About 22 acres in McDowell County will help carry a trail that will run through McDowell, Burke, Catawba and Rutherford counties.

On June 30, Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina bought the land along Vein Mountain Road in southern McDowell County for permanent conservation. The land will further the conservancy’s development of the Wilderness Gateway State Trail, a planned 170-mile public trail system spanning four counties, according to a news release from Foothills Conservancy.

Foothills Conservancy bought the land from conservationist and philanthropist Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games.

Although relatively small in comparison to the tens of thousands of acres of land that the conservancy and Sweeney have worked together to conserve, the parcel has significant value, the release sai

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