Pisgah River Rangers

01/06/2026

📢Volunteer Opportunity📢

Help us protect hemlocks in North Carolina's Stone Mountain State Park near Roaring Gap, NC!

After weather postponed our December hemlock treatment plans in Stone Mountain State Park, we're excited to reschedule our volunteer workday to Saturday, February 7th!

Volunteers will be chemically treating hemlocks with insecticide to protect against the invasive insect, hemlock woolly adelgid. Every volunteer will be paired with a trained HRI team member who will provide instruction and guidance - no experience necessary!

For more details and registration information, visit our website at the link in our bio.

01/04/2026

Do you want to spend your summer outdoors making a difference in Pisgah National Forest? Apply now to join our team as a Pisgah River Ranger intern! If you are a current college student or recent graduate interested in environmental or outdoor education, natural resources management, or related fields, this could be a great fit for you. For full job description, please navigate to https://pisgahconservancy.org/job-openings/ or click the link in our bio 🤿🌲🐟

09/19/2025

🧡

09/17/2025

Don’t move the rocks!

Life is tough in a mountain stream.

Rushing waters after a storm, predators on the hunt, and millions of visitors looking to dip their toes in the water.

Recently, an eastern hellbender, the largest salamander in North America, was found crushed beneath rocks that had been moved and stacked by people in the park.

Building dams, channels, or rock stacks might seem harmless, but for the wildlife hiding below, it can be deadly. Beneath those stones are fragile ecosystems: nests, shelters, and homes.

In late summer to early fall, hellbenders lay between 100 to 300 eggs beneath rocks. When rocks are disturbed or removed, entire generations can be lost in an instant.

In the Smokies, everything is protected, even the creatures you can’t always see. Help keep them safe: leave no trace and leave the rocks where they are.

Learn more about the Smokies amphibians and the vital role they play in our ecosystems (link in comments).



Photo by Robert Hunter

09/09/2025

And that’s a wrap! Our River Ranger season was filled with community events, stewardship, creativity and teamwork. We were able to reach many folks through programming, events, and working in the field. Please join us in wishing our focused, talented, and kind River Ranger interns the best as they head back to their studies or the next step in their career. Thank you Maddy, Laura, Sadie and Summer for all your hard work this summer! Thank you also to our community and forest visitors for joining us for our events, guided hikes, snorkel programs or stopping by to see us at the visitor center. The Pisgah River Ranger Program is made possible by our incredible, supportive partners!

09/05/2025

Happy Floral Friday! Check out this beautiful Southern Lobelia blooming now in the Pisgah Forest. Lobelia is somewhat a river specialist, it grows well in wet locations, like river banks, marsh edges, spray cliffs and more. Because of this, they are often used to control erosion and for stream restoration. Each stalk of this plant can hold 10-40 flowers! When they die back for winter, their stems can provide habitat for wintering insects.

08/29/2025

Happy Floral Friday! Fall is fast approaching but we still have several plants still blooming here in Pisgah. Keep an eye out for these beauties as you enjoy the trails in this cooler weather 💐

First photo: Yellow Fringed Orchid

Second photo: Crane Fly Orchid

Third photo: Rattlesnake Plantain Orchid

08/26/2025

Transformation Tuesday on the Line Container front! This summer, the River Rangers were able to recover a line container that was buried during Hurricane Helene flooding. We hauled it out, cleaned it, and now have a shiny new line container available to use at Shut In Recreation Area. Line containers are a great way to keep fishing line waste out of our waterways! Thank you to Pisgah Chapter of Trout Unlimited for sponsoring line containers here in the forest 🎣

08/20/2025

It’s Wildlife Wednesday! The Northern Hogsucker is one of the many fish we find on our snorkel programs here in the Pisgah National Forest. Like its name hints, this fish is part of the sucker group of freshwater fish, meaning they use their specialized mouth to scrape their food off rocks and suck up those crumbs like a vacuum. Northern Hogsuckers like to eat aquatic insects, crustaceans, algae, and detritus (scraps of decaying vegetation or animals). Often, other river fish will hang around Hogsuckers, waiting to grab some of the scraps they stir up while they forage. Hogsuckers are happy in clear and fast-flowing water, so they can be susceptible to man made disturbances such as dams, sedimentation, and pollution.

08/18/2025

Last month we had the pleasure of hosting a community screening of Freshwaters Illustrated’s film Hidden River of Southern Appalachia. We were so excited to share this amazing film with over 85 attendees! A huge thank you to Guidon Brewing in Hendersonville for hosting the event and thank you to our partners The Pisgah Conservancy, Pisgah Trout Unlimited, and Headwaters Outfitters for joining us!

Hidden Rivers showcases the unexpected and unparalleled biodiversity of Appalachian Rivers. Here in the Pisgah National Forest, our public lands help ensure our waterways’ health through erosion control and filtration. Thank you to Freshwaters Illustrated, a non profit with a mission to raise public awareness about the life, study, and conservation of freshwater ecosystems through immersive visual media and storytelling.

08/11/2025

We had a great time showing our friends from Naventure at Pisgah National Forest the wonders of Pisgah’s Andy Cove hiking trail!

08/07/2025

Resist the urge to stack that rock!

While cairns might look cool, rocks in and around rivers are important habitats for salamanders, hellbenders, macroinvertebrates, fish and more! Moving rocks can change the flow of a stream, which may change what can survive there. Let’s keep rivers wild and wonderful while leaving the rocks (and the wildlife) just as you found them.

Photo by Neeth C.V