Moss Rock Preserve: Protecting a treasure

As the popularity of hiking, rock climbing and bouldering has grown, enthusiasts are faced with a challenge — keeping people who love the sport and the outdoors from destroying the natural environment they love so much.

Heavy foot traffic at the boulder fields at the 350-acre Moss Rock Preserve nature park, next to The Preserve subdivision, has led to increased erosion, said Colin Conner, the city ofHoover’s forester.

Soil around the boulder fields is washing away, and tree roots are becoming more exposed, Conner said.

To help combat the problem, a Colorado-based climbing group called the Access Fund has partnered with the Southeastern Climbers Coalition to help reinforce the trail network and protect the boulder field at the Moss Rock Preserve.

They obtained a grant of about $35,000 from the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham for improvement projects at the Hoover nature park, Palisades Park in Blount County, the Trussville sports complex and a sandstone cliff in Steele in St. Clair County.

About 60 to 70 percent of the work is taking place in the Moss Rock Preserve, said Ty Tyler, the stewardship director for the Access Fund.

Teams of workers from across the country and world spent about five weeks in the Hoover nature park in April and May for the second part of a three-year project that began in 2016.

The first year’s crews spent a lot of time removing graffiti from the Moss Rock boulder field, but they also began work to combat erosion and reinforce trails, Conner said. This year and next year, the focus is on the latter two jobs, just in different parts of the boulder field, he said.

Workers brought in soil and rock to reinforce eroding areas, created terraces on the hillside, built a stone staircase and redirected trails to create some separation between hikers androck climbers.

The climbers need space for staging areas and crash mats in case they fall, and the new pathways provide that and give hikers a safer place to walk as well, Conner said.

The Access Fund sent a two-person conservation team that works on projects in the eastern United States. Chris Wu, a 27-year-old from Ohio, and Kate Johnson, a 21-year-old from Maine, spent five weeks at the Moss Rock Preserve.

Each of them have a 10-month contract to work 40 hours a week for the Access Fund, starting in February and going into December, Wu said. Most of their projects this year are in Tennessee and Alabama, though they also have some jobs in Ohio and Kentucky, they said.

Their conservation team is sponsored primarily by Jeep but also by Clif (a protein bar company), REI Co-op (outdoor gear), Thermarest (outdoor sleeping gear), La Sportiva (footwear) and Yakima (car racks).

Johnson said she likes the hands-on work and the mental puzzles that come with fixing problems in natural environments. Wu said he likes the idea of doing something good for the climbing community and other people who like to spend time outdoors.

The Access Fund team had assistance from the American Conservation Experience, an Arizona-based nonprofit that trains people from the U.S. and abroad how to do environmental restoration projects on public lands. It’s funded through AmeriCorps and does a lot of work for the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service, said Corey Harrison, the leader of the crew that came to Hoover.

The ACE team had seven people from states such as Florida, Louisiana, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. One team member, Dylan Empson, was from Clanton. The team originally was slated to stay three weeks in Hoover, but three team members got pulled to work on a job in North Carolina the last week and were replaced by a seven-person international crew from countries that included Denmark, England, Germany and South Korea, Conner said.

Harrison, who is from Pennsylvania, said he can’t imagine doing any other type of work. “My office is pretty fantastic,” he said, gesturing to the Moss Rock Preserve around him.

“I’m not sure many people know about the Moss Rock Preserve,” Harrison said. “This community has a heck of a resource here. It’s definitely worth taking care of.”

Conner said he couldn’t be happier with the work done by this year’s crews. They had a very strong work ethic and got more done this year than he anticipated, he said. “Having all those hands really made the difference,” he said.

The city of Hoover paid about $4,200 for 38 tons of stone from a rock wholesaler in Oneonta to help with the project and relocated about two more tons of rock from within the Moss Rock Preserve, Conner said. The city also paid about $6,270 for hotel rooms for the two Access Fund workers, he said.

The ACE teams camped out near the Boy Scout Troop 321 scouting hut in Bluff Park.

Tyler said, in addition to the grant money from the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, the Access Fund is pitching in about $5,000 a year for the Birmingham area projects. The Southeastern Climbers Coalition also is contributing, but it’s a smaller organization with a more limited budget, he said.

They plan to come back to the Moss Rock Preserve this fall to sponsor two volunteer days, during which they ask people from the Birmingham area to join them for more work in the nature park, Tyler said.

Conner said he fully expects the teams to complete all the scheduled restoration work next year.

For more information about the Access Fund or American Conservation Experience, visit their websites at accessfund.org orusaconservation.org.