.

This will be a great opportunity for folks who love to hike and want to learn and help a hemlock or two, but don’t want to stray too far off the trail or work too hard. We’re also likely to encounter various early spring wildflowers, budding trees and songbirds. Plus, all who join us will receive an extra dose of good luck this season!

The hike will be 6 miles long starting at the Pulliam Creek trailhead and continuing along the Green River Cove trail. It will be a one-way hike with a shuttle to bring hikers back to the starting point. The hike will be mostly, but not entirely down hill with one creek crossing. Online it is rated as moderately difficult. We will meet at 10am and anticipate being done by 4pm.

Please RSVP by March 9th by emailing Ben Chase at volunteer@savehemlocksnc.org or call (828) 252-4783.

*PHHAT = “Paddlers for Hemlock Health Action Taskforce” Read more about them at paddlersforhemlocks.com.

February 27, 2020 Blog, Events