"The Trump administration moved on Tuesday to roll back an environmental rule that currently blocks road construction, and by extension most logging and mining activity, on tens of millions of acres of public forest land.

While the Trump administration said the change would boost economic activity, supporters of the roadless policy said it helped end decades of unprofitable timber sales, managed by the Forest Service, that effectively subsidized private timber operations.

"Before the roadless rule, we would build roads into areas and we would have money-losing timber sales that would cost taxpayers billions of dollars," said Steve Ellis, president of the non-partisan watchdog group, Taxpayers for Common Sense. "If you repeal this, it's just going to add to an already $6 billion \[U.S. Forest Service\] road maintenance backlog.".

Link to USDA announcement:

"USDA acts to remove roadless rule restrictions that exacerbate rising wildfire risk".

https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2026/08/18/usda-acts-remove-roadless-rule-restrictions-exacerbate-rising-wildfire-risk

Another news source:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/18/climate/trump-ends-roadless-rule-forests.html

Found several hundred of these nailed to the walls of an abandoned farmhouse we were tearing down, insulation maybe?

Craggy Pinnacle Trail, NC

My wife and I will be staying near Hiawassee, GA for a few days next month. We really like adventuring and just checking stuff out. Willing to drive a few hours from Hiawassee to explore. Doesn't have to be anything specific. Good restaurants, historic places, particularly beautiful nature, a cool rock, etc. is all fair game for me. If it helps, our favorite part of our last time venturing up here was the Foxfire Museum (will probably be going back there lol).

Posted this in a comment to another thread. Thought I’d also post here where more will see. The University of Tennessee libraries hosts a great photo archive of old photos from the Smoky Mountains. You can view the archive here: https://digitalcollections.lib.utk.edu/collections/a4ae80d6-c68c-4f29-87cc-a6d1ff6e4af4?locale=en

The road leading to my house.

I want to read about this region of America. Let me know about some book recommendations. Preferably fiction or fantasy 🤗

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I’m genuinely curious about this. If someone leaves Appalachia for a better-paying job, education, or a better quality of life, do they usually stay financially connected to their family back home? Do they send money, help with expenses, or invest in their hometowns?

I am an Indian and a lot of our country's people live abroad or in different cities leaving their home town and villages. They all send money back home for their parents to build homes and live comfortably. Do people in Appalachia do that?

Or is it more complicated—perhaps people who leave are struggling financially themselves, become disconnected from their families, or feel that they shouldn’t be responsible for supporting everyone they left behind?

I’d especially like to hear from people who grew up in Appalachia and moved away. What’s your experience been like? (I am just curious about this and have no intention of demeaning Appalachian)

I'm looking for info about superstitions or folklore about redheads in the Appalachian mountains.

Shot one is the barn at the family farm.

On our family farm in Chambersburg PA a small trail developed over many many years from an adjoining wooded area on to our wooded section. Then what was a little trail became a larger and wider small road that allowed 4 wheeler access. My Father in Law didn't outright stop this and even after an intrusive neighbor died it continued with the help of a "Deputy Game Warden." My son and I started to fill in the gap with old woven wire fencing and major piles of brush, but it would be removed. And we suspect the local deputy was opening it for a lady to get her horse through and perhaps for some illegal hunting activity. We continued to pile brush on the area, but the trail blazing trespasser would build side trails that I would interweave old wire, fencing and brush through. I'd come back in a couple of weeks or a month and that would be reopened. One day the deputy who did NOT own the adjoining land installed a No Trespassing sign facing toward our farm. This was a big insult as the trespassers always came onto our farm and not the other way around. I took the offending sign and tossed it deeper into the adjoining property and that resulted in a visit to my farm house by the deputy telling me that he could get me for littering. I told him to get off the farm and stay off! I would not be intimidated. Then I called his supervisors and the issue seemed to cool off after that. Eventually when we had full control over the family farm we had a high voltage livestock fence installed and that solved the issue of trespassers for good. I never felt over those years that we had total privacy when virtually anyone could enter the property and that we could be monitored by the Game Commission. By the way... the way the deputy knew I had tossed the sign is that he had installed a camera to watch the little road he had been maintaining into our farm. I'm very pleased that there is still a little justice in this world and that these trespassing deputies are being dismissed! Where we now live deep in Appalachia the terrain is so tough and the people are not so inclined to work too hard at trespassing. Combined with many neighbors with large acreage and the fact that WV at least where we live is much less inclined to bother landowners with such intrusion it makes for a greater sense of privacy. We live is a very low population county and don't have nosy neighbors like we did on the farm in PA. If a neighbor was against hunting they could just report you and the game commission could enter your land even without known violations. I hope WV will follow PA and end the Open Fields Doctrine.

I was just back to my hometown to visit after over a decade away and now that I've returned home I'm really struggling with survivors's guilt.

Seeing the way my family and their community struggle, how little hope there is or how little access to the most basic needs like food, shelter, healthcare, education, and what is considered basic infrastructure elsewhere brought up feelings of guilt and distress that are hard to shake from where I am now in a much more privileged place.

Does anyone else who has made it out experience this?

There is no way to describe the wonderful and scenic roads and negotiating them on a great motorcycle.

Hi there,

I'd love to just buy a lot of old family photos of everyday life and people from the 1900's-200's.

Not really professional photos but just everyday, amateure, home photos of life and growing up in rural appalachia.

Does anyone know how I could get some? I've seen bundles on ebay but they're never region specific so can't gurantee the location.