Family

Morning

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A sweetgum is silhouetted
        against the east cream-sky, leaves like
                black stars against inverted space,
Absorbing all light.

Weathered, brittle plastic toys lie
        scattered in the backyard, glowing
                in faint beatific rose rays
For a little while.

The house sits quiet and languid
        as the summer air outside feels
                like a held breath, waiting to burst
Out, then in again.

When the kids wake, the spell will be
        broken, but for the time being,
                the world itself seems possible,
Open, blank, watching.

Maybe today’s news won’t happen,
        and all is cream and roses and
                God is standing back of it all
                        Breathing, “It is good.”

Image: Appalachian Sunrise, Watauga County, N.C., July 2018.

Notes from Un-Sovereignty

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Truly, truly, I say to you, when you
Were young, you used to dress yourself and walk
Wherever you wanted, but when you’re old,
You will stretch out your hands, and another
Will dress you and carry you where you do
Not, in the very slightest, want to go.

So Christ said to Peter, then bid him go.
That goes for him, we reason, But not you.
It’s fine to call him out, but please don’t do
Anything to upset plans as we walk
Head-high, knee-deep, this path or another,
No thought of stumbling, falling as though old.

All things, once fresh, grow stale, pale, cheap and old
to youth, who only ever want to go.
Not for us, attending to another,
To listen, learn, to sort out me from you.
Patience is anathema. Why not walk
When told to sit? Why walk? Running will do.

It’s all well and good, doing what we do.
I’ll sleep when I’m dead. I’ll die when I’m old.
Until one day, hand in hand, we two walk,
Without a care for where all this might go.
My run inevitably stops for you;
One soul, beneath the weight of another.

But are we to carry one another
From strength to strength as lovers? Say “I do”;
Wait, spent, for the same words to come from you?
If we must, let us together grow old.
What you want, I give. Where you lead, I go.
Cradle to altar is not far to walk.

Back again, from altar to cradle walk
The two, from whose lives has come another,
Crying, You may not, now or ever, go
Where you want to go. Neither may you do
What you wish to do. I’m young, and you’re old.
Only on paper I belong to you!

To walk from dust to dust is what we do;
In this life or another, whether old
Or young, we go. I think I’ll go with you.

Photo: Path with Beeches, Reflection Riding Arboretum, Chattanooga, Tenn., November 2017.

Into the Woods: Roan Mountain

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Nothing dredges up memory as quickly and thoroughly as smell. A subtle scent unleashes a flash of thoughts, feelings, and experience from various points in our lives. This connection is well known to literature, and brain science seems to point to this being a design feature. The parts of the brain that process smell (the olfactory bulb) are in close proximity to those responsible for emotional memory (the amygdala and the rest of the limbic system). It’s supposed to be this way.

For me, one of the most powerful of these “smell markers” is the peculiar perfume of the Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest. Part Christmas tree, part mushroom, part skunk, part grass, and all wrapped in a lightly chilled cloud. If you’ve sniffed it, you know what I mean. If not, there is really nothing else like it. Part of the charm is its relative rarity…there are only a handful of spots in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia that have all the right ingredients.

These spruce-fir pockets are islands in the sky, little corners of Canadian climate poking up above the rest of the subtropical South. Their altitude (generally north of 5,000′ above sea level) and isolation makes access difficult, helping with preservation. Of course, that same uniqueness has always fed visitor’s curiosity, and many such outposts have vehicle access (if you can stomach the curves) nearly to the summit—Cligman’s Dome, Mount Mitchell, Grandfather Mountain, Black Balsam Knob, Whitetop, and Roan Mountain, among others.

Roan, a long massif straddling the N.C./Tenn. line was one of the first to attract tourists, with the long-since burned down Cloudland Hotel bringing a select clientele to the mountain “for their health” when the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was barely a gleam in Horace Kephart‘s eye. Among hikers, Roan is known more for its expansive balds and their 360° vistas than its forests, and this interplay of two such uncommon ecosystems may account for its early and continued popularity.

Today, the mountain’s long, green backbone is well protected by Cherokee (in Tenn.) and Pisgah (in N.C.) National Forests. The Appalachian Trail traverses the ridgeline from West to East, and the shelter at Roan High Knob (6,285’) is the highest spot to sleep anywhere on the trail. To further add to its allure, the western end contains a “heath bald” so thick with catawba rhododendrons that it is marketed by the forest service as a garden. This section is even handicap-accessible, with gently sloping paved trails weaving through thickets of wind-pruned shrubs. In mid-June, when these fully bloom, the effect is nothing short of magical.IMG_6620

To return to nostalgia, I lived for many years (and my family still does) in Watauga County, North Carolina, and Roan was always one of my favorite spots for a day hike. I’ve seen bathed in artist’s-palette sunsets, in hailstorms, buried under feet of snow, and wrapped in fog so thick you can barely see where to put your next footstep. It never disappoints. If there is a beau ideal of Appalachian wildness, this is it.

It’s been several years since I last visited, and I wanted to bring my daughters to share in my love for the place. We spent last week at my family’s house, and were able to pay our respects to the mountain (N.B. – Tempting one’s children with a trip to the state park pool at the bottom of the TN side is a great hiking incentive). Hoping to catch the rhodie bloom, we opted to park at the gardens area. Though things peaked early this year, we were still rewarded with mounds of magenta flowers. Plenty of other plants were likewise in bloom: purple-flowered raspberry, hawkweed, bluets, gray’s lily, and more.

From the gardens (which, for those keeping track of family-friendly hikes, are seasonally equipped with restrooms and running water), we took a 3-mile round trip walk along the Cloudland Trail to Roan High Bluff on the far west of the massif. This is an easy walk, unless you’re not used to the altitude (laugh it up, Coloradans. Some of us live at only 700′!), and mostly forested. Mountains have a way of creating their own weather, so the bright green moss and plentiful mud we encountered are typical. The viewing platform at the end of the trail is well worth the trek. Once back at the gardens, we sealed the deal with a fine picnic.

As every parent will attest, there is a special joy attached to seeing your offspring revel in one of your own childhood haunts, sharing in your story in a new and deeper way. I hope this is one in a long line of visits that lets this incredible place sink deep into their souls.

If you’re ever in the area (the peak is about an hour’s drive from either Boone, N.C., or Johnson City, Tenn., and just shy of 2 hours from Asheville), make sure to let the Roan work its magic on you as well. Just don’t all show up at once, OK?

Into the Woods: Observation Point

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This trail log is a bit of throwback (not too far, only to early October). Not every hike makes it into a blog post, but leaving this one off would be a titanic omission.

Zion National Park, taken as a whole, I couldn’t describe without waxing poetic. The hike to Observation Point, however, merits a fuller description. This path hewn from the cliffsides covers every major landform of Zion Canyon. From the banks of the Virgin River, it climbs over 2,000 feet in four miles, up through one of the many slot canyons of the area to crest the plateau and offer what may be the most incredible view in Utah. Many more visitors attempt the iconic Angel’s Landing, but this trail lets you literally look down on the crowds clinging to the chains on that approach.

For us lifelong Easterners, everything out West is photogenic. Arid expanses unblocked by vegetation and “civilization” shock the senses. It’s hard enough to stop snapping when you’re driving down the Interstate, so let me apologize in advance for the preponderance of images in this post.

Rugged and remote as it is, getting to Zion is not that hard. It’s a pleasant 35 minute ride from I-15 to the park’s south entrance. Floor of the Valley Road, running up into the canyon (Zion’s most prominent feature, but only a small corner of the whole park), was once crowded with traffic, but since 2000, visitors are required to park at the visitor center and ride a free shuttle to access most of the canyon.

A journey to Observation Point starts at shuttle stop #7, at about 4,300′ above sea level. From the pullout there, the trail begins with a, shall we say, rather abrupt ascent. After a brief but steep straight pull, a series of massive switchbacks carry you up a sparsely treed near-vertical slope to 5,200′.

Though this is a desert, the shade of the canyon walls and relatively high altitude allow for quite an array of small plants (scrub oaks, canyon maples, prickly pears, asters and other wildflowers) to cling to the nearly soil-less hillside. Zigzagging up the trail, views of the valley floor slowly expand to the west, quickly rewarding your exertion. Continue reading →