Contrast

I like this old photo because of the contrasts I saw and heard here at this spot. This was taken from near the summit of Sams Knob, one of North Carolina's 6000-foot peaks. I took this image on the way back from an overnight backpacking trip into the Middle Prong Wilderness. The day I passed through headed to my campsite, the large empty meadow below had been packed with dozens of loud hippies walking around, banging on leather drums, blowing on flutes, and generally making a complete nuisance of themselves while camped all over the field and in the verges of the forest. None of them, I was happy to note, were on the top of the mountain where I went to take in the views. I intentionally did not take any photos of the meadow packed with humans, but later I wished that I had, just for the contrast.

On the way back to my truck (parked on the ridge along the road you can see), I returned to the top to take in the view. I can never resist the hike to the top of that mountain. Looking down I could spot no one else (it was a Monday and the multitudes who had filled the meadow on the weekend were gone back to Asheville). Best of all, the place was silent. Completely quiet. I couldn't hear a single human voice, no flutes piping away, and no damned annoying drums. Just the wind and some bird song.

At any rate, I always think of the contrast when I look at this old photo. What a huge difference a couple of days can make.

The meadow devoid of humans and noise.

Real Alpine versus False Alpine.

I have written a few times about the false alpine environments that exist in a few high altitude places here in the southeastern USA. False in that the ecosystems were produced by rampant clear-cutting, and subsequent forest fires followed by erosion-causing rainstorms.

So I just thought I'd show a photo of a true alpine setting from a long backpacking trip I took at very high altitude in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. The peaks around me here were well over 12,000 feet, and I think the one in the background was well over 13,000 feet. The table lands on which I was hiking is classic alpine meadow.

The second photo is of the slowly healing southern high country (roughly 6200 feet above sea level) in the North Carolina mountains in the Shining Rock Wilderness. It closely resembles the classic, true alpine setting. Eventually the Shining Rock area will once again be forested with red spruce and balsam trees. Until then, it will be similar to the open, high country we call "alpine".

Beauty from Disaster.

My last two trips to the North Carolina high country were to a pair of areas that are actually parts of the same ecosystem and lie cheek by jowl. The two are at very high elevations with one slightly lower (relatively speaking) than the other.

The first of the two I chose to visit was Graveyard Fields. It's located adjacent to the Blue Ridge Parkway and is an extremely popular spot on that National Park-administered roadway. The first thing that strikes you about the place when you hear about it is its name: Graveyard Fields. How the heck did it get such a macabre term to describe it? As simply as possible, it got that way due to Mankind's tendency to create ecological devastation.

In the case of Graveyard Fields what we have is an enormous, flat, high elevation valley. The mean altitude there is roughly 5,100 feet above sea level. For eastern USA that is extremely high for a valley of this type. It sits on the northern shoulders of the highlands that are among the tallest in the state. Several peaks of over 6,000 feet above sea level loom over the valley. And the floor of Graveyard Fields is wide and moderately level creating a vast plateau where streams meander in shallow pathways that are almost without banks and nearly forming braided patterns like some western streams down in glacial valleys.

So...how did it get that name? Well, we can thank the rapacious timber companies of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries for that. When railways came to western North Carolina and penetrated the high country (thanks to government sponsored tax dollars), the timber firms found that they at last had access to the highest and most rugged territory in eastern North America. Finally, the timber barons could get their mitts on those untold thousands of square miles of virgin hardwood and evergreen forests. And grab it, they did!

Over the course of a few decades those companies turned untouched forests of cove hardwoods and dark spruce expanses into ruined clear cuts. They left nothing but stumps and dead limbs and took out the vast trees that had stood tall and strong since before Europeans had set foot on the continent. Within the blink of an eye they left the forested summits and peaks as denuded, ruined landscapes.

The mountain men who had ended up in the high country after chasing away and killing the native Cherokees looked upon the valley and, seeing no trees but only the shortened stumps of the trunks that had once greeted them, instead saw something else--a gigantic graveyard full of dark tombstones stretching toward the heights. How fitting that they saw death where once had been life.

The same fate befell the enormous mountain peaks that rose above Graveyard Fields, which I hiked a week later. One of the tallest of these peaks is Black Balsam Knob. At 6,214 feet above sea level, it had been named for the dense forests of red spruce and Fraser firs that had clothed it in forests so lush and so dark that from a distance they appeared not green, but black. Black like shadows. Black like the rich, peaty loam that fed and sustained those trees. The timber barons took them all, leaving nothing whatsoever. No patches of forest to replenish the land. No seed stock to repopulate the ridges. For the first time since the last Ice Age these giant eastern peaks were bare of forests and were suddenly just dirt and stumps and the drying trash of wizened limbs lying on the ground like flammable tinder.

And, as was repeated over and over up and down the spine of the high Appalachians, these very tall summits and ridges were struck by drought. Streams dried up. Springs failed. The skies did not give up rain and the remains of the vast forest cuts became like matchsticks, the once moist peaty soil like parched brick.

After that, all it took was a single lightning-generated spark.

Those high lands went up. The mountains became a roaring Hell. The stumps burned. The limbs cast aside like trash were like fuel in a fireplace. Even the soil, once several feet deep, packed with carbon similarly burned not unlike a vast thousand-mile blanket of coal. Yes, the dirt burned until all that was left of the ecosystem that had birthed the forests were mountains from horizon to horizon cooked down to rocks and the most basic of mineral soils.

And, of course, eventually the rains returned. Gully-washers. Cloud bursts. Thunderstorms. Floods vast and powerful swept these great mountains and if there was any soil left to feed any returning vegetation it went flowing down the creeks and valleys toward the lowlands, fouling the waters, wrecking the fisheries, sending the stored centuries of fertility down and down toward the coast where it was wasted in the seas.

After that, there was nothing black at all about Black Balsam Knob.

Graveyard was indeed a fitting term for what remained.

It has been well over one hundred years since the timber barons raped these mountains and scoured away everything of value that was growing in this place. And the winters at these altitudes are severe. The heights are raked with powerful prevailing winds and shocked by ice and snow and temperatures that rival those one would expect a thousand miles to the north. Even if the grasses and shrubs could find some sustenance among the rocks and rubble, the cold adds yet another barrier to the recolonization of these ridges by the forests looted and gone.

These days what one sees in the heights we call the Shining Rock Wilderness is a false kind of alpine environment. Our southern Appalachians--even our highest peaks above 6,000 feet--do not create true alpine zones. But exposed here due to environmental rape and harsh winters and denuded soils we have false alpine spots. Shrubs and grasses have managed to come back, and there is the beginning of a new topsoil just starting to form itself again. The spruce and firs are merely starting to poke their needles toward the skies. It will probably take two or three hundred additional years before the stone and sand of Shining Rock and Black Balsam Knob will be clothed in a dark, green, billowing cloak of verdant forests.

Yes, there's a kind of beauty there in the open vistas and grassy flats. But one must understand that it is there because of a monstrous crime; the rape of Mother Earth.

No balsams these days on Black Balsam Knob.

The soils that have been built up are shallow and fragile and easily eroded.

Foot traffic reveals that just below the inch of so of soil is an even more shallow layer of easily removed sand.

In Graveyard Fields one sees some patches of beeches and spruce trees beginning to make a presence.

In the flat, damp expanse of Graveyard Fields some shrubs and grasses have established dominance.

Hiking in Shining Rock, Part I.

Hiking in Shining Rock, Part II.

Wandering

Since Carole's health is pretty much back to normal I went on a one-day hike on Monday. I traveled up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and parked at Graveyard Fields where I wandered around that unusual high-elevation valley to see a couple of waterfalls and to drive up to the Shining Rock Wilderness trailheads to take some photos. After that I drove toward Looking Glass Rock to hike to the base of the cliffs where the rock climbers go to scale the mountain.

Briefly, that filled my day. I'm hoping to head back to the high country early next week. Maybe for an overnight backpacking excursion in the same general area.

Morons I Have Seen

I once saw a clueless tourist walk up to a bull bison in Yellowstone. The bison was lying down in the dust. Massive, one-ton beast. The tourist walked up to the furry critter and leaned back against the bison's spine so that his equally stupid wife could snap a photo.

Unfortunately, the bison took it all in stride and did not squash the two morons into paste. But it could have (and probably should have) been otherwise.

Bull bison. I took this from a great distance. Keep your distance, people.

I once saw an idiot tourist in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park walk up to a bear and begin to toss it slices of bread, one slice at a time. After a few tosses the bear realized the freaking moron had a whole bag of bread and was just doling it out like a greedy asshole. So the bear charged. To, you know, get the whole bag. The moron tourist had his tiny toddler daughter beside him. When the bear charged he ran. Just left his tiny girl there, alone. Fortunately for them all, he dropped the bag of bread and so the bear veered aside at the last possible second and did not trample the toddler. (It had no interest at all in the girl, only the bag of bread.)

Black bear I encountered while hiking in Douthat State Park in Virginia. I took this from a great distance as the fleeing bear turned to make sure I wasn't following him. Keep your distance, people.

A few years back I hiked into the Shining Rock Wilderness Area. It was on a Saturday so that wilderness was packed to the gills with humans, many of them having set up tents. This wilderness does not allow fires (signs posted at all trailheads), and being a wilderness, all plants and trees are protected. As I hiked along the air was filled with firesmoke. Every campsite had a campfire. In addition, I saw people with axes chopping not just dead, dry timber, but actively felling living trees. I even saw some of these scumbags chopping down living rhododendron.

There are few things less likely to burn in your campfire than the wood of a living rhododendron. Don't cut them down.

We don't have anywhere near enough rangers (a classic case of politicians trying to starve our parks and wilderness areas into extinction); but I also cannot imagine being a National Park ranger and having to put up with so many idiots.

Next Wilderness Hike

After some consideration I have settled on my next solo-hike/camping destination. It will be the Art Loeb Trail in the Pisgah National Forest. It passes through National Forest land and one wilderness area. I may try to summit Cold Mountain (yes, the one from the popular novel/movie) which is at the northern terminus of the trail. However, the mountain is not high on my radar even though it is one of the last North Carolina 6K-foot peaks I have not bagged.

The trail has become quite popular, but I'm hoping that I won't bump into numbers of people since I will be in the Forest in March, and during the week which will hopefully keep the crowds away. This will be my first major hike into the Shining Rock Wilderness. I tend to avoid Shining Rock because of the crowds, although I have been in there a few times. I once planned an overnight backpacking trip there but when I arrived at the trailhead there was--and I am not exaggerating--a line of hikers numbering at least one hundred heading up the slopes. I took one look at that ridiculous sight and headed over to Middle Prong Wilderness where almost no one goes; and I was rewarded with sweet solitude--not one other human.

So now is time to plot out a route and look at water sources and mapped campsites.

On Cedar Rock, along the Art Loeb Trail.

Panorama taken from the summit of Little Sam Knob looking toward Sam Knob (on the far left) and the heights of Shining Rock Wilderness beyond.

Very high country in Middle Prong Wilderness.

We don't have genuine alpine landscape in North Carolina, but we have a false version of it created by past logging practices in which the forests were felled from the high country and then the soil was depleted through fires and rainstorms, resulting in a substrate that trees have had a hard time in reclaiming. Thus, we have a faux alpine environment here that will take hundreds of years for the dark forests to reclaim.

Mount Hardy, over 6100 feet above sea level.

The southern summit of the double-summit of Sam Knob. Taken from the northern end of the peak.

Video taken just off the Art Loeb Trail on the John Rock cliffs.

Addition.

One thing that I wanted to add to yesterday's posts is a detail concerning some of the trails that allow you access to, and through, our official wilderness areas here in North Carolina. And that detail is that pretty much the trails are unmarked, unsigned, and unblazed. What I mean by that is that there are no signposts marking and identifying trails once you enter our wildernesses. And there are no blazes. For those of you unschooled in such things, blazes are the paintmarks placed on trees and (in the absence of trees) rocks. For instance, if you are on "Big Bob Trail", it might be blazed with red circles. Therefor, if you see a red circle on a tree trunk, then you can feel sure that you are on the "Big Bob Trail" and have not lost your way.

The very essence of wilderness means that the land is supposed to be unmarked by the hand of man (technologically speaking) and absent of artificial constructs such as signs, paint marks, carvings, and other such nonsense. What this means is that you have a pretty darned good chance of feeling that you are in true wilderness. (Even campfires are illegal in Shining Rock Wilderness.) It also means that if you are not paying attention then you get your ass lost. In quick order.

I know very experienced veteran hikers and backpackers who get themselves lost in such places. I have been lost in such a place, as I have pointed out in the past. I have always been accustomed to hiking and backpacking in National Parks and National Forests where signs and blazes are the norm. But many wilderness areas are administered in such a way that even the most basic of artificial things like signs are forbidden. In such a situation you really need to have good, accurate maps, and you need a compass (or a GPS device), and you need to know how to use these things.

One of the wilderness areas where I'd like to hike is Shining Rock. I have always avoided it because most of the time when I've been there the crowds have been horrendous. And you all know by now that I go to the forests for solitude, not to stand in line to climb a mountain. To Hell with that. And Shining Rock Wilderness is so beautiful and so unique that it is the single most popular wilderness area in North Carolina. Heck...it might be the most visited wilderness in the south, considering the lines of humans I have seen climbing to it heights.

What I have decided that I will have to do is go to hike and backpack there at a time when most others can't do so. This means that I'll have to head in on a weekday and when there are no holidays with which to contend. And when I finally do find such a time (winter is not a bad idea, either), I want to avoid getting lost at a particular spot where many others have lost their way. It's called Shining Rock Gap. Now, there are lots of places to get lost and misdirected up there, but I've been told that this one spot is like the Gordian Knot of intersections. There are several trails leading into and out of this gap, and there are also dozens of false trails, game trails, and manways meandering all through the spruce fir forests up there.

And you should also recall (if you've been visiting here for very long) that my personal kryptonite are forests of Red spruce. I almost never fail to get freaking lost in those.

That is why I am taking a particular photograph with me when I go. It's an image shot by a hiker (some guy named Trent Tibbits) who has been kind enough to take a photo of the trail intersections in that gap and to carefully mark each one so that you don't end up where you're not supposed to be and find that you have to backtrack several miles uphill to find your way.

And here is the photo. I'll be printing off a copy to take with me on the day I finally get to hike up there.

Confusing as hell intersections explained.

Also, this guy (the Foothills Backpacker) has done a decent video showing how not to get lost at this spot.

I'll probably still get lost.

Favorites

Among my favorite hiking areas are the highest mountains in western North Carolina. I've always had a strange feeling of euphoria when I'm in the peaks here in the South that exceed a mile in elevation. It's not actually the altitude--most people claim that you don't really feel altitude until you climb up to around 8,000 feet or so where the air begins to really get a little thinner. This feeling is something else. I can't explain it. You'd have to experience it, or perhaps it is something unique to me. All I can say is that a combination of sensations join to give me an overwhelming sense of well being when I'm up there.

One of these places where I like to hike are the summits and ridges north of Brevard in the Pisgah National Forest. Here there are many miles of trails that meander among the coves and peaks of this high country. I can travel there and make camp among the Fraser firs and watch twisted birches swaying in the winds. As long as I avoid the crush of the crowds around Shining Rock I can also find solitude and silence broken only by the breezes and the trickling of springs and creeks and perhaps the odd call of some bird sitting in the tight mazes of rhododendron.

Sometimes I go backpacking there and spend several days and nights tucked away among the grassy balds and hiding in evergreen forests with my tent pitched near a crushing stream. I need to go back, and often the desire to return is in the midst of winter when access to the higher trailheads is impossible due to roads closed by ice and snow, or sometimes just by nervous forest rangers afraid some idiot will get stuck up there in case of a sudden storm.

Just now I feel a really deep and almost overriding need to pack up my camping gear and head for the heights.

My two-man tent pitched deep inside Middle Prong Wilderness. It's heavier than my one-man tent, but sometimes I take it with me for the extra room.

Taken along the Black Mountain Crest Trail, the highest in the eastern USA.

Panorama looking toward Shining Rock Wilderness.

Man in wilderness.

In the cap between the double summits of Sam Knob.

Sam Knob from the meadow below.

A high summit in Middle Prong.

The summit of Mount Hardy, which I failed to climb.

In a red spruce forest at 6,600 feet on Cattail Peak.

Thinking of the High Country.

The past couple of weeks I have been having very vivid recurring dreams wherein I am either camping or backpacking. Beautiful, wonderful, colorful dreams. This tends to happen when I am feeling particularly homesick for my southern Appalachians. I travel around to wild places all over the United States, but my native southern highlands remain my favorite. Yes, there are things elsewhere that I grudgingly admit are not available here in our mountains...but then we have scenery that cannot be witnessed in those more extreme locales.

And, part of it, I have to admit, is that I grew up with these summits and they are ingrained into my psyche. Yes, I love my mountains.

If I can, the next place I will go to camp will be either the area around Shining Rock Wilderness, or deep in the Black Mountains. The Black Mountains are still my favorite hiking destination, so maybe that's where I'll go when I can.

When I go to the area around Cold Mountain, I tend to head over the Middle Prong Wilderness. This is because it's not as popular as Shining Rock even though they are separated only by a road. When Shining Rock is packed with people, Middle Prong remains silent and abandoned.

This is a spot I have been eyeing for years as a campsite above Deep Gap on the Black Mountain Crest Trail. Located at about 6,600 feet, it would be one of the highest campsites in the eastern USA.

The campsite just mentioned is located on the third peak visible in this photo. On my favorite NC hiking trail.

Near the Shining Rock Wilderness, but not in it.

Point Misery, in the Black Mountains.

Special Places

Sometimes when I'm tramping around the high country I'll happen upon a spot that just stuns me with its beauty. On my latest trip to western North Carolina I noticed a waterfall as I was driving down NC215 as it threads the 6,000-foot peaks between Shining Rock Wilderness and Middle Prong Wilderness. I just happened to look to my left and noticed a patch of brilliant white water as we drove over a wonderfully constructed rock bridge.

There was a jeep parked in a dab of extra space and the owner was sitting in the Lotus position in front of a striking waterfall that I could just barely see as I moved past.

"We'll have to check that out on the way back," I told my wife. And so we did.

On the return trip, the jeep was gone and I had more than enough room to maneuver my truck into place. I got out, grabbed my camera and small tripod and hopped over the bridge abutment. There were some big boulders to clamber over, but revealed almost immediately was a particularly beautiful waterfall. I don't know its name, but I feel certain it has one. It's about fifteen feet high and drops down into a gorgeous plunge pool.


Everyone who knows me recalls that I love to go swimming in mountain streams and especially at the base of whatever waterfall I find. This one has a glorious swimming hole at the bottom--about twelve feet deep, eight to ten feet wide, and maybe thirty feet long. Not a lot of room, but filled with glorious, clear, cold mountain water.

As soon as I can arrange the free time, I'll head back there to spend the day lazing around the waterfall and swimming in that inviting pool of pure water. Soon, I hope.