Quiet Time.

As often as I can, I take off to the mountains and go hiking. Generally I am seeking solitude to go along with my exploration of forests. There's not much better than sitting quietly in a silent forest and not hearing the sounds of other humans. No machines. No voice. Just the wind. Some bird song. Perhaps the exclamation of minor destruction as gravity pulls down a dead limb somewhere in the trees.

So that's what I did on Saturday. I drove to the Curtis Creek area near Old Fort NC and climbed a mountain, viewing a couple of waterfalls along the way. Once at the summit, I just sat down and enjoyed the silence.

After relaxing and meditating there for a long time I packed up and headed down to see a couple of the waterfalls I had passed to reach the summit. And there, again, I just sat to contemplate the scenery and to daydream.

Taking it easy on the summit of Buckeye Knob. Just me and the trees and the breeze.

Green Knob, way off in the distance, across the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Meditation.

Forest Mystery

I may have posted this photo before. It's from an overnight hike I took in April of 2012. I was on one of the high peaks that lead down toward Montreat when I noticed what appears to be a grassy circle of land in the midst of the forest some miles away. This is the kind of thing that I'm always curious about. Why is it bare of trees? Was the timber cut and never grew back? Is the soil there too poor to support trees? What kind of ecosystem is at work in this small, circular bit of real estate amidst all of that solid forest?

You can see the tiny patch of open space in pretty much the direct center of the photo. Not the larger one on the right, which is just classic exposed rock and shrubs.

The problem is, you can't legally go down there. I'm pretty sure it's part of the Asheville watershed and that land is jealously guarded by the city. Sure, you can break the law and hike in there, but if you're caught, the penalties are severe. Best case, you don't serve jail time, but a heavy fine is levied against you.

Some timber companies were arguing that the concept of the city watershed has outlived its day and that they should be allowed to go in and cut all of the trees. Most of the watersheds above the major mountain towns in North and South Carolina are packed with old growth trees. Timber barons drool at the idea of felling those trees and getting their hands on the profits. I hope it never comes to that.

On the safe side of the watershed. If I were to walk around the other side of the tree, I would be in violation of the law.

Exploring

I spend most of my free time writing. It is, after all, what I consider a job even though I have rarely earned anywhere approaching half the amount I make as a laborer (over the course of a year). To that end I sometimes rarely have the opportunity to read the books I want to read, see the movies I want to see, or visit the forests I want to explore.

I've had to force myself to take something of a break.

In the next few weeks I hope to catch up on some sorely missed reading and to watch a few movies. And I hope to get up to the mountains to go hiking somewhere I can find some solitude. We have a four-day trip planned to southwestern Virginia where I'm going to bag some peaks I've wanted to climb for quite a number of years.

I genuinely love to write, but I need to take a bit of a break from the constant act of creating fiction.

One thing about the southern Appalachians: they are completely green.

Self-portrait on Mackey Mountain. This area is home to many tracts of virgin forest. The largest poplar trees in Pisgah National Forest are located here. This was also the first land to be designated as National Fores in the USA.

Cascade on Mackey Mountain.

Mackey Mountain forest. Looks beautiful still, but the hemlocks are all gone--killed off by hemlock wooly adelgid.

Why Visit the Forest?

I can't speak for anyone else. But, for me, life in a crowded place become tiresome after only a short while. I get sick of the constant push of the people. Their voices grate on my every nerve. Each time I try to move from Point A to Point B and I'm blocked by an ambulance or an accident or just an old-fashioned traffic jam I die a little.

Table Rock Mountain State Park, South Carolina.

So, whenever I can, I have to get the hell out of the city.

Sure, just traveling to the countryside helps a little bit. But I can still hear the engines and smell the stink of diesel fumes. The call of the birds is partially hidden even there. Winds blowing through the pines takes a back seat to the constant hum of the goddamned roads.

No. None of that. I have to get away. Really away. If not into outright wilderness, at least into the general vicinity of such.

Hospital Rock Trail, Jones Gap State Park, South Carolina.

Only then can I relax and feel comfortable.

Sanity needs a recharge.

Forests I Have Hiked

The following photographs are just various forests here in the southeastern USA where I have hiked and backpacked. Our southern Appalachian forests are about as diverse as any you can find. I think you can see these photographs and understand why I love these systems of woods and waters and creatures.

Middle Prong Wilderness, North Carolina.

My camp in the Middle Prong Wilderness, 2005.

Stone Mountain, North Carolina.

Pickens Nose, Nantahala National Forest, North Carolina.

Cataloochee, Great Smoky Mountains.

Mount LeConte, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, March 2005.

Boogerman Grove, Winter 2004, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Palmer Creek, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Panorama from Stone Mountain, Stone Mountain State Park, North Carolina.

This tree, and all of the rest of the hemlocks in this grove, are now dead. Taken in 2004 in the Boogerman Grove in the Cataloochee section of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I knew that the insect plague was coming and I wanted to see this forest before it died. I was able to do that.

Panthertown Valley.

Panthertown Valley.

North Fork of the Holly River, West Virginia.

February ice storm, Linville Gorge.

South Mountains Game Lands, North Carolina.

South Mountains Game Lands.

Pisgah National Forest, near Curtis Creek.

Trees

THEM THAR TREES

When I was a kid I used to go tramping about the woods with my dad. He loved to go hiking, generally in places where there were no trails, and we'd often go exploring.

My dad was very good at tree identification. No, he was extremely good at it. We couldn't pass a tree when he wouldn't know what it was. Sometimes he would ID a tree by just its bark, which is often very difficult. And every time we'd go wandering around, he would point out this or that tree and tell me what it was. And then he'd explain to me how to identify it by its proper name.

And that information would go through one ear and out the other. Why? I'm not sure. I did love the woods, even back then, when I was just a little kid. But for whatever reason, I just never bothered to learn much about the individual trees.

Oh, I could tell you about forest succession, and explain some simple elements of forest hydrology; and I understood the roles some forest types played in certain ecological niches. But I couldn't really tell you how to tell an elm from beech.

Maybe I was having such a good time in the forest that I didn't care for it to be turned into a classroom. Hell, I just don't know. But now that I'm older I wish that I'd paid more attention to my dad when he was trying to teach me how to know what kind of tree I was looking at when I passed it by.

Oh, well. Better late than never, I reckon. This weekend I'll be hanging out with some of the East's best tree experts as we measure some of the world-champion examples of a number of hardwood and evergreen species here in the South. I'll post some photos and commentary when I return.