No Girls Allowed (Part 1 of 2)

A movie that mirrors my childhood is Sandlot. It recalls a time when boys spent their days riding bikes and playing baseball with the other kids in the neighborhood. Well, not “other kids” exactly. Other boys. Girls weren’t invited.

Maybe you remember the scene where the main kid (a boy, of course) is frustrated because “it was like salt in an open wound; even my own mom, a grown-up girl, knew who Babe Ruth was.” Or the scene in which the ultimate insult was hurled by one of the boys: “You throw like a girl.” This was followed by a moment of stunned silence; a line had been drawn in the sand, a gauntlet thrown down.

When Greg Harrell told me about his hike on Woodchuck Ridge, I told him that we ought to hike it tomorrow, and he agreed. He’s a firm believer that if a hike is worth doing once, it’s worth doing again – even two days in a row. An hour later when I called to confirm the details, he broke the news to me: Keith and his wife, Pam, would be going, too. There was a moment of silence, just like in Sandlot. “Pam? A girl?” This was unprecedented. We had never considered bringing a grown-up girl along with us on one of these rough, off-trail trips. It was the notorious good ol’ boy network writ small. We didn’t intentionally leave our women out of the equation; we just never thought of it as a realistic possibility.

Knowing what I was thinking, Greg broke the silence by saying, “It’ll be okay. If Pam gets…whatever… she can wait for us at the heath bald while we go on ahead to Sharp Top.” In this case, we both knew that “whatever” could include injury or illness, but “getting whatever” really meant “if she can’t handle it because she’s a girl.” Of course, we didn’t say that out loud. We didn’t have to. That’s how the good ol’ boy network works. It’s mostly unspoken.

So a little after noon we four – three boys and a girl – piled in Pam and Keith’s car and drove to the Smoky Mountains. Greg directed us to the obscure parking spot where the old trail began. This is a trail that appears as a small, dotted line on an old map of the Smokies, and it shows up on the ground today as an overgrown, half-visible trail. It’s yet another example of an old, abandoned trail that is maintained not by national park work crews, but by the feet of the few people who know about it.

How do people learn about old paths like this? It must be either by word of mouth or by studying the old maps, as Greg had done. Since Greg first mentioned this path several months ago, we had heard of several people who had, in their own words, “gone to Sharp Top the hard way.” We weren’t sure if this was the route they had taken, but it seemed highly likely. There are no other obvious routes to the top except the popular, well-maintained trails.

It was a cold day in January with patches of snow and ice on the ground as we hopped out of the car and shouldered our daypacks, so we wore hats and jackets. I watched in horror as Pam donned a pink bandana. Yes, pink. She seemed to sense that she had broken through the glass ceiling and was rubbing our noses in it.

This route to Sharp Top would be a mere two miles, but it would climb about 2,500 feet in those two miles. It would travel steadily along tiny Woodchuck Creek for less than a mile, then would ascend to the crest of Woodchuck Ridge for the second mile. So this hike was serious work from the very first step. Greg and Keith maintained a quick pace and pulled away from Pam and me. We hiked more or less together, talking occasionally about the trail, the views, the sweat and dirt, families. It was all fine. Although there was a moment when Pam mentioned something she had bought at TJ Maxx. I had to stop her at that point to tell her that shopping trips were unacceptable topics of conversation. In her defense, I think she was going to tell me about a fleece jacket or gloves that could keep you warm while hiking in January. Nevertheless, I couldn’t take the chance that Greg and Keith might hear us talking about a shopping trip. Pam was treading on thin ice, and I couldn’t let her pull me down with her. [To be continued.]

Going Nocturnal

If I were going to make an evening hike for a mountain-top sunset and then hike back soon after dark, I’d plan my trip on a night of a waxing half-moon.

A waxing half-moon?

If you are like most of us, you might need a little help here because you studied this stuff in your seventh grade science class, but haven’t had to think about it since that final exam. It’s ironic that we have been able to conquer the darkness with fossil fuels and electricity, but we have become alienated from the things that happen at night – the animals, the stars, and the phases of the moon. We just aren’t outside much after sundown, and when we are, we are usually surrounded by the blinding glare of halogen and neon. So, we’ve lost touch not only with the night sky but with thousands of years of human knowledge. I can’t say that I frequently feel the urge to get in touch with the thousands of generations of humans that have preceded us, but it is nice to know that whenever I look up in the sky and think about the stars or moon, I’m doing exactly that.

Back to our seventh grade science lesson…the moon takes four weeks to go through its entire cycle. It takes one week to go from the tiny sliver of the new moon to a half-moon and another week to go from this “first” half-moon to a full moon. This is its waxing (growing) phase. The third week is spent shrinking (waning) from full to half (the “second” half-moon). The final week sees the moon wane further from half to gone, followed immediately by new again. You probably knew all that.

But here’s the part that is probably a bit fuzzy to you. The various phases of the moon will light up different segments of the night. A full moon will rise in the east at the same time that the sun sets in the west. This full moon will spend the entire night moving across the night sky and will set in the west just as the sun once again rises in the east at the beginning of the following morning. The full moon has enlightened the full night.

You might think that a night hike should take place under a full moon rather than a half moon. Not necessarily. While a full moon will be bright, it will also be low in the sky for the first few hours (and the last few hours) of the night. Depending on when you intend to hike, it may be better to night hike under a three-quarter or half-moon because it will be higher in the sky. Here’s how that works.

The moon rises about an hour later each night as it goes through its month-long cycle. This means that some weeks the moon lights up the first part of the night and other weeks the latter part of the night. A quick and easy way to remember this is to remember that the “early” (waxing) moon lights up the early part of the night, the full moon lights up the full night, and the “late” (waning) moon lights up the late part of the night. So, at the end of the moon’s first week, the moon is half full and is going to light up half the night. Because this half-moon is its first or early half, it lights up the first half of the night – from sunset to midnight. One week later the full moon will light the entire night. Yet another week brings another half-moon – the second or late half-moon. This half-moon will light up the second or late half of the night – from midnight to sunrise.

So, if I will be night hiking in the early part of the night, maybe the first hour or two after sunset, I prefer an early (waxing) half-moon. The fact that it is an “early” moon means that it will light the early part of the night, starting at sunset and disappearing over the western horizon around midnight. The fact that it is half rather than full means that it will be high in the sky when the sun sets.

On the other hand, if I will start hiking at 4 or 5 am, I’ll be hiking at the very end of the night, so I want to hike under the moon in the late weeks of its cycle. I’ll time my hike for a waning half-moon, ensuring that this bright moon will be high in the sky during those couple of hours preceding sunrise.

Or, just write this down in your trail guide: for a pre-dawn hike, it’s best to go 4 to 7 days after the full moon; for a hike soon after sunset, go 4 to 7 days before the full moon. Of course, take a flashlight, just in case.

Good night (hiking).

Snorts and Hoots

I have a few CDs that are a mixture of nature’s sounds and instrumental music. They’re called things like “Loon Summer” or “Yellowstone Nights” and have the usual sounds: rivers, rain, thunder, wind, bird songs, plus a few snorts, cackles, and howls thrown in. I don’t listen to them a lot, but I do go through phases when that’s my background noise of choice. I get some strange looks when someone walks into my office just as an elk is bellowing out his mating call. I used to try to explain to my visitor what the CD was all about. Now I just say, “What? Never heard an elk mating call before?” I’ve found that bluffing my way through life works pretty well, and this situation is no different. I just act like elk snorts are normal office music and anyone who doesn’t recognize that fact is obviously an environmentally-insensitive barbarian. It’s a strategy that works only occasionally, but it’s quicker than giving the full explanation. And if people walk away with the impression that I’m a bit eccentric, I consider that one of the privileges of aging.

Of course, we get many of those sounds for free during those mild days of spring and fall when we can sleep with our windows open at night. That’s one of the many joys of living in a rural area. The owls, coyotes, and whip-poor-wills let us know that they are out there, doing whatever it is they do until the sun rises again.

I’ve heard stories about people from the city who visit their country relatives and can’t sleep at night because it’s either too quiet or the night-time noises are unfamiliar. Their primary contact with nature during a typical week is scurrying across the parking lot from their car to the office, so their idea of “the sounds of nature” is a bit different from us small town folks. I wonder if there’s a market for CDs featuring loud music overlaid with the sounds of traffic, police sirens, domestic disturbances, public drunkenness, and gunshots. We could keep a copy on hand for when our friends from Atlanta or Nashville come to visit; you know, just to make them feel at home and to help them get a good night’s sleep.

Every summer my buddies and I do a little night fishing, so we have to fish by sound. We spend a lot of time standing quietly, listening for a trout to make a noise as he feeds on insects floating on the surface of the river. We are usually listening so intently that we don’t hear much else. All our energy is focused on distinguishing the river turbulence from a fish’s splash, but at times when there’s no fish activity, the other night sounds become noticeable.

For the most part, the outdoors is quiet at night, but during these moments of stillness we begin to notice a few background noises: the croaks of frogs (big ones at the water’s edge, small ones in the trees), the splashes of beavers and muskrats, the whir of mayflies fluttering by, the conversations of owls. To me, there’s something about the calls of the owls that is haunting. Of course, lots of things seem haunting at night, but the owls are like disembodied woodland spirits, forest dwellers who are comfortable in the dark, unlike me who never quite gets his bearings in the black of night.

One very common owl in the eastern US, from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, is the Barred Owl. This owl gives a classic owl hoot but with a very distinctive, non-hooting, closing note of “awl.” Peterson describes it as, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” The words “who cooks for you” are the hoots. The “you all” at the end is a non-hooting moan. But this is one that Peterson doesn’t get quite right, and it’s something that is obvious to a Southerner. The Barred Owl doesn’t end his call with “you all.” He ends it, very distinctly, with “ya’ll.” He says, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for ya’ll?” The ya’ll at the end is very clearly (at least to my ears) a one syllable ya’ll, not a two syllable you all. I’m sorry, but as a Southerner I just had to set the record straight.

I once asked a girl from Massachusetts to listen to a recording of the Barred Owl. She thought the call was “you all,” not “ya’ll.” Personally, I think she was just being stubborn; that, or maybe them Yankees just don’t hear too good.

Ya’ll have a good night, full of snorts and hoots.

A Grief Observed: The Year the Hemlocks Died (Part 2 of 2)

Our walk to see the largest Eastern Hemlock on the planet had been a pleasant experience – a fairly easy jaunt with an occasional hard, messy stretch to keep things interesting. As we moved toward the gap between Laurel Branch and the Middle Prong of the Little Pigeon River, we reached the big hemlock, the Laurel Branch Leviathan. Tall, wide, and dead. Yes, dead.

We had been warned that this might happen, and we weren’t surprised. An Asian bug – the hemlock adelgid – has been ravaging hemlock forests across the eastern US and has, in fact, infested nearly all the hemlocks in the Smokies.

My friends and I had noticed a significant difference over the past year. In years to come, people will probably speak of 2008-9 as the year when the hemlocks died. Walking in a hemlock forest such as Porters Creek was still a shady, green experience in 2008. Taking the same walk a year later was noticeably different. The sun was now shining where shade had dominated. Looking up through the leafy branches in 2008, one could tell that something was amiss. The branches were beginning to look a bit sparse, but they were still mostly green. By the spring and summer of 2009, those same Hemlock branches were naked and dead, like corpses in a morgue.

The Leviathan had been well-hidden, being discovered only a few years ago by researchers whose passion is searching the Southern Appalachian forests for big trees. But being well-hidden was its death sentence. If the National Park Service had known about this tree sooner, they could perhaps have saved it by dousing it with the chemical spray that kills the adelgids who lodge themselves on the tree’s branches, but the NPS spraying program was too late.

As we walked around the tree, admiring its fading glory, I saw the tell-tale blue and white paint blazes on the tree. I’ve seen these on healthy hemlocks, so I’m pretty sure these marks indicate that these trees had been sprayed, and I’m also pretty sure that the spray usually works… but only if the spraying is started soon enough.

Laurel Branch Leviathan: Going, going, gone...

The NPS has also been experimenting with predator beetles, the sworn enemies of the hemlock adelgid. I’ve read that it costs $2 or $3 to raise a single predator beetle, so this natural, non-chemical approach is slow and expensive. I’m not an entomologist, so I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’ll say it anyway: the idea of having to spend money to “raise” bugs doesn’t make sense to me. I would have thought that you could throw a male and a female on an infested hemlock, and they’d do what predator beetles do – eat hemlock adelgids and reproduce. Seems free and easy to me. But, like I said, apparently I don’t know what I’m talking about. Maybe the predators get eaten by woodpeckers or killed by heat or drought. Whatever the reasons, it isn’t free and easy, which shouldn’t come as a big surprise, since nothing ever is.

Luckily, the hemlocks probably won’t become extinct because the adelgids seem to prefer older trees. So young hemlocks will continue to sprout, but they’ll die after a few years, only to be replaced by a new generation which will also die young. This may be good news for Yellow Poplars which compete with the Eastern Hemlocks for dominance at elevations below 4,500’. For the overall ecosystem there will undoubtedly be negative consequences, but of course, nature will do what nature does – adjust, adapt, and move on.

It’s ironic that just a few yards away from the Leviathan Hemlock stands a large poplar. In fact, because poplars grow larger than hemlocks, that less-than-record-sized poplar is actually larger than the record-sized hemlock. Talk about stealing a guy’s thunder and kicking him while he’s down…!

My hope is that the predator beetles will eventually become self-supporting and will feed on those nasty, little adelgids with zest and will reproduce with gusto. If that happens, then all those young hemlocks might survive childhood and grow into handsome adults. So there is hope, but probably not in our lifetime.

And so, after a leisurely lunch by those two big trees – one representing the past and the other the future – we continued our walk through the gap and on to the Middle Prong. The forest along the Middle Prong is deep, green, and open. Another sylvan cathedral. The ground was covered with mosses, ferns, and spring wildflowers, and most of the trees were hardwoods, not hemlocks. This untarnished piece of creation will probably survive and flourish, unaware that a plague is sweeping through the hemlocks nearby.

The surrounding forest is open and green.

With a little luck we’ll not destroy this forest by some act of greed or stupidity; although, the list of victims – chestnut, elm, fir, hemlock – continues to grow. Thankfully, Nature doesn’t grieve as we do. It simply notices that the fir or hemlocks are gone and goes about its business of filling in the gaps. Adjust, adapt, and move on. And, thankfully again, given an adequate amount of soil and water, it does its job with power and extravagance. Yes, I’ll grieve for the loss of the Eastern Hemlocks, and yet I’m confident that whatever Nature decides to do in the Smokies, it will be beautiful.

Laurel Branch Leviathan (Part 1 of 2)

The promise of seeing the largest Eastern Hemlock in the eastern US had drawn about twenty folks to the Ramsey Cascade trailhead on a fine spring morning. Our leader, a long-time local hiker who had somehow learned the exact location of this tree, would take us a mile or two into the old-growth forest between Laurel Branch and the Middle Prong of the Little Pigeon River. There, in a gap at about 3,200’, stood a 156’ giant with an 18’ circumference – the Laurel Branch Leviathan. The fact that Eastern Hemlocks grow only in the eastern US means that it’s also the largest in America, the World, and the Universe, which is enough to get you out of bed on a Saturday morning to spend the day walking with people you don’t know.

Today’s hike would be a bit unusual for me because there would be about twenty of us. That’s about ten or twenty times as many hiking partners as I’m accustomed to. Nevertheless, I’d try to be on my best behavior and to hold up my end of any unprovoked conversations that I was subjected to. Of course, the fact that all the hikers were Smokies lovers (several had patches showing that they were part of the 900 Mile Club) meant that we could bypass the chatter about the weather and go straight to the interesting stuff – hikes we’d made, rivers we’d fished, and camping disasters we’d survived. It all worked out rather nicely, and by the end of the day I had made a few new acquaintances, some of whom could provide me with valuable information about the park. Big business isn’t the only place where networking is essential to success. Knowing the right people is also important in hiking, and three or four of these folks were definitely “the right people.”

We started on a small path that led up Little Laurel Branch and soon crossed a low ridge to Laurel Branch and followed this creek for about a half mile. Our line of hikers stretched out over 100 yards as some of our older members kept the pace slow, very slow. At first it felt excruciatingly slow, but after a while I shifted into a leisurely frame of mind and was able to appreciate the slow pace. Frustration over waiting for some of our older hikers (several were well into their 70s) quickly evolved into admiration. I wanted to tell them, “I hope I’m still doing this when I’m your age” but I know from experience that this is a left-handed compliment at best, and such remarks are not always received with gratitude. When someone says something like that to me, all I hear is, “Blah, blah, blah… you are really old and I’m amazed you can still do this… blah, blah.” (Remember the Charlie Brown TV specials? Remember the sound of the teacher? Yeah, it’s a lot like that.) So, I had to admire their determination to hike until the bitter end, to die with their boots on, but hopefully not literally and not today.

At an obscure fork in the creek we made a sharp turn to the northeast and made our way toward a broad gap in the ridge between Laurel Branch and Middle Prong. Somewhere in this stretch of the woods the path disappeared and we found ourselves walking in a sometimes-dry, sometimes-wet creekbed with rhododendron bushes choking the edges. This was probably the reason why the hike leader had called this a “moderate” rather than an “easy” hike.

One good thing about searching for a big tree in a forest is that the big tree is probably there for a reason – the reason being that much of this forest was not molested by the logging companies 80 years ago. It is either an “old growth” forest or was “selectively harvested.” That means there will be many mature trees, which holds the possibility of a deep, open forest with a minimum of underbrush. This open, cathedral feeling is not universal among old-forests, and I’m not sure of all the reasons why; however, this part of the forest near the Leviathan was definitely the cathedral type of forest. Although there were segments of rhododendron near the creekbed, there were many acres of open forest with a floor of green – moss, ferns, and wildflowers. It was like a Gothic cathedral with a soft, green carpet and a vaulted ceiling held aloft by living, wooden beams, exactly the kind of forest you’d hope to see on a trip that’s all about trees.

At about 3200’, as we neared the gap in the ridge, we found the Leviathan, standing tall and proud… and dead. [To be continued]

Blue Haze (Part 3 of 3)

Sunset and dusk from Andrews Bald were enchanting; although, really no more nor less than the view from dozens of other locations in the park, but that made it no less beautiful. The best part was the shaconage – the Cherokee word for “blue haze – that spread across the mountains. It’s the kind of gradual change that could be easily overlooked, especially if you focus on the sunset in the west. Yes, sunsets are great, but sometimes it’s good to look every direction except west. In the east you’ll see the ridges go from green, to yellow, to orange, to pink, to blue. It’s hard to detect while you are watching because it’s so smooth a transition. Only afterwards, as you think about the scene (and try to describe it), do you realize that there’s a range of colors between light and dark.

I can’t remember now if the south went through the same color sequence. What I remember best about the south was the innumerable ridges of the Nantahalas and the blue tint that seemed to seep out of the landscape and into the air. As the shaconage infused the valleys, the perspective, the distance, seemed to get sucked right out of the air. In the bright light of the sun, I could clearly see the distance between the ridges, but as darkness grew all those ridges just seemed to squeeze together. There was height and width, but no depth.

So I sat in the thick grass, letting the night take over. The moon was already high in the sky as the sun sank and darkness deepened. Walking around the top of Andrews Bald, I saw only a few, scattered, distant lights, plus the glow of Bryson City to the south. To be consistent, I should whine for a few sentences about the lights of Bryson City the way I whine about Pigeon Forge, but I can’t. I like Bryson City. It’s a small, simple, working-class town with only a small bit of tourist trade. It’s still small enough that its subtle radiance seems to emphasize the darkness that surrounds it rather than detracting from it.

Happily, there was one thing that was completely invisible at that moment: Pigeon Forge and Sevierville. Their glow was completely blocked by Clingmans Dome and the main ridge crest to the north. Having a 180 degree view rather than 360 is a small price to pay for eliminating the glow of Pigeon Forge and Sevierville. It was as if they had been wiped off the face of the earth. A bit drastic perhaps, but an idea worth considering.

An hour after sunset the full weight of the night had settled in, and the bank of clouds had moved in and blotted out the moon. My walk back would be by the light of a flashlight, not the moon. I suppose that’s the chance you take when you hike in the spring. There’s less humidity now than in the summer, so the views will be more expansive, but the weather is the wild card. I suppose I should have known – spring weather being what it is – that a clear blue sky during the day was no guarantee of a clear sky in the evening. But that’s okay. It’s good to see the mountains in all their moods. Wind, clouds, and rain are part of the package.

My next visit to Andrews Bald will probably be in late June or early July, when the catawba rhododendron and flame azaleas are blooming. Probably another evening hike because that will be the only way to escape June’s teeming masses that will fill every nook and cranny from exit #407 on I-40 to Clingmans Dome parking lot.

Every nook and cranny, that is, except Andrews Bald and those top two miles of Forney Ridge Trail about an hour before sunset.

[Visit http://www.greghoover.blogspot.com/ for more information on making a memorable Andrews Bald trip.]


Website information:

This trip has the potential to be one of your most memorable Smokies experiences.

This story gave you most of the information you’ll need to do this hike. But let me give you one other tidbit. If I’m going to watch a sunset and then hike back soon after dark, I prefer to go 4 to 8 days before a full moon. That way, the half moon will be high in the sky when the sun sets, and I can walk back under a bright moon soon after the sun sets. (If the moon is full, it will be very bright but low in the sky for several hours.)

An interesting twist on this hike is to do it during peak rhododendron and flame azalea time, usually mid to late June, rarely early July. Don’t be surprised if you are not alone on this occasion. Quite a few people make these moonlit trips during the blooming season; although, many of them wait for a full moon, which is fine if you are willing to wait a couple of hours after sunset to let it get higher in the sky for your walk back, or if you intend to pull an all-nighter by starting your hike soon after sunset and walk back before dawn. (There’s a long-standing Smokies tradition of hiking to the top of Gregory Bald during a full moon of rhododendron and flame azalea season. This is a good strategy to avoid the day time traffic – arrive soon after dark and make your entire trip a night trip.)

I just checked the calendar and the full moons for 2009 are approximately June 7 and July 6. That means 4 to 8 days prior to that is about June 1 and July 1. On this schedule, I’d try the first few days of July for a moonlight and flowering shrubs walk. Walk to Andrews (or Gregory) in the late afternoon, let the sun set, then walk back under a half or three-quarters moon. I might bring a blanket and a star chart and make an evening of it. Watch the sun set and the stars come out. (I suspect many flower and moon hikers will hike on the weekend of July 4/5 – not because it’s the 4th but because it’s the weekend closest to a full moon, which many night hikers prefer.)

An alternative would be to go a few days after the full moon, which would put this hike in the middle of June or the middle of July. You could get up early and walk to Andrews before sunrise, under the light of the waning moon. The moon will be high in the sky not at sunset, but at sunrise. Then watch the sunrise in the east, hang around as the day awakens, then hike back in the morning sunlight.

This trail is heavily wooded in some spots, so be sure to bring a flashlight because even a full moon on a cloudless night won’t be able to shine though all those spruce and fir branches. There will probably be some dark sections, so the flashlight will come in handy.

Of course, always bring a rain jacket, a light jacket, water, snacks, and a modest sense of adventure.

Still Bald, After All These Years (Part 2 of 3)

I walked alone, with a strong, evening wind whisping through the trees. This top two miles of Forney Ridge Trail is mostly spruce and fir trees. Normally, you can tell the spruce by their pointed, stiff needles and the fir by their rounded, flexible needles. Unfortunately, there’s an easier way to distinguish between the two: the big trees are spruce and the small ones are fir. The fir trees don’t get big because they are all killed by the balsam adelgid once they get 10 or 15 feet tall. So anything taller than about 20 feet is almost certainly a spruce.

As I hiked to Andrews Bald and encountered the hikers heading in the opposite direction, we’d swap “howdies” and keep walking, occasionally stopping to ask, “Are we there yet?” As we’d pass on the trail about an hour before sunset, I could see the unspoken question in their eyes and expressions: “Hey, man. Are you sure you know what you are doing? It’s getting late, and you’re heading in the wrong direction, aren’t you? You’re going to be out there in the dark, all alone.” I can guarantee you that every single person I encountered thought exactly that, not knowing that being out there in the dark, all alone, was the whole point.

A great thing about Andrews Bald is that it’s still a bald, one of only two remaining in the park. Years ago you could enjoy Spence Field, Russell Field, or other grassy areas on the high ridges of the western half of the park. They had been maintained as mountaintop pastureland by cows grazing in the pre-park 1920s and 30s, and even as late as the 1980s they were still impressively open and grassy. However, the NPS is letting all the balds revert to their original, natural, wooded state – except Andrews and Gregory. They may not be pure, unadulterated wilderness, but they are still beautiful, unique reminders of the park’s previous incarnation as a home to farm families with cattle to feed. It’s the same policy that keeps Cades Cove open, grassy, and attractive or that keeps a few cabins and barns standing as a testament to the human side of the Smokies. Whatever the philosophical debates about wilderness preservation, the Smokies’ two remaining grassy balds are worth a visit, and Andrews is by far the easier of the two.

I emerged from the dark woods and into the open field around 7:30, leaving plenty of time to explore. The top of Andrews Bald is a serene, grassy field with scattered clumps of spruce and fir trees, flame azaleas, and catawba rhododendron. There are numerous, faint, meandering trails leading to various rocks, high spots, or shady spots – good places to sit, eat, sleep, or all three. As I walked I paid careful attention to a few landmarks and my general direction of travel. Over the years I’ve learned that I have a pretty poor sense of direction, so I have to make a deliberate effort to pay attention at times like this. On past family vacations I could get us from Tennessee to Montana or Maine on interstates, two-lanes, and dirt roads, but if we pulled into a McDonalds, I couldn’t figure out whether to turn left or right as we pulled out of the drive-thru and back onto the road. My wife or kids would have to point the way back to the interstate. So finding my way back across a grassy bald was not a foregone conclusion, especially at night. As it turned out, this was easy – Forney Ridge Trail across Andrews Bald is the deepest trail, having been worn down 6, maybe 12, inches below the grassy surface.

I explored the faint trails to enjoy the changing view into this southwestern part of the park. There are good views of Fontana Lake and the Nantahala Mountains to the south and High Rocks and Gregory Bald to the west. It was the perfect stage for a sunset; however, my moonlit, return hike wasn’t shaping up very well. Those clouds I had seen in the west a couple of hours earlier were now much bigger, broader, and closer. This could make for a pretty sunset, but I could see that my window of opportunity for a moonlight hike was closing fast. The moon would soon be covered with clouds. [To be continued.]