The Man on the Mountain: How Mac Morrow Helped Shape Bracken Preserve
Tomorrow, we're cutting the ribbon on two brand-new miles of trails at Bracken Preserve. It's a big moment for Brevard as well as the man who's been supporting this mountain throughout his life.
His name is Mac Morrow, and without him, there's a good chance Bracken Preserve wouldn't be what it is today.
Back in 1972, Mac’s aunt, Becky Macfie, rallied a group of Brevard citizens to oppose the City selling off land known as Bracken Preserve. Even though his aunt won that round the pressure didn't stop, and in 1987 and 2001 there were other attempts to purchase and develop the property. Each of these close calls made it very clear that this land needed permanent protection. As Mac put it, "It became clear to me and to others that the property needed to be placed in a conservation easement."
During his first term on City Council in the late '80s and early '90s, Mac admits the vision wasn't fully formed yet. The idea of Bracken as a connector into Pisgah National Forest didn't click for him until later, after he'd taken up mountain biking,found himself driving to White Pine Stables or the Fish Hatchery just to reach a trailhead. Bracken, sitting right at Brevard's back door, was the missing link.
Then there was the hike that changed everything! Every good origin story has a turning point and for Bracken Preserve, it happened on a winter day in 2003. Mac took his friend Jimmy Harris up to the top of Bracken to look down over Brevard. As they stood there, snow started to fall. "We immediately knew it was game on," Mac says. "Full speed ahead on what this area could become."
The land itself had a long history worth protecting, with the City originally purchasing nearly 400 acres back in 1915 to safeguard the headwaters of Brushy Creek and Bracken's Creek, which supplied Brevard's drinking water for decades. By February 2004, with that water-supply chapter long behind them, Brevard City Council made the call that would define the mountain's future by preserving Bracken from development, opening it up for low-impact recreation, and building it out as a downtown connector to the Pisgah National Forest.
From there, it took a village. Mac teamed up with Matt Christian, who at the time was the Wildlife Educator at the Pisgah Center, and the two of them spent months walking the terrain, scouting trail routes, and cataloging natural features.
Behind the scenes, City Manager Rick Howell and Denny Martin of Martin-McGill, Inc. got an appraisal completed, which went hand-in-hand with an application to the Clean Water Management Trust Fund. Mac personally walked Tom Massie, the Fund's Western North Carolina field rep, out to a wetland cove on the Bracken watershed. Tom's reaction said it all, "Wow, this is exciting and exactly what we want to save. You mean there is yet a larger stream?"
Karen Cragnolin, then Executive Director of RiverLink (and a CWMTF trustee herself), recognized the significance immediately, too. Between the four City Managers, three City Clerks, two City Planners, one Mayor, and more citizens than could ever be named in one story, Mac saw a community coming together for something truly special.
Their work paid off. Bracken Preserve officially opened in 2012!
Fast forward to today, and the project Mac helped rescue from three near-misses is about to grow by two more miles of trail. We asked him how it feels to see how far things have come.
"Excited… appreciative… proud to be a part of something that both honors and protects our sense of place," he said. "What do we as a community has value…it truly says something about our commitment to our outdoor lifestyle."
It's personal for him in a way that goes back to his own childhood. Mac grew up in Dunn's Rock, looking out at the Pisgah Ledge with Pilot and Devil's Courthouse on one side, Cedar Rock in the middle, Fryingpan Knob and Pisgah on the other. His mother was a botanist, his father a hunter, fisherman, hiker, and boatsman, and he was surrounded by aunts, uncles, and cousins who were all outdoor people, too.
"I could not help but learn to appreciate how fortunate we are to grow up in these treasured woods and river valleys," he said. "I became an explorer as soon as my parents would let me… and it has continued throughout the rest of my life."
He still feels it every time he's in town. "I love looking at that mountain range every time I drive down Main Street, on Neely Road, or Barkley Road. It complements Cagle Mountain so well. It illustrates we are indeed a mountain town."
In a town recently ranked among the best mountain bike towns in the country, the City of Brevard named a trail after Mac. His reaction? "I am maybe a bit embarrassed but honored for sure!"
When asked what he hopes people think about when they're out hiking or riding the Mac Morrow Trail years from now, his answer circled back to where it all started with a childhood spent exploring, and a hope that this land keeps doing the same for the next generation.
More than fifty years after his aunt first stood up to protect this mountain, Mac Morrow's legacy is written into the trails of Bracken Preserve. Tomorrow, we get to add two more miles to that story.
Come celebrate with us at the ribbon-cutting for the new trails at Bracken Preserve and take a moment to appreciate the decades of persistence it took to get here. We hope you will also consider donating to the Pisgah Area SORBA July Donation Drive to support municipal trail projects including Bracken Preserve.
