Alpine Illusion

Sometimes when I show people some of the photos I've taken here in the east, they think the pictures were made in western states. This is because of the practice of clear-cutting and fire in our eastern mountains during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Although it's hard to understand, if you'd come to the southern Appalachians around 1920 or so, you would have found almost no mature forests. Instead, from horizon to horizon all you would have found were shattered lands--all of the forests had been felled. And when I say "all", that's what I mean. Rare were the spots where the timber companies had not been. And when they passed, they left nothing but stumps, poorly cut roads, and rail beds for the ever-present narrow gauge steam engines that were invaluable for the harvest of timber.

Often, when the timber companies had left, the land was allowed to fester. Summers would come, often with drought. The acreage would become tinder-dry and all it would take is a single spark or a lightning strike and fire would be set. Since what had been forest was now just a litter of shattered stumps and broken limbs and underbrush, the fires would rage unopposed across the landscape. If the droughts were severe enough--and they often were--then even the top soil would burn away, all the way down to bare rock and mineral soil. When rains finally did come--and they often did so in sudden cloudbursts to break the droughts--what little soil remained was washed down into the creeks and rivers to briefly foul the waterways before being carried along to the lowlands.

After all of this destruction, the forests would struggle to recover. On the tallest peaks and in the highest valleys the young trees had to contend with little in the way of organic soil and with the cold winters and harsh winds that rake the southern high country. Some shrubs and grasses would take root, but trees struggled to regain lost territory.

This is why, more than 100 years after the rape of the southern high country by the timber and land companies the forests are still fighting for restoration. This is why those places appear to be alpine environments, which they resemble but do not match ecologically.

One of the best examples of the false alpine environment in the South is the area known as Grayson Highlands in southwest Virginia. 5,000-foot peaks covered in mainly rocks, scrub, and grasslands.

I need to head back to this area. It offers great terrain for hiking.

Not far from Grayson Highlands (and considered part of it) is First Peak. Almost all grass and shrubs and heavily eroded because of its popularity with the horseback riding crowd. Steer clear of this particular spot unless you enjoy hiking in muck.

One of my favorite false alpine peaks--Sam Knob.

In West Virginia the best example of this setting is in the Dolly Sods Wilderness. What looks to be at this point a field is, in fact, a vast wetland. Impossible to hike, it's actually a sea of soggy peat and rare plants.

Another view in Dolly Sods. You can understand why it's so very popular with hikers and backpackers.

Past Photos, Another Visit

We'll be heading up to one of our favorite outdoor adventure areas very soon. Southwest Virginia is packed to sky with great places to see and wonderful activities in which to take part. The highest peaks in the state are there, and the concentration of waterfalls and tributaries are hard to count. We'll ride the Virginia Creeper Trail and camp in a National Forest campground. I hope to bag a few peaks and see some new waterfalls. Plus, if the weather cooperates, we'll go kayaking on the New River.

All of the following photographs were taken in previous trips, and give you just a glimpse of the beauty of that part of Virginia.

Spring Still Arriving.

Here it is almost summer in the Piedmont, and yet we arrived to find Spring yet to complete its unfurling at Grayson Highlands.

One thing that we both noticed as we strolled the forests at around 4,000 feet was that the trees had that new, almost emerald-green look about them. And the leaves were obviously fresh, fragile, not yet established.

And once we hit the really high ridges at or above 5,000 feet we saw that some of the trees were still in the process of leafing out, and some had not yet achieved even that feat!

Things like this impress upon me (even at this late date in my life) how fragile the Earth is.

 

New green. A different kind of green.

  

I'm ready to give up on macro photography until I can buy a decent macro lens.

On the high ridges (above 5,000 feet) the hardwoods hadn't leafed out yet.

Spruce trees making new growth.

New leaves just unfurling.

May 26 and this tree was just getting started on the new year of growth.

Mount Rogers Recreation Area

The Mount Rogers National Recreation Area in southwestern Virginia has been, historically, one of our favorite places to vacation. Yesterday Carole and I got up very early in the morning and headed out to make a day of it up there. We didn't want to make it a one-day excursion, but because Carole had to work Monday evening, it had to be so.

That said...my days of spending six hours driving to enjoy eight hours of hiking are over. The stress of driving that far in one day, coupled with walking around the forests and ridges are just too much for this old man. After we got home I ended up sleeping for over ten hours. No more of that. Next time we go somewhere like that we're going to have to make it a two-day trip.

If you live here in the South and you've never been to southwestern Virginia, you have missed a tremendous amount of beauty. Carole and I have been vacationing there off and on for decades and we still have many, many places there to see. We're headed back in late August, so we'll be able to chisel off a few more of these spots on our way to exhausting the list.

This trip, however, was to scope out some good places to park our travel trailer for our vacation in August. Carole will spend the days at camp while I got wandering around the high country and in search of waterfalls (the area is packed with waterfalls, most of them on no published list that I have ever seen).

Here, then, are some photos from our day trip.

The high, open country is the main reason people flock to this recreation area. Because of this, the high meadows can actually get crowded with humans. Rubbing elbows with people is not why I go to the wild places.

As I was hiking around the forests around Grindstone, I was reminded that this is the tail-end of ramp season! So I scurried around in the forest floor looking for this relative of the garlic. In no time at all I had a fist full of them ready to be grilled in aluminum foil over the coals.

Carole in the summit of one of the Pinnacles in Grayson Highlands State Park.

Oh, my Appalachian high country!

Hardwood forests trying to recover from the rape of timber companies.

Fiddleheads! Edible, but I've never tried them.

Carpet of wildflowers on a high ridge.

A typical Appalachian stream.

In a few more weeks these rhododendron blossoms will be truly gorgeous.

Grayson Highlands Day Trip, Part IV

Just before we left the park we drove to the parking lot near the top of Haw Orchard Mountain where the visitors center is located. There, I hiked d0wn the Listening Rock Trail to an overlook where I took some photos.

After that I scrambled to the top of a huge boulder above the overlook where I snapped some more photos of the valley below and the rocks and trees around me. And then it was time to head home. Bummer.

The view from the overlook just below the parking lot at the Visitor's Center.

Just a bit of Autumn color on the big boulders I was scrambling around on.

And a composite photo of the view I had from the top of the boulders.

Grayson Highlands Day Trip, Part III

After we left the historical part of the park we drove up to Massie Gap where I could hike the Cabin Creek Trail. Despite my many trips to Grayons Highlands State Park, I'd always managed to avoid the Cabin Creek area. I'd heard that the creek had a wealth of waterfalls, but most of the time when I'd go there, my main concern was in bagging peaks and viewing the treeless heights. This time I'd promised myself to hike to see those waterfalls.

As it turned out, I'd been robbing myself of quite a sight. There are two really nice medium-sized waterfalls along the trail. However, at about the halfway mark on the roughly two-mile trail there is a tremendous series of cascades that tumble at least 100 feet down the mountain. They're not really a single waterfall, but together they make up quite a sight. I'm hoping that I can go back soon and take them in as a more leisurely hike. As it was, I was pressed for time after spending most of an hour photographing the previous waterfalls I'd seen along the trail.


This colorful view of Haw Orchard Mountain greeted us as we drove toward the Massie Gap trailheads.

As I hiked out of Massie Gap, I passed by this pretty spruce tree.

This is a horse baffle to keep the asshole horseback riders off of the hiking trails. Horseback riders are easily the biggest jerks one will encounter when in our parks and wild lands. They are almost uniformly a selfish and inconsiderate bunch of assholes. I rank them near the bottom with ATV fans.

I saw this blossom just as I started down the trail. There weren't many flowers left on the forest floor this late in the year, but this was one I'd never seen before. I don't know what it is, since I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to flowers.

The trail passes through classic rhododendron tunnels. I love these places!

The first nice waterfall I came to was visually the nicest. I like the multiple streams of water falling into the shallow pool.

I took this self-portrait at the first waterfall. Despite my grim demeanor (I didn't have time to smile before the camera took the shot), I was feeling quite happy.

The rugged trail as you pass the nice waterfall.

The next waterfall I came to wasn't as impressive, but it had a deeper pool.

The view from the top of the falls.

I saw this sign just as I came to the next series of waterfalls.

I had no idea I was going to see this kind of plunge. This wasn't really a waterfall, but was a tremendous series of cascades that splashed down the mountain in a great display. I want to go back and explore it in detail and get some better photographs.

After that it was just a mild uphill climb to get back to the trail head.

I soon came to this wonderfully colorful view of Haw Orchard Mountain, which looms above Massie Gap.

You can see why I don't like horses in our parks. This trail is ruined beyond repair. The horses tear up the terrain and cause much erosion. In this very fragile ecosystem, it would take many hundreds of years to correct this kind of damage.

And this was the view at the truck where Carole and her mom were waiting for me to return from my hike. Massie Gap is one amazingly pretty spot, no matter what the season.

For the sake of contrast, here's a photo I took from basically the same spot a few years ago. This was right after a snowfall of about one foot in early December when we went up to a choose and cut Christmas tree farm.