Expanding Tobacco Barn Hollow
377 acres in Pike County
The Tobacco Barn Hollow Preserve is located deep in the heart of the Appalachian hill country that spans the shared border between Ross and Pike Counties and has been part of the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System since 2007. The preserve is named after a deep ravine, Tobacco Barn Hollow, or “Backer Barn Hollow” as we call it locally, which lies in a remote, roadless heartland of Pike State Forest. The ravine is nestled between two ridges – Mitchell Ridge and Robinette Ridge – and boasts dramatic 500-foot elevation changes between ridgetops and valley floors. The larger region protects critical habitat for threatened and endangered wildlife, including the charismatic timber rattlesnake.
The Arc is focused on purchasing private forest inholdings and adjacent properties to further expand this large block of conserved land, and will soon be announcing a campaign to expand the preserve by 377 acres. Our land stewardship team is also developing public hiking trails at the Sugarbush Hill and Canebrake Ridge trailheads, and the new trails are scheduled to open in spring, 2025. Information about our campaign to save these critically important privately held inholdings within Pike State Forest will be coming soon. Please check back for updates!
Preserving a wilderness of wildlife. Pike State Forest contains 12,531 acres in western Pike County and eastern Highland County, and is composed of several large but discontinuous tracts. One of the larger unbroken tracts of Pike State Forest is in its northeastern sector, the greatest feature of which is a ravine known as Tobacco Barn Hollow. This is an exceptionally wild and remote part of the forest that has long been recognized as the last refuge of timber rattlesnakes in Pike County. The northeastern sector also happens to be a quadrant that does not permit ATV traffic, a regulation that ensures a much lighter human impact on the land which surely brings benefits to the surviving rattlesnake populations.
Here, in this same region, the Arc of Appalachia has been acquiring adjacent lands and State Forest inholdings as part of the Arc’s 463-acre Tobacco Barn Hollow Preserve. In this region, both the State Forest and the smaller Tobacco Barn Hollow Preserve work side by side to protect a large and nearly unbroken block of eastern deciduous forest that provides critical habitat for many threatened and at-risk species that require large, unfragmented forests for breeding success, such as hooded warblers, worm-eating warblers, ovenbirds, and four-toed salamanders.
Fragmentation of forests and habitat destruction drives biodiversity decline in this region, just as it does all over the globe. It is well documented by field research that the larger the size of a contiguous block of forest, the better a forest community can hold onto its complex of plants and animals. The Arc’s Tobacco Barn Hollow Preserve was founded with the purpose of acquiring State Forest inholdings and lands adjacent to the State Forest to better protect the flora and fauna of its forest communities.
The preserve has been formed through six acquisitions to date. The Arc is currently working to expand the preserve with the acquisition of an additional 377 acres. Please check back soon for more information about this exciting and ambitious land campaign!
Visitor Service Development. Trails are in Tobacco Barn Hollow Preserve’s future. In addition to the trails currently under development at the Canebrake Ridge trailhead, shown on the map above. We also have plans to work collaboratively with the Buckeye Trail to create a hiking trail on Sugarbush Hill that will be open to the general public. The trail will invite hikers following the Buckeye Trail’s designated route down Morgan Fork Road, to take a pause from walking the road to enjoy a short walk in a beautiful woods. Watch for upcoming announcements on Volunteer Workdays to install the trail. We’d love to have your helping hands.