Wish I Was There

100 degrees here. Hauling mail through the heat and sun. Wish I was somewhere else. I even know the place:

My feet in the pool of cold, clear water at the top of North Harper Creek Falls near Wilson Creek.

Inspiration

My campsite at the Mortimer Campground in the Wilson Creek section of the Pisgah National Forest.

Not quite a year ago I was having trouble putting the finishing touches on a novel. The book was giving me fits. I'd been working on this particular story for many years, but had finally buckled down to turn it into a novel some months before. But the last third of the book was tying me in knots. So I took a few days off from work, hooked the Casita to my truck, and headed up to the Mortimer Campground in the Pisgah National Forest for several days of relaxation, quiet, and inspiration from the wilderness.

It worked. I wrote like a demon for most of the time I was there (when I wasn't hiking). I didn't quite finish the book while I was in the woods, but I put a wonderful amount of work into it and was able to complete the novel within a week or so after returning. The trip really recharged my imagination and made me feel a lot better, despite having fallen and hurt myself and losing my camera on a waterfall!

At any rate, here were some of the sights that inspired me in early June of 2009:

On Darkside Cliffs. (Yeah, that's really the name.)

View from Darkside Cliffs. That's Grandfather Mountain in the middle on the horizon.

Mountain laurel. Arguably the prettiest wild flower in the southern Appalachians.

After almost three solid years of drought, Wilson Creek was up and full again, allowing kayakers to brave the reborn whitewater. I like this photo a lot, but most people don't seem to care for it. Not sure why. I think I did a good job on this one.

Myownself on Little Lost Cove Cliffs.

I think this is some type of violet.

A box tortoise I happened upon while I was hiking up to the cliffs.

Just a log spanning a creek with little cascade underneath.

Rock and moss and life-giving water.

The forest on the hike in to Darkside Cliffs.

Nice waterfall on Thorpe Creek just as I was getting ready to head back to civilization. (I didn't want to go back, except to get Carole and bring her to see this place, which we did about two weeks later, returning for another camp out with the Casita.)

Rock

Here in the Southeast, our mountains are pretty much walls of green. They are covered from base to summit, end to end, cove to ridge in the most vigorous temperate forest one could imagine. These are forests to rival any in the world.

Hell...in the Great Smoky Mountains alone there are over twice as many species of trees as there are in the entire continent of Europe. We have trees and shrubs and flowering plants of a dizzying variety.

And I challenge anyone to show me anything as beautiful as a mature cove hardwood forest of the southeastern USA. These forests are majestic. They are peaceful. They are packed from root to canopy with life.

And so, since it's such a rare treasure here in the South, most of us hikers and backpackers and waterfall wanderers are constantly searching for that isolated summit that is exposed, that is bereft of our precious forest cover. We search for them on the highest points, and along clifftops, and even on the false summits. When we find them we are actually happy to have them.

An unobstructed view is precious in our southern highlands.

And so, in my rambling in what we call our high country here in the East, I am always on the lookout for rock. For places where the bones of our ancient mountains are exposed to offer up the panoramas for which we hunger.

My hat's off to Southern rock.

Water keeps eating away at the most stubborn of caprock. It doesn't matter what it is or how high it is or how long it's been here. Eventually it'll all erode away and end up as sand on the coast.

Just before I took this photo a group of young rock climbers came picking their ways up the cliff face just beyond. Not my cup of tea, but I admire the folk who do that kind of thing. It takes nerves and guts and strength.

I love standing out on these rocky peaks. Nothing like looking at a 6,000-foot southern monster to make you feel small.

From Little Lost Cove Cliffs you can see the majestic peak of Tanawa/Grandfather Mountain. The highest in the Blue Ridge (5,964 feet above sea level.)

From the lower of the two Little Lost Cove Cliff peaks looking at the higher one.

A gnarled Table Mountain Pine struggling to earn a living on this exposed peak.

This is why there are so few panoramic views in the Southern Appalachians. Almost endless forests--among the most diverse and vigorous on the planet.

Wilson Creek Gorge(d) On Humans

Wilson Creek Gorge(d) on Humans
copyright 2009
By James Robert Smith

Easy access via roads,
the rednecks arrive
by the thousands.
They pack the two miles of Wilson Creek
that are the most rugged,
the most beautiful
that are not privately owned.

They gather like troops of apes.

Big-bellied biker bitches
with their tits hanging out
of size four bathing suits
pulled lard-tight around
size sixteen torsos.

Beauty as only the USA can produce it.

Tattooed shit-kickers,
some skinny, some fat,
all stupid,
their stomachs full of cheap America beer
and cut-rate colas
from Wal-Mart.

Something called "Dr. Thunder". The cans were left all along the river.

Noise everywhere.
Motorcars and four-wheel drive trucks
and jeeps tearing up and down
the one-lane road.
Only the constant presence of the Sheriff’s deputies
keep them in line
and their occupants out of the
morgues.

One of jillions of abandoned trashpiles along the creek.

Screaming country boys hooting
like the naked apes they are.
Their ugly redneck women
screeching in kind.
They set up temporary camps
on the rocks, on the beaches,
with campfires and plastic bags packed
with bad food and bad drinks.

By nightfall, they’re mostly gone.
They leave their filthy trash behind.
Their shitpiles of feces can be smelled
around the edges of the woods,
toilet paper smeared brown and black
blowing in the wind.
That pit toilet you saw?
Don't go in there.
For God's sake,
don't go in there.

Don't need that towel anymore? Leave it in the middle of Wilson Creek.

Ah, Wilson Creek,
I would like to sing the praises
of your natural beauty.
I would like to announce the spectacular cascades
and the huge boulders of white and
gold.
I would love to tell about the steep slopes
sweeping down to the rushing water
so crystal clear one could drink it down
were it not for the redneck shitpiles
steaming along your shores.

The local scum laugh at the rules.

Wilson Creek Gorge
gorged with humans,
The too-many, the lowest of the low,
the ignorant, the destructive,
the uncaring, the stinking, the loud,
the unfortunately-not-few,
my fellow Humans.

Maybe the Marines will take you.