by Mark Kolinski, Alabama Program Manager

Descending into one of the canyons of the Bankhead National Forest is like passing through a portal into another world. Hemmed in by massive sandstone bluffs, a canopy of towering hemlocks filters the sunlight through blue-green foliage, creating a peaceful ambiance beyond the simply visual.

Aged and imposing sentinels of old-growth yellow-poplar, beech, and white oak, rooted among the boulders on the canyon floor, stretch high above the sandstone rims in their search for light. Along the bluffs, dense thickets of mountain laurel wall out intruders.

Water music fills the air, as a crystal clear stream vaults from a smooth sandstone chute over a seventy-foot high waterfall and dances happily through roots and rocks. A dozen different kinds of ferns fill this shadowed world with myriad textures and hues of green. The jungle-like cry of a pileated woodpecker pierces the cool, moist and oxygen-rich air.

This magical world is tucked away throughout the Bankhead, leading many to call this extension of the Cumberland Plateau the undiscovered jewel of Alabama’s National Forests. While many hunters, hikers, and local residents may be familiar with these canyons, the casual visitor to the Bankhead rarely experiences these unique ecosystems. The only marked and maintained trails leading into the canyons are in the 25,000 acre Sipsey Wilderness, a small part of the 185,000 acres of the Bankhead National Forest in northwest Alabama.

Protecting the Bankhead's Canyons

The U.S. Forest Service has recognized the sandstone canyons of the Bankhead as deserving of special protection. The 2004 Revised Land and Resource Management Plan included a special management prescription, the canyon corridor prescription, to protect these rare communities with their unique collection of flora and fauna. However, only about 100 miles of streams were originally allocated in the Management Plan. The Forest Service's “ID team” identified the canyons by using topographical maps, aerial photographs and computer modeling, but they never got out into the field to inspect these canyons firsthand.

According to the prescription, “canyon corridors will be added to the 4.L prescription and mapped as found. Site-specific field investigation will determine the extent of the canyon corridor to ensure that the canyon character and function are protected.”  Canyons that are present within certain recreational prescriptions, such as the Sipsey Wilderness and the Sipsey Wild and Scenic River Corridor, will not be mapped, since these prescriptions already protect these areas and would override the canyon prescription.

The standards for protection afforded by the canyon corridor prescription are very similar to these recreational prescriptions, where the desired future condition is late-successional, climax forest, unsuitable for timber production. Only low impact recreational activities are allowed, such as hiking, backpacking, dispersed camping, hunting and fishing. Road density is low, wildlife openings are not allowed, and the “scenic integrity objective is high,” which is to say the area will be managed to maintain a naturally appearing landscape character.

Unfortunately, budget and manpower constraints have inhibited the Forest Service in performing the field investigation necessary to identify new canyons worthy of protection. It is commonly accepted that the only way to accurately and comprehensively inventory the canyon corridors is through an exhaustive on-the-ground survey. This is where Wild South’s Canyon Preservation Project comes in, thanks to funding from the National Forest Foundation and Wild South donors. Bankhead District Ranger Glen Gaines welcomed Wild South’s willingness to help inventory and map the canyons.