A Last Look at Congaree

Well, I've posted for the better part of a week on Congaree National Park. It's a truly amazing forest. Acre for acre, it rivals any of the big-tree forests I've visited in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is high praise. In fact, the canopy of the forest in Congaree is probably uniformly higher than that of most of the old growth forests in which I've hiked in the Southern Appalachian high country. Which, again, is very great praise.

There's nothing that I enjoy so much as hiking cross country in a very old forest. They make you feel very small, which is a good thing, lest we think too highly of our insignificant little selves.

A whole day, twelve miles of hiking among the forest giants of Congaree National Park. It was a great experience. If time affords, I'll go back this year, before warm weather hits, and find some more of the champion trees I missed on that Saturday hike in the cold weather of a welcome winter chill.