Asheville, North Carolina
2000 Southeastern Region Teachers' Tour
14 - 17 June, 2000

Teachers' Tour Photo Album

Graduates of the 2000 SE Region Teachers' Tour

Asheville, NC Teachers'     Tour Homepage List of Hosts

Wednesday Orientation Balsam Mt. Inn - dinner

Thursday Bent Creek Biltmore Estate - lunch Ethan Allen Columbia Carolina Mt. Smokehouse - dinner

Friday T & S Hardwoods Jackson Paper Blue Ridge Pkwy - lunch Cradle of Forestry Taylor Ranch - dinner

Saturday Closing & Evaluation

Hotel & North Carolina Information  

Holiday Inn Express, Asheville, NC

Please visit here to learn more about the hotel and the Asheville area.

Visit Asheville, North Carolina on the web through their Chamber of Commerce.
Discover more about where to go and what to do in North Carolina at www.visitnc.com 

List of Hosts

Biltmore Estate
Columbia Carolina
Ethan Allen
Jackson Paper
North Carolina Forest Service
T & S Hardwood
U.S. Forest Service

Wednesday 14 June, 2000

Orientation
Our tour started with an overview of what to expect in the coming days.  We then introduced ourselves...

Biltmore Forest
On route to dinner we made a stop on the historic Biltmore Estate Forests.

Our motorcoach driver, Bill Brigman of Young Transportation, safely
delivered us to our many stops over the next couple days.

    
Making our way into the forest, we listened as Bill Alexander, Landscape Curator at the 8000 acre
Biltmore Estate, discussed the history of this forest.  The land had been farmed over when George W. Vanderbilt
bought the land in 1889.  He hired Gifford Pinchot, a forester who had studied in Europe and was later the first
Chief of the Forest Service, to restore the forest.  In 1895, German forester Dr. Carl A. Schenck came to North Carolina
to succeed Gifford Pinchot as manager of the vast forest properties, which at the time was 125,000 acres,
including what is now Pisgah National Forest.  He began the Biltmore Forestry School, which was the first
such school in the U.S.

         
 The current forester for the Biltmore forestlands is Brian Ritter, who was on hand to teach us about the
different tools used in the forests.  He demonstrated how the 'Biltmore Stick' (which was created by Dr. Schenck)
is used to determine a trees size, and some newer tools that serve the same purpose.  He also discussed the
Biltmore's use of Global Positioning System (GPS) to better map and manage the forests.

Balsam Mountain Inn
which opened in 1908, hosted our first evenings dinner.

Learn more about the Balsam Mountain Inn at their web site.

Following dinner, Bill Alexander gave a slide show on Biltmore history
and the silviculture practiced on the Biltmore forests today. 

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