Please, Don’t let ’em do it!   Leave it alone!!!

Too late… it’s already started, but maybe you can get there before it’s overrun.

I’m talking about Flat Lick Falls in Jackson County.   It is a WONDERFUL falls and there are rock formations that are just unbelievable.   It’s a nature lovers and photographers paradise, but…

Good meaning people are going to, no, are destroying it by adding a pavilion, shelters, picnic sites, overlooks, bridges over the creek, campgrounds and so help me.. RV Hookups.   There goes nature, there goes the beauty and serenity and sacredness of the place.  It will now be littered with beer cans, spray painted, trampled, mutilated and desecrated.  It has begun.

Why do we have to take places wonderful and destroy their beauty?  They did the same thing at Raven Run Nature Preserve in Lexington.   “Stay on the trail,” “trail closed,” “trails close at 4:30,” “bird blind discontinued!”  In an understandable and laudable effort to bring nature to more people, we are destroying it for those who do appreciate, understand, thrive on, and find peace and sanctuary in places wild and beautiful.  We are the few, but those that care.  But more importantly, we are destroying… the place.

There is a balance to be had.  I will yield Jacobson Park and Natural Bridge and other high profile open places to the white tennis shoe crowd.  I laud the effort to try… try to teach the love of the natural world to everyone.

Just leave the wild streams and waterfalls for those of us with weather beaten, waterproof, leather boots and overloaded backpacks.  Leave it to us who care… who leave only footprints, who understand the sanctity of the wild places, who can stand in awe for hours rather than looking for a place to dump empty beer cans.

I rant far less than I feel.

Please, Don’t let ’em do it!   Leave it alone!!!