MOUNTAIN REST — A 45-minute hike down the Chattooga Ridge will take you through a dark woodland of stately trees and crystal-clear waterfalls that few people know about.

The place is Bee Cove, a slice of federal land that provides a hint of what Appalachian forests once looked like. Old-growth hemlocks, thick white pines and broad oaks spread across a mountainside that is recovering from logging operations generations ago.

This scenic spot is one of South Carolina’s wildest natural areas, a site so hilly and rugged that it attracts only the most dedicated hiker or hunter.

It’s a site that some people fear will suffer under a federal plan allowing new roads and tree-harvesting on remote national forest land. That, critics say, would be a shame for the nation and for Bee Cove, in Oconee County’s Sumter National Forest.

“Once you see this place, you’ll know that this is an important and very rare area that needs protection,” said environmentalist Buzz Williams, an outspoken critic of the plan to ease federal protections on millions of acres.

Federal officials insist the new plan won’t ruin the backcountry feel of Bee Cove, and it is not a given that logging would occur there.

Like nearly 59 million acres of national forest across the country, Bee Cove is known as a “roadless area,” land with relatively few pathways through the woods.

That limited number has long protected plants and animals throughout national forests, while allowing Eastern woodlands such as Bee Cove to regenerate from logging in the mid-1900s.

In 2001, President Clinton banned most timber harvesting and road construction in roadless areas to preserve their character, though the areas remained open to the public.

The Bush administration, however, wants a more flexible rule that could allow more roads and logging in some areas. Legal challenges from timber companies and the need to gain access to fight fires are key reasons for the change in policy, the U.S. Forest Service says.

A public comment period on the Bush plan ends today, after which the Forest Service is expected to enact the more flexible rules for roadless areas in national forests.

The Bush plan relies on input from governors. If governors want to keep more roads and logging out of roadless areas, they will have to tell the Forest Service sometime in the next two years.

Gov. Mark Sanford hasn’t decided how to proceed, although spokesman Will Folks said Sanford doesn’t want to lose important natural areas.

DISAGREEMENTS ABOUND

The roadless debate has been a bigger fight in the West, where most roadless acreage exists. But the Southeast has smaller pockets of roadless land, including a small fraction of the Sumter and Francis Marion national forests.

Bee Cove, at nearly 3,000 acres, is the largest of six roadless areas in South Carolina — but the one most open to road construction under the Bush plan.

Unlike most of the state’s other five roadless areas, new roads would be allowed in about 85 percent of the Bee Cove area, according to the Forest Service in Columbia. The other roadless areas, all in the Sumter and Francis Marion National Forests, have other layers of federal protection that prevent new roads on most of the land, the service’s Robbin Cooper said.

That doesn’t mean the Forest Service will ever build new roads at Bee Cove, but the agency might want to maintain old ones to provide access for existing uses, agency officials say. That includes clearing small sections of forest to plant food for wildlife or maintaining roads to help fight forest fires.

If new roads were built, they would have to be removed after temporary use, Forest Service planner John Cleeves said.

In addition, the agency has deemed the Bee Cove area unsuitable for logging, said Cleeves, citing the agency’s latest forest-management plan.

“We have no plan to do any timber harvesting in the area,” he said.

Still, the Bush rule opens the possibility of new roads that could scar the landscape, said Williams, a former Forest Service employee.

Erosion from these roads could turn clear-flowing creeks red with mud, which could kill sensitive trout populations, he said. Better roads could one day make it enticing for the government to cut down the forest and sell the lumber, he said.

Agency arguments “all sound good,” Williams said. “But they could always go in and harvest timber in the name of forest health. We have to look at the long-term implications of these decisions.”

The Forest Service could have avoided the debate about Bee Cove by recommending to Congress that the area be declared a wilderness, which is a federal designation that prevents new roads and tree harvesting. Nearby Ellicott Rock is a federally designated wilderness area.

Cleeves said, however, that the service chose not to recommend wilderness status for Bee Cove because it might need to get mechanized vehicles into the area for maintenance and wildlife work from time to time. All of that would be restricted by wilderness designation, he said.

SCENIC WATERFALLS

While disagreements continue over the best method for protecting roadless areas, few dispute the natural resource values of Bee Cove.

Stepping carefully over fallen trees during a hike through Bee Cove, Williams noted how the woodland has little dense underbrush.

The open, parklike feel defines a maturing forest because not enough sunlight reaches the ground for thickets to grow. Parts of the Bee Cove area that were timbered more than 60 years ago are regenerating into mature forests.

In a few spots, noted biologist L.L. “Chick” Gaddy has even found old stands of trees that might have escaped loggers’ saws.

Gaddy, who has written extensively about the southern Appalachians, once documented nearly 250 species of plants in the area. Among those were several rare species not usually found in the southern Appalachians.

His 1981 report on the area, which led to other studies in the 1990s, also cited near-state-record birch and chestnut oaks.

One of the most significant features of the Bee Cove area is its slope, which in places drops about 1,000 feet within a half-mile. That has led to an abundance of waterfalls, as creeks plunge down the mountainsides.

Gaddy’s 1981 study documented nine waterfalls, some reaching 30 feet tall, on Moody Creek.

Gaddy also noted the significance of Bee Cove Falls, a series of three sharply dropping cascades he calls “spectacular.” Roaring white water runs over the falls and crashes down a narrow gorge lined by hemlocks, ferns and rhododendron.

Another important part of Bee Cove is White Rock Scenic Area, which includes stony outcroppings with grand mountain views.

Gaddy said the Bee Cove area is an important part of the Blue Ridge Front, the area of South Carolina’s mountains that begin to drop dramatically to the Piedmont. It would be a shame to log the area, he said.

“You’ve got ridges and ravines and waterfalls and cliffs, about everything, as opposed to one big mountaintop, that share different flora and fauna,” Gaddy said. “This is an area that has been overlooked for a long time.”

Reach Fretwell at (803) 771-8537 or sfretwell@thestate.com.