French Broad River Paddling Trail - FYI

Greetings,

As part of promoting the French Broad River as a place to "live, work, and play", RiverLink is working to create a camping and paddling trail along the French Broad River. We are currently focusing on the northern stretch of the river through Buncombe and Madison counties and have identified several areas along the river on private properties and in Pisgah National Forest land that would be well suited for camping.

I'd like to invite you to be a partner in this effort and attend an informational and planning meeting scheduled for 3:00pm on February 17th 2009 at the RiverLink offices located at 170 Lyman St.,Asheville. Our vision is to make it feasible for people to launch a boat in Rosman, NC and paddle the 219 miles of river to Knoxville, TN, camping along the way, and having easy access points to get in and out
of the river. We would be grateful for any expertise or involvement you might be able to contribute.

Currently there are very few camping locations and river access is often quite challenging. As a result, we hope to change this reality by working with local landowners, municipalities, the US Forest Service and others to set aside or allow access to a small portion of their river front property to allow for camping or river access sites.

Points of discussion for the upcoming meeting include use of private and public land along the French Broad in Madison and Buncombe Counties, land easements and associated tax incentives, insurance and liability issues, land maintenance, and discussion of an upcoming Pigeon River Grant to help fund this project. In addition, I have invited representatives from the Forest Service, Buncombe county parks, greenways and recreation, Asheville chamber of commerce, and local rafting and paddling outfitters and advocates. Please feel free to pass this invitation on to others that would be interested.

Thanks and I look forward to working with you on this.

Palmyra Romeo
French Broad Assistant Riverkeeper
RiverLink, Inc.