Monday, February 14, 2011

National Park Hyperbole (Part 1 of 2)

Every now and then, something unusual happens: my time in the Smokies doesn’t live up to my expectations. That happened to me recently in Albright Grove.

If there’s one lesson I’ve learned over the years, it is this: the secret to happiness in life is lowering your expectations. I usually say this as a joke, and yet it’s amazing how often it fits the circumstances, on an almost daily basis. Job, sports, health, relationships, teenagers, our political leaders… the list goes on. So maybe it’s not a joke after all. There must be some truth to it. If you aren’t convinced, consider the Vols’ last few football seasons or your 401(k).

Maybe Albright Grove belongs in this list…

After buying some apples and honey at Carver’s Applehouse in Cosby on a crisp October Saturday (very early October, before the deluge of leaf-watchers struck), Phyllis and I turned onto Baxter Road and wound around to the trailhead of Maddron Bald Trail. There’s room for only 3 or 4 cars here, but today that was plenty. So we shouldered our daypacks and walked past the gate and up the trail. Up is the right word here, but with no exclamation points or capital letters. This trail is wide and well-maintained, and its incline is unrelenting but “moderate,” to quote the trail guide. Yes, it’s that 500’ rise per mile that is very common in the Smokies. That was clearly the gradient of choice in the 1930s when the CCC built these trails. I’ve sometimes wondered if the trails were being built today whether the builders might choose a milder incline because we are today a softer, more delicate people than 75 years ago. Still, 500 feet per mile is manageable, even for those of us who were born in the mid 20th century.

Phyllis and I moseyed our way up the trail, stopping often to examine flowers, leaves, stumps, red squirrels, juncos, even an old cabin. As usual, the surroundings were pleasant. The weather was fabulous. The occasional glimpse of nearby mountain tops showed that the colors of fall were just beginning the show at the highest elevations and would spend the next few weeks marching gradually down the slopes.

Our goal this day was Albright Grove, a portion of the park that is described in some of the park literature as a magnificent section of unspoiled virgin forest that escaped the logger’s axe. I don’t know what you visualize when you hear that, but I visualized a deeply shaded, mature forest with a high, thick forest canopy held aloft by huge trees. It would give the feeling of being in a cathedral with a high, vaulted ceiling. There would be some underbrush, but the shade would have choked out much of it. There would be a sense of openness and depth and peace. As one book says, “Being in the Albright Grove has the kind of effect that lingers in your memory for instant recall, soothes the spirit with profound quiet, gives nourishment to the soul.”

Okay, everyone is entitled to their opinion… and my opinion is that it’s time to lower your expectations. Most of those folks who have written glowing reports of Albright Grove have fallen victim to that dreaded disease – National Park Hyperbole. Its primary symptom is verbal exaggeration. It’s an affliction much like alcoholism or pollen allergies: once you’ve been stricken, you will battle it your entire life, sometimes resisting, sometimes succumbing. If a writer describes a view as “the best” or “the most dramatic” or some such superlative, you can be confident that he’s suffering from a case of NPH. Albright Grove seems to be a spot that triggers serious outbreaks of this affliction.

First, the huge, old trees. Yes, there are many bigger-than-average trees – the largest of which are sickly, some almost dead. I don’t mean to be crass here, but Albright Grove felt more like a nursing home than a cathedral. Those old, old trees surely had some stories to tell, probably going as far back as the Revolutionary War, but they seemed too sick to open their eyes and speak.

That’s not to say that the entire forest was sickly. On the contrary, it was, for the most part, healthy. That’s because most of the forest was young with various species of trees still struggling with each other for dominance. As we walked through the Grove I wondered why. Why not an old, established forest? Why not a cathedral? [To be continued]

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