in the 1930s. It is the biggest dam in America east of the Mississippi and something of an
attraction for people who like concrete in volume. We hastened down the trail to it as we
had an inkling that there was a visitors' center there, which meant the possibility of a
cafeteria and other gratifying contacts with the developed world. At the very least, we
speculated excitedly, there would be vending machines and rest rooms, where we could
wash and get fresh water, look in a mirror--briefly be groomed and civilized.
There was indeed a visitors' center, but it was shut. A peeling notice taped to the glass
said it wouldn't open for another month. The vending machines were empty and
unplugged, and to our dismay even the rest rooms were locked. Katz found a tap on an
outside wall and turned it, but the water had been shut off. We sighed, exchanged stoic,
long-suffering looks, and pushed on.
The trail crossed the lake on the top of the dam. The mountains before us didn't so
much rise from the lake as rear from it, like startled beasts. It was clear at a glance that
we were entering a new realm of magnificence and challenge. The far shore of the lake
marked the southern boundary of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Ahead lay 800
square miles of dense, steeply mountainous forest, with seven days and 71 miles of
rigorous hiking before we came out the other end and could dream again of
cheeseburgers, Cokes, flush toilets, and running water. It would have been nice, at the
very least, to have set off with clean hands and faces. I hadn't told Katz, but we were
about to traverse sixteen peaks above 6,000 feet, including Clingmans Dome, the highest
point on the AT at 6,643 feet (just 41 feet less than nearby Mount Mitchell, the highest
mountain in the eastern United States). I was eager and excited--even Katz seemed
cautiously keen--for there was a good deal to be excited about.
For one thing, we had just picked up another state--our third, Tennessee--which
always brings a sense of achievement on the trail. For nearly its whole length through the
Smokies, the AT marks the boundary between North Carolina and Tennessee. I liked this
very much, the idea of being able to stand with my left foot in one state and my right foot
in the other whenever I wanted, which was often, or to choose at rest breaks between
sitting on a log in Tennessee and a rock in North Carolina, or to pee across state lines, or
many other variations. Then there was the excitement of all the new things we might see
in these rich, dark, storied mountains--giant salamanders and towering tulip trees and the
famous jack-o-lantern mushroom, which glows at night with a greenish phosphorescent
light called foxfire. Perhaps we would even see a bear (downwind, from a safe distance,
oblivious of me, interested exclusively in Katz, if either of us). Above all, there was the
hope--the conviction--that spring could not be far off, that every passing day had to bring
us closer to it, and that here in the natural Eden of the Smokies it would surely, at last,
burst forth.
For the Smokies are a very Eden. We were entering what botanists like to call "the
finest mixed mesophytic forest in the world."
The Smokies harbor an astonishing range of plant life--over 1,500 types of wildflower,
a thousand varieties of shrub, 530 mosses and lichen, 2,000 types of fungi. They are
home to 130 native species of tree; the whole of Europe has just 85.
They owe this lavish abundance to the deep, loamy soils of their sheltered valleys,
known locally as coves; to their warm, moist climate (which produces the natural bluish
haze from which they get their name); and above all to the happy accident of the
sean pound
(Sean Pound)
#1