National Trails Day and
Old Rag Summit Restoration
Sunday June 6, 2010 ORMS
The following pictures show PATC and NPS setting up their display tables at the Big Meadows Visitor Center for National Trails Day.
After helping with the PATC setup and making sure PATC had enough hike leaders and sweeps to man PATC's agenda of short hikes being offerred to park visitors. I went down to Old Rag so I could participate in SNP staff's presentation to ORMS on Old Rag Mountain.
OLD RAG RESOURCE PROTECTION
ORMS members received a presentation about SNP's on-going Old Rag summit area protection and restoration efforts.
Some Background
You can think of mountains as islands in the sky. Because of elevation change and unique soil conditions mountain tops form micro-habitats that may support rare species of flora and fauna. The island effect can be particularly profound when the summit includes a rock outcrop since the rock outcrop often has very unique soil conditions. In some instances a rock outcrop may harbor an extremely rare species which has evolved and exists only on the rock outcrop. The National Park Service creates Rock Outcrop Management Plans(ROMP) for National Parks that have rock outcrops.
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A two page factheet about the SNP's ROMP can be found at:
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After many years of study, planning and public outreach the latest draft of the SNP ROMP (large fact based document) can be found at:
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http://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?parkID=274&projectId=19298&documentID=25100
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Rock outcrops are often also favorite hiking destinations.
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Rock outcrops are often also favorite hiking destinations.
ORMS was formed with a purpose of providing outreach, education and interpretation about Old Rag's rocks, plants and animals with the hope these efforts would limit human visitor impact on Old Rag.
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The following pictures show ORMS members engaged with SNP staff members learning about on-going protection and restoration efforts on Old Rag Mountain.
Bob, I was up in the Matthews Arm and Beahms Gap area for trail day. They were even doing a chicken bbq at the Elkwallow wayside...Best, Jim
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