HAYTER’S GAP, Va. – Old logging roads snake through the woods, winding to the old fire tower, which is silhouetted against clouds atop a mountain starting to turn green with spring foliage.

Below lie the rolling green pastures of Washington and Russell counties, set in a blue haze between layers of mountains where a narrow footpath lined by rhododendron leads to the Channels.

The unique sandstone formation is the centerpiece of what will be dedicated today as a new state forest on Clinch Mountain – the Channels State Forest.

It’s been a long time in coming.

"If the local government leaders hadn’t stood strong, and if the local people hadn’t expressed their strong desire to see that property not be developed, I don’t believe today we would have the creation of the new state forest," said Brad Kreps, director of the Nature Conservancy’s Clinch Valley Program. "The conservancy has played a role in this, but it’s been a community effort to protect this property."

The fate of this 4,836-acre parcel – one of the region’s largest – was up in the air for more than a decade.

When a developer planned a project for the steep slope of Clinch Mountain, the community came out in force to Washington County Board of Supervisors meetings to show their opposition.

Charles Kennedy, who lived atop the mountain on adjoining property, was offered a huge sum for the use of his road for the development, but he refused. When the developer sued for use of the right-of-way, Kennedy fought and won.

He formed the Poor Valley Coalition to protect the mountain. He, his neighbors and Supervisor Bobby Ingle were instrumental in defeating the developer’s plans.

In 2004, the Nature Conservancy paid nearly $3.6 million for the property to take it off the market so it could be preserved.

Piece by piece, money came through for the state to purchase the property – $1.2 million from the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation in 2005; $1.6 million from the general assembly in early 2007 and, last June, another $1 million from the foundation.

With the state’s purchase, the tract was renamed, and 720 acres of it – an area that contains the Channels – will be designated as a Virginia Natural Area Preserve.

"When we say conserve our natural resources, we don’t want this to look like Asheville, N.C.," said Assistant Regional Forester Bill Miller. "We don’t want it busted up into 5-acre lots with a house on it."

Regional Forester Ed Stoots said a management plan for the forest will likely be complete by year’s end. The Virginia Department of Forestry generally allows hunting with a permit but does not allow camping or motorized vehicles on state forest land.

He said the tract will be conserved as a "working forest" and will be an example of sustainable timber management, with wide stream buffers and limited disturbance of steep slopes, leaving less than half of the acreage to be "actively managed."

Now a young forest full of maples, poplars, magnolias and rhododendrons, it won’t generate much money for a while, Stoots said, but it does offer an opportunity to reintroduce diminished native species like shortleaf and pitch pine.

He said the forestry department will take a long-term approach to management.

"This has a long way to go before you’ll really see timber harvesting," Stoots said. "There’s some real productive sites up here that, with the right management, could be really productive after 60 or 70 years."

dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701