SATURDAY: LAST PILGRIMAGE HIKE in the SMOKIES

This is the hike I’m afraid of.  I asked a bunch of friends to pray for me.  The description:  “Big Trees Hike: Albright Grove.  Hike to one of the most magnificent groves of large, old-growth trees in the park.  Pass wonderful displays of wildflowers and an 1889 cabin made of chestnut.  Elevation change:  1600 foot ascent.  A 6.5 mile, moderate hike.” 

There are 800+ miles of trails in this huge park.  I can barely comprehend that. 

Since Great Smokies National Park is the most visited park of the 59 in the United States, nearby towns can get jammed with folks who don’t camp and need housing.  Gatlinburg is like a small, cheap version of Las Vegas.  There are 97 pancake houses and 54 barbecue restaurants.  Kathy got us a wonderful two-bedroom cabin (with kitchen) on a creek.   Every dinner we sit on the deck, listening to the brook gurgle and birds sing.

Sue is going to “Salamanders of the Smokies” so she drops me and Kathy off at the Conference Center where we get on a middle-aged bus.  Leon sits next to me.  Turns out he’s one of the guides. 

It’s a longer ride than I would have thought.   There are over 522,000 acres in this most popular national park so it can take awhile to get to specific trails.  Once we get on this trail, though, we see very few other people.  I am aware that this is our last guided hike and take many photos.

Someone finds a beautiful spotted salamander right after we see a wild ginger with three jugs.

Stiff shelf fungi are so large, I think they could hold a book or two.

A grasshopper is making additional holes on leaves I cannot hope to identify. 

 An old cabin built of chestnut wood speaks of another time.  First, because the chestnut blight killed nearly all chestnuts; all we see on the trail are the dead ones.  Second, because it reminds us that this national park was created completely out of private land.  Eighty years ago families had to leave their homes for us to have this gorgeous place which preserves the trees and plants.

  

We see lots of shiny club moss.  This is a very very old plant, one of the early ones to evolve.  It is not a moss, however.  It is called a “fern ally.”

We see some real mosses also.  There are so many different shapes and growing habits and shades of green.  I include the one climbing the tree even though it is a bit out of focus because I love the design.

  

 We see some familiar flowers from other trails and a few new guys.  I enjoy seeing a new violet (long spur) and a flower called Clintonia.  I just love finding Jack-in-the pulpit.  They can be male or female but are still called “Jack.”

Clintonia

Long-spur Violet

If I knew more about lichens, I could explain what this is.

Leon points out two grasses which are very distinctive:  seersucker grass and Frasier's sedge.  He says, “One of these days we’ll have to rename the seersucker grass because nobody will be left who remembers what seersucker was.” 

The trees are huge and gorgeous.  They tell us this is an old growth forest.  “What does that mean?”  Trees have never been harvested here.

Yellow Mandarin in front of large trees

We have a terrific place in which to enjoy lunch.  A water strider (is that its real name?) entertains me while I eat my almond butter and jelly sandwich, careful not to drop it in the water.

Then I look under some rocks and peeling bark of fallen trees, hoping to find salamanders or slime mold.  This white streaky stuff might be slime mold.  And look at the mosaic on this tree that’s died and is lying down for nature to do its thing. 

After I finish eating, I take a look around, eventually crossing the stream.  A fellow pilgrim who attended a program on fungi yesterday points to some teensy cup mushrooms.  I think about the bird’s nest mushrooms I have in my backyard but these are much darker brown and don’t have the tiny “eggs” in the middle.

Our other guide, Fay, sits by the water but then responds to someone’s complaint (that she is getting cold and sore just sitting down) by saying, “Let’s go!”  So we proceed up the trail and see a bunch more beautiful stuff.  At some point Fay asks whether we want to return now or go another 1 1/2 miles.  We vote to keep going. 

Possibly hay-scented fern around trillium

And we see even more massive trees. 

Dead chestnut is still standing

 Oh my, this is a giant silver bell tree!  Jeez, I hope this is a different species of silver bells than mine because mine is much too close to the house.

  Dwarf ginseng appears for us to enjoy.

These trillium have interesting insect guests.

An insect plus a spider enjoying this white trillium

 

And then, Dutchman’s Breeches, in the same family as bleeding heart and squirrel corn.  Those Dutchmen must have big hips!

More beautiful snails, one heading for another morel. 

This shell shows where the snail built a larger space for his growing body.

The ferns, lichens and moss are beautiful, plentiful, and varied.  It makes the area look so soft, so green.  Surely the leprechauns enjoy this as much as I do.

The other half of our pilgrim group (led by Leon) joins us, raving about their view of two snails mating.  Kathy says there was a strange blue bubble between them.  One woman shows me a picture she had taken of the snail couple.  Gee, I wish I’d seen that!  But we see the next best thing, two slugs consorting.

After walking quite a bit through a forest of mighty tall and broad trees, we realize we have nearly walked 7 1/2 miles.  A personal best for me! 

 Something called a female Blister beetle is sitting quietly on the trail.  Fay says they are supposed to create a blister on your hand if you pick them up.  Leon shows that’s a myth.

The last half mile we walk very briskly, following two men speed-walking in front.  One of them is legally blind.   When we stand around waiting for the bus to pick us up, he shares a memory of two years ago.  He and his wife were on a wildflower walk which was supposed to be eight miles long.  It was led by a woman in her late 80’s who took them on an extra trek to avoid a fallen tree, creating a 13 mile hike.  “You should meet her,” he suggests to me.  “No sir, I have no interest in meeting an 88-year-old women who can walk 13 miles in the mountains!”  Can’t I have my own moment of glory, walking nearly eight miles without needing to collapse?

We save our feelings of exhaustion for when we are sitting on the bus.  Kathy speaks with Sue on the phone.  Sue spent an exhausting hour on the road driving to our cabin through a massively crowded Gatlinburg.  To save Sue from picking us up at the Conference Center, Kathy asks the bus driver whether he could drop us off near the cabin.  Actually, she promises to say prayers for his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  Thankfully, he agrees, well-blessed man. 

We decide to pack tomorrow morning so we can go to bed and recover.  We will go on our own unguided walk in the Smokies before we head home.