MOUNTAIN DEATH
The Fraser Firs were among the most beautiful trees in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Now, the adult firs are dead. Walking among their remains is like walking through an old cemetery with tall headstones and monuments. The killing of the firs happened some time during the 1980’s. While the cause is unknown, some suggest natural causes and others manmade. It was probably a combination of the two. I suspect that it was a single catastrophic manmade episode, like an extraordinarily large emission of some toxic substance. This opinion is based on two totally unscientific observations. The first observation is that one year in the mid to late 80’s, all the foliage in the park appeared to be affected by something. Everything seemed to be a washed-out dull green rather than bright, deep, and dark. The second observation is that there are now thousands of seedling firs which appear to be thriving, indicating that the trees which are now dead dropped viable seeds before their demise and that the new trees have not been subject, at least so far, to the cause or causes which devastated their parents. But the mystery remains and the quality of the forests is severely impaired. Mental images of the beauty of the mountains in 1980 came to mind as I hiked the Appalachian trail in 1997.
Our hike on the last weekend in May, Memorial Day, began from the Cosby Campground and ended at Newfound Gap, with an overnight stay on Mt. Le Conte, a distance of about thirty-five miles. The Snake Den trail climbs steeply out of Cosby Campground for five miles up to the Appalachian Trail which traverses the entire crest of the Great Smoky Mountains from Davenport Gap on the Northeast to Fontana Dam on the Southeast, a distance of 67.8 miles. Since, as hikers know, repeating a hike on the same trail is never the same experience. Each hike is new. This was our third hike over the same route. The first had been on Labor Day weekend in 1980. Our “group” has always been Ray Johnson, Paul Beecham, and myself, with various and sundry friends joining us from time to time. Ray and I had been friends in high school but had not seen each other for thirty years, reuniting at our thirtieth class reunion in 1980. We discovered our mutual interest in backpacking and have been hiking together ever since. The Great Smoky Mountain National Park is about equal distance from Atlanta and Nashville and has been our first choice for hiking.
We started up Snake Den trail at 8:00 a.m. in a light mist, not heavy enough for ponchos but enough to dampen everything, except our spirits. We paused at the small cemetery on the right and read the headstones before starting the climb. The towering Poplar, Buckeye, Locust, and Hemlocks filtered the light so that it was neither daylight nor dark, but an indirect low light which, with the mist, created a beautiful but eerie forest. The trail became steep very quickly, the best indication of which was audible breathing from everyone. The heavy breathing could even be heard above the rushing waters of Inadu (Cherokee) Creek. The altitude gain up Snake Den trail is 3400 feet, from 2400 feet at Cosby to 5800 feet at the crest. The character of the forest changed with gains in altitude. Rhododendron and mountain Laurel soon became abundant, creating tunnels of green over the trail. The forest became more Canadian-like with Spruce and Fir as we neared the top and came onto the Appalachian Trail just below Inadu Knob. The Appalachian Trail was relatively level and a welcome relief after the climb up Snake Den. We soon came to Deer Creek Gap, about which the Trail Guide book states: “Enter virgin spruce and fir forest.” There was only one problem. All the Fraser Firs were dead. All the way from Deer Creek Gap, over Mt. Guyot, Tri Corner Knob, Mt. Chapman, Mt. Sequoyah, to Porters Gap, a distance of thirteen miles, the fir trees were dead. This walk among the dead trees was somber. The remains stood erect and white, like mountains with toothpick trees. Ten years ago I would see an occasional tree which had died in its prime and wonder, “Does it matter that one tree in the forest dies?” Now I asked, “Does it matter that an entire forest dies?”
By the time we reached our shelter for the night at Tri Corner Knob, I was very depressed. Thinking of what we had seen, I sat on the ground beside a tree and wrote of mountain death:
Fraser Firs
The firs. once resplendent with rusty flaky bark
And English racing-green needles,
Stand now as bleached-bone sentinels
Reminiscent of
Military graveyard crosses –
To some unknown (disputed) cause
Natural or manmade,
Aphid or acid rain?
Who can know,
Except for one indisputable fact:
DEATH.
