The Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust has a new stewardship coordinator who is a native of the plateau and has immersed himself in the environment of Cashiers and Highlands after getting a taste of conservation work at Lonesome Valley.
Andrew Renfro is a Summit Charter School alum and Highlands High School graduate who went on to Appalachian State University to get degrees in risk management insurance and marketing. Renfro attended Summit before the charter school had a high school up through eighth grade.
“Growing up on the plateau, this is such an incredible place,” Renfro said. “I didn’t know it until I went away to college, but it is an incredibly unique experience being raised in this community with these natural places out and around. I grew up hiking and learned how to fish at a very young age and then later fly fishing and, as a teenager, got into hunting a little bit more.”
He said he thought it would be a logical choice to get a business degree in college, but when he was hired by Brian Peterkin at Lonesome Valley as the community’s resident services and activities coordinator, his perspective shifted from working in business to the outdoors. His responsibilities there included everything from member programming to clubhouse management, which also entailed managing most of the recreational amenities there.
“Lonesome Valley is similar to a country club, but instead of a golf course, they’ve got 12 miles of private hiking trails, fly fishing ponds, stream restoration, a conservation easement with the Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust, the 26-acre meadow parcel,” Renfro said. “As well as, in total, probably about 200 acres of community greenspace. So, we did a lot of invasive removal, English Ivy, Japanese knotweed, multiflora rose, stuff like that. That was kind of really my first formal taste of the environmental stewardship world.”
Renfro also maintained the trail system and added about two and a half miles of trail to the community during his tenure at Lonesome Valley.
Part of his job now as the HCLT’s stewardship coordinator is to monitor all the trust’s properties, including their conservation easements, at least once annually. That means boundary checking and making sure that aren’t any encroachments from some of the neighbors.
Renfro said he one of his goals is to create public trail systems on some of the other properties the HCLT owns outright, including the Edward Baker Preserve off Laurel Knob Road in Cashiers, Brushy Face in Highlands, and Satulah Mountain.
He said he was part of the inaugural 2019 Leadership Cashiers class. During that, HCLT executive director Dr. Gary Wein presented to the class about sense of place, highlighting and talking about how special and unique the plateau is.
“That stuck with me ever since,” Renfro said. “In my final years at Lonesome Valley, I also became a real estate agent with the company and so I was working for the development in addition to being the resident services and activities director.”
Renfro inherited several exciting projects that are already in the works, such as the Edward Baker Preserve and a new trail section that the land trust is hoping to open to the public at a later date.
Most of the HCLT’s volunteer base is in Highlands, and he said the land trust has been trying to come up with ways to bolster the base in Cashiers to do more projects there quicker.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done on that property, there’s some habitat enhancement that we want to do, it’s a really beautiful property that kind of meanders through that 60-acre tract,” Renfro said. “One of the things that I think we are hoping to do is making at least the short loop and the front of the trail, somewhat, maybe not full-blown ADA accessible, but rugged stroller accessible, and things like that pretty wide and pretty flat trail as it is.”
After resigning from Lonesome Valley, he and his partner Abby Powell traveled the country in their van with their two dogs through some of the nation’s national parks. He also became involved with the Highlands Trail Trimmers ran by Jim Chance, a group that works with the Greenway and maintains the Chinquapin Trail, Glen Falls, Chattooga River Trails, and other things.
“Through that connection, I was able to take a sustainable trail building course that was hosted by the Friends of Panthertown Valley,” Renfro said. “That formalized a lot of the things that I had been working on and doing at Lonesome Valley. I also attended a Hemlock Restoration Initative event where we went to the Tolbert House and treated a lot of the hemlocks along 107 South. I also, during that time, received my chainsaw certification. It really did pique a lot more of my interest and I think steer me even further to pursue something in conservation or environmental stewardship and something I really will hopefully be able to give back to the community.”
His goal as stewardship coordinator is to create even more public trail access points for the tourism community, including getting involved with a group that is trying to connect Highlands to Cashiers via a trail system that incorporates Whiteside Mountain.
“There’s an incredible number of people that are moving up to our area, you know from other surrounding areas, and they have a long history in this region,” Renfro said. “So, I really hope that we’ll be able to find a way to connect with those folks and get them involved and help be a part of protecting Cashiers and teaching them why this place is so special.”
For more information about the HCLT and how you can join or donate to the organization, visit hicashlt.org.
- By Michael O'Hearn/Crossroads Chronicle