Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park was not the first National Park I ever visited, but it has been the National Park that has had the biggest influence on me. I've visited it more often than any of our nation's Parks, and I have journeyed more deeply into it than any other of them.

Over the years I have been able to travel more widely across the USA and visit many of our big Parks; but the Smokies remains the one with which I am most intimate. I've hiked hundreds of miles of its back-country trails, and I have camped deep in the wilderness areas within it. I have also driven most of its (too many) roads and shared views with obnoxious crowds of idiot tourists who rarely fail to annoy me in their numbers and vile attitudes.

But, I keep going back. My wife and son get a kick out of the Park for reasons different from my own. While I dig plunging as deep into the almost supernaturally diverse forests and climbing the lung-bursting slopes, they like the gentler aspects of the Smokies and the easy access of tourist traps we call Gatlinburg and Pigeon's Forge. Generally, while I'm hiking they will take the 75-cent tram from the campground into Gatlinburg to nosh on comfort food and search for tchotchke.

I'll be there for just shy of a week. Heading out very soon. I'm still considering my options for hiking. It has been a very long time since I've seen the views from Charlie's Bunion, so I may do that hike. I just don't know. Or maybe I'll pick out some trails I've never experienced and see what they have to offer.

I'll let you know.

A field in Cataloochee Valley where we likely won't go this trip.

Years ago when I was running around trying to see all of the hemlock groves before they died. I saw most of the old ones, and now they're all dead.

A 2005 view of the massive wall of LeConte before this plot of land was covered in hotels and shops.

Bull elk and cow (also in Cataloochee) in October 2018.

Hemlocks.

I have posted a few times about the title of my blog. No, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the poison known as "hemlock" and famous in history as the concoction Socrates was forced to ingest as his capital punishment.

The hemlock of my title refers to our native Eastern and Carolina hemlock species of evergreen tree. As I have explained before, they are in danger of extinction from an introduced Asian insect. Yet another example of the harm created by invasive species.

In a nutshell, here is a brief video that shows some good folk treating these two species in a protected property and how they go about it. I have done as they do on my own--both to protect trees in my yard, and to try to save trees that I have found in some of my stomping grounds.

Listen and be educated.

Helping to Save the Hemlocks in the Box Creek Wilderness from Unique Places on Vimeo.

Hemlock tree that has been treated in Linville Gorge.

Hemlock tree that has been treated in my back yard.

Helton Creek Falls: Hemlock holocaust.

Somehow I had managed to never see Helton Creek Falls during the years when I lived in the north Georgia mountains. It's a spectacular waterfall and I'm glad I finally got to see it. But I had mixed emotions viewing this very beautiful spot.

As I climbed down into the gorge the first thing that hit me was that I was walking in bright, direct sunlight when I should have been walking under a forest canopy. Looking all around--in every direction--I realized that this very steep and rugged gorge had housed a luxurious and probably old growth forest of hemlock trees.

And, of course, if you've been following this blog for very long you will know what has become of our native hemlock trees. This particular location was especially distressing. There was not a living hemlock there of any consequential size. I could see large hemlocks lying dead just about everywhere I cast my gaze. All victims of the invasive pest, the Hemlock wooly adelgid.

Since this spot is a very popular location for tourists to visit, the Forest Service has come in and felled most of the dead hemlocks. On the far side of the creek and well away from the falls there are some very big old hemlocks still standing, but very dead and all the more depressing for their size and stature. If only the people who control the purse strings had decided that saving places like this was more important than the things upon which they squander our national treasure.

The sign at the parking lot.

Some of the grand old giants are still standing. Dead, of course, but standing.

My first view of the falls as I hiked down the trail.

The Forest Service has had to go in and clear the dead trees nearest the trails to keep them from falling on visitors.

When I first got to the falls, I thought that this was the whole lot. Until I noticed the trail leading up and followed it.

The lower section of Helton Creek Falls.

There's some very nice infrastructure at the falls.

This falls has a great plunge pool for swimming!

The upper section of the falls.

Backyard Hemlocks

The two hemlock trees that were transplanted in the back yard of my in-laws' home are doing well. These two were brought from the Mills Creek area of North Carolina where there are pretty much no living hemlocks, at all. So my late father-in-law managed to save a tiny portion of those groves when he grabbed those saplings from the forest and brought them back for his yard.

At one time there were three, but the center tree didn't make it. The two others, however, are still thriving. I'm lucky never to have forgotten what it's like to see healthy hemlock trees, because I can go see this pair just about any time I wish.

Every time I visit them I check to see if there is any sign of hemlock wooly adelgid. So far, none have shown. If they ever do, I'll immediately treat the trees with the appropriate insecticide.

Good, lush, green growth.

Under the hemlock canopy. In some places, black bears would den under the overhanging branches of hemlock trees. As the snow would collect on the needles, the area around the trunks would become sheltered, like small rooms.

The Good Guys Lost

Some time back I gave up. Not on life, or living, or loving, or seeking out the good things that are worth experiencing.

I rushed to see the virgin groves.

But I gave up on the idea of justice. To sum it up briefly, what I realized is that the bad guys won and that the bad guys will always win, and that in the long run the situation is not good and is not going to end well for any of us--not even for the bad guys.

Since I was a very young child I have had  a deep and abiding love for Mother Nature. From the very first I have gone out of my way to protect and admire the wild things and the worlds in which they live. Give me a forest and I am happy. Let me walk along a stream and I can be content. When I see a hawk or a fox I can go on a few more days.

But since I've been a child I have seen what humans have done to the Earth and what they are going to continue to do. There will come a point where the planet's ecosystems will collectively be unable to take one more shot to the chest and they will shut down. And we will shut down with them. And if that wasn't tragedy enough, the worst of it is that we will have taken so much down with us, and will have seen so many of our wild companions preceding us through that black hole of Oblivion.

Not enough of us listen. No one acts. All that happens is that we make concessions to those who

From 2005, this old hemlock is dead, now.

do the most damage and the world continues to die. Since I've been a kid I've heard the good guys warning what would happen if we continued down the path we are on.

The elephants would all be destroyed. Yes, they were right.

The oceans will begin to die off. This was true.

The atmosphere will heat up and the ice caps and glaciers will melt. We watched it happen.

There will be no room left for things like tigers and lions, wolves and grizzlies. This is occurring as the clock ticks along.

Around 2003 I began to read articles concerning the hemlock trees that have lived for millions of years here on the eastern half of the continent. They were being killed off by an invasive insect that was colonizing, unopposed, the groves of Carolina and Eastern hemlock trees; they were sucking the needles dry and killing the trees one by one until the hemlock groves were being left as standing corpses. After making certain that the stories were true and that the situation was dire, I did the only thing that I could do:

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 2004: the hemlocks in this grove are ALL dead today.

I set about visiting the virgin hemlock groves that were in the Parks and wild places throughout my native south. I went to see these grand, old trees standing like cathedrals on our mountain slopes. It's not for nothing that they were called "the redwoods of the East". By 2005 I had visited dozens of such groves. And now?

Now those groves are all gone. Pale, dead trunks of dying trees are what remains. These scenes have been repeated up and down the spine of the Appalachians and will continue to be repeated until there is nothing left, until all of the hemlock groves are gone. The culprit: tiny, tiny aphids who cling to the hemlock needles and drain out the sap and leave the tree unable to conduct photosynthesis. These mindless little reproducing assholes just go on laying eggs and eating the needles until the tree dies. Then they (or their progeny) go on to the next tree and the next and the next until there are none left.

That's what's going to happen to Mother Earth. We are going to move on and on, mindlessly reproducing, mindlessly eating and consuming until She can no longer support us.

It's going to happen. The day is coming.

Hayden Valley, Yellowstone National Park.

My suggestion to those of you who love and appreciate the wild places and the things that live within them is to seek them out and witness them. Experience these rare bits of land and sea while they are still there and are a shadow of what its like for them to thrive. Because in a few short years or decades I assure you that they will all be gone. They will be dead and rotting in the wind just like those hemlock groves I hurried to see before it was too late.

Go. Now. Make haste.

Old Growth Forests.

When I can't get into the forests and mountains, or out to a river, I have to dwell there in memories. Here, then, are some images from a bushwhack Andy Kunkle and I made into the Pisgah National Forest in 2011 to locate a grove of old growth hardwoods. (There were once grand old hemlocks there, but those are all dead now from infestation of the Asian pest, Hemlock wooly adelgid.)

The diversity of the hardwood trees is phenomenal. However, all of the hemlocks are dead and only their standing corpses remain.

A typical large Tulip poplar in the forest.

This area was the first National Forest in the USA. It was the initial tract of land that became what we know now as the Pisgah National Forest.

Classic Southern Appalachians

A great waterfall known simply as "The Cascades". Despite the fact that the spot is often crowded during warmer months (when we were there), I like it. It's classic southern Appalachian territory with great cove hardwood forests, rushing streams, and familiar wildlife.

We'll go back.

Familiar territory for me.

The hemlock wooly adelgid has been active in this area for a long time, and so there are almost no living hemlocks remaining. That component of the lush forests is now gone. The remaining hemlocks are just huge, dead snags with a few living saplings scattered here and there throughout the forest.

The local streams are full of dead hemlocks.

A tiny flying insect of some type was busy down in this little blossom.

Butterflies were common on the trail.

Great stream to go with the classic Appalachian terrain.

Our reward for the short hike: One of Virginia's greatest waterfalls and also one of its finest swimming holes.

The author takes a self-portrait.

From above. A highly recommended hike.

Our Campsite at Rock Creek Recreation Area

My wife is amazing when it comes to preparing for and implementing our campsites. She transforms a simple camping trip into an actual working home-away-from-home. When we park our Casita trailer it indeed becomes exactly the literal translation of that Spanish word: our little house.

Here, then, is a photo essay of our campsite and environs during our recent vacation at Rock Creek Recreation Area, not far from Erwin, Tennessee:


This is our campsite in Loop C at the Rock Creek Recreation Area. We felt that this was the best campsite in the entire campground, and we were lucky not only to get this one, but any site there. The place is extremely popular with the locals and they flock there all during the week to set up camp. We spoke to campers who lived as close as two miles away! They prefer to spend their spare time here in this fantastic campground than at home. I can't say I can blame them.

I walked up the slope a bit and took this photo looking down on our campsite. This is now one of our favorite campgrounds. Each site is spacious and you're surrounded by forests with plenty of privacy between sites. This campground has electric hookups but not water. We had to fill our onboard water tank. But there are water spigots throughout the campground. For several days there was a trailer across from us and one campsite down where a married couple and a relative played live bluegrass every evening. Everyone else in the campground would grow quiet and listen as we were serenaded with bluegrass music by this trio--two guitars and a mandolin.

One nice touch about Rock Creek are these cool shelters. You can use them for so much. We decided to use ours to set up our Coleman stove and to keep our charcoal dry and store kindling for the firewood. We don't do any cooking in our trailer because we don't want to fill our little trailer with cooking smells. So this was perfect for us. We normally put the stove on a picnic table, but this freed up that space for other things.

Carole even was able to do a lot of cooking right on the fire instead of using the outside stove. Here she was frying bacon for BLTs.

We have some colorful lights that we string on the awning. At night it looks neat and inviting and friendly.

This was the "cement pond" in the campground. Built by the CCC back during the FDR administration. At one time this pool was twelve feet deep, but now it has been altered so that it's only six feet deep. There was even once a diving board here. The locals come here in droves to swim and picnic.


This is the creek that flows into the pool. The CCC boys created the little artificial waterfall. After 70 years, our parks and recreation areas are still utilizing the efforts of that socialist program that employed our out-of-work engineers and laborers. Too bad we don't have it at work today.

The forest behind our campsite. I don't think this forest has been logged for about 80 to 100 years. Therefor the trees are well on their way to impressive maturity. Unfortunately, about every third tree is a hemlock and these were all intensely infested with hemlock wooly adelgid and will soon be dead. What's especially depressing is that many of these groves could still be saved if treated with Safari brand adelgicide. If only it were done...

I include this because it was a mere two+ miles away by foot. The Upper Rock Creek Falls inside the Unaka Mountain Wilderness. I just hiked away from the campsite up the trail and in no time I was at this amazing spot.

Sad photo of our campsite emptied out and our stuff all loaded up. This place is so popular that this site was nabbed before we could even pull out!

The sign and National Forest land at the turnoff to Rock Creek Recreation Area. The forest down here where I took the photo is at least 50% hemlock. It's going to be a sad sight indeed in a few years.

Images of a Virgin Hemlock Forest

When we got to Blackwater Falls Lodge, our room wasn't ready, so we hopped back in the truck and made the short drive over to Cathedral State Park. This is the last remaining patch of virgin hemlock forest in the entire state of West Virginia. One thing that I can say about West Virginia is that it is packed with some tree-cuttin' sons o' bitches. At the turn of the century the whole state was pretty much denuded of tree cover from north to south, side to side. Every peak and hollow and canyon had been scoured clean of anything woody. One hundred years since that ecological genocide and the forests have somewhat recovered only to be knocked over in the same fashion yet again. Every time we go to the state we are horrified at the endless truckloads of giant hardwood logs we see barreling down the highway headed for sawmills and pulping facilities. Humans never fucking learn.

However, this single 133-acre patch of virgin forest was spared due to the efforts of a single man who purchased the plot and saved it from logging. This has pretty much been the case of most virgin forests in the eastern USA. Foresighted men who decided to do what they could to preserve one small bit of wilderness amidst the rape of industry.

The most amazing thing to me, living here in North Carolina where you can no longer find a healthy grove of hemlocks at all, much less a virgin stand, is that the trees appear to be free of the hemlock wooly adelgid. I assume the pest has not made it this far west for some reason, and even though I'm sure one of my learned friends will apprise me otherwise, I can hope that the plague may have run its westward course and these trees will be spared.

At any rate, it was refreshing to be able to walk through such a stand of hemlock trees (and hardwoods!). All of my favorite groves here in North Carolina and in Virginia and eastern Tennessee have been laid low. It was sweet and wonderful.

Sign at the entrance to the grove.

Stitched photo of one of the first big hemlocks we approached.

Carole at a double-trunked hemlock.

Stitched shot of the open hemlock/hardwood forest.

Along one of the forest streams.

Carole precedes me along the snowy trail.

Although the snow had been melting for a few days, the heavy snowfalls of previous weeks was obvious. This bridge had about three feet of snow covering it.

Just a shot through the forest, with dozens of new hemlocks popping up through the snow.

Old trees fall to make way for new ones.

A peaceful hike.

The park boasts six miles of marked trails.

And plenty of opportunities for walking off trail into the woods.

Standing beside an ancient hemlock.

There was deer poop everywhere. We didn't see any deer, but the signs of their passing were almost everywhere you looked.


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