Michelle Pugliese moved to Asheville on a blustery day in November 2007 and the next morning needed to see for herself the famed mountain known as the Roan, where the mighty Appalachian Trail travels through Mitchell County.
“I fell in love with the Roan the first time I saw it. I had no idea as I was driving up to Carvers Gap that I was driving by this property,” said Pugliese, land protection director for the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy.
The Asheville-based nonprofit land trust recently transferred 91 acres, known as the Roan Mountain Gateway, to the U.S. Forest Service, adding to public lands just south of the intensely popular Carvers Gap area on the North Carolina and Tennessee border.