[www.knoxnews.com]

John

Wow! This is a lot of newly protected land. Are there any whitewater rivers in this other than the headwaters of the Emory? This can only be good news for long term water quality in that watershed. I wonder if there are any hiking.mt. biking trails besides logging roads as well?
barryg

Definatly good news regardless of access. I'll check into biking on the WMA's. Royal Blue WMA is the site of black bear and elk reintroduction in recent years.

There has been a lot of great protection happening in TN lately, this is one of the biggest. A couple of weeks ago 2,000 acres were acquired near Scott's Gulf last month. The Middle TN Boy Scouts recently 1,500 acres that also neighbor's Scott's Gulf and I beleive the National Boy Scouts organization bought another 1,600 acres last spring.

On the downside, developers are also staking their claims (www.savagebluffs.com). I was at Fall Creek Falls over the summer after a heavy rain and Cane Creek was running as muddy as it gets due to development runoff. My guess is second home development is causing Clear Fork and the New River to run muddy too.

John

Here's a link to the TN Wildlife Resources Agency's pdf on WMA use guidelines: [tennessee.gov]

Royal Blue is open for public use and biking is limited to road marked roads "open to vehicular traffic" only, same for Sudnquist WMA. Catoosa, by the way, is much more restrictive. Personally I wouldn't set foot in those places during big game seasons.

John