Full Bloom

One of the most beautiful things about the southern Appalachians are the blossoming heath shrubs in late Spring and into Summer. It all begins with the various wild azaleas which lead to the opening of the Mountain laurel, and then the glorious display of the rhododendron.

I managed to miss both the azaleas and the mountain laurel blooms this year, but we arrived in the Highlands area to find the rhododendron at peak. Thus, following here are just some photos of the flowers without further comment.

Wild Azaleas

I forgot to post some photos of one of my favorite heath flowers yesterday, that being the Flame azalea. These grow wild all over the southern Appalachians and are among the first of the heath wildflowers to bloom every Spring. When I was a kid living in the mountains of north Georgia, we had these growing all over our 120-acre property.

Heath Tunnels

If you go hiking in the southern Appalachians you will hike through a heath tunnel. All of the common heath plants (azaleas, mountain laurel, rhododendron) tend to grow thickly and create vast, woody barriers to hikers. Trails in such places are generally hacked through laboriously (sometimes based on bear trails). This almost always produces a tunnel through the vigorous growths of heath plants.

During the spring and early summer flowering season, it is a pure delight to hike through such a tunnel. Flame azalea, white mountain laurel, pink catawba rhododendron--they all lend blazes of color to the trails and environs. And when the plants are not in bloom, it's still a great pleasure to hike through the heath tunnels that mark the trails of our southern peaks.

Cool-ass rhododendron tunnel leading to the even cooler summit called Pickens Nose.

Black Mountain Crest Trail.

Trail to Mooney Falls.

I had to stop at that spot. Just beyond was a cliff (hidden by rhododendron) dropping hundreds of feet off Ridgepole Mountain in the Southern Nantahala Wilderness Area.

Rhododendron.

 

Boogerman Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

 

Side trail in Panthertown Valley.

I don't even recall where I took this shot.

 

Panthertown Valley in the snow.

Mountain laurel.

Trail to Granny Burrell Falls in Panthertown Valley.