Sunday, May 21, 2017

Bunk - May 20

Great week. Probably the highest mileage week so far and the biggest elevation gains. We have covered 596 miles, 1594 to go. Monday we will enter the Great Smokey Mountain Natl Park. Really excited about that.

If you have had enough about trees from me then go ahead and hit delete. These forests in GA and NC are full of the tallest, straightest, most beautiful trees I've ever seen. In the deepest forest the branches on these giants start at 60 or 70 feet. Amazing.

Before I came here I would have said all Eastern forests are beautiful, but not that different. Not so. I wish I was a good enough photographer to capture how dope they are. They hold my attention all day long.

Flowers are starting to pop out too. Beautiful orange ones on small trees I've never seen before. The Mountain Laurel are coming on strong too. Sometimes we hike through a thicket of them for a couple hundred feet.

Check out Best Wife in a field of ferns. Ferns are always a treat.

I hope we are all finished hiking through burned areas. They are an interesting change of scenery but not the most pretty stretches of our hike.

I must have spent 10 or 15 minutes admiring the colossal violent fractured oak. The twisted and broken fibers of that mammoth tree are unlike any other I've ever seen. Of course we see blow downs all day long. I need to catalog all the different types because there are plenty. All the way from simple leaners to the big boys who take down half a dozen other trees with them as they fall.

One thing is for sure, that guy who asked if a fallen tree in the forest makes a sound if nobody is around to hear it must have been an idiot. These guys make a tremendous tearing crashing sound on their way down ending with a deep earth rattling thud as they make contact with soil or rock. What a thrill it would be to see a fat 100 footer make her decent in a raging wind storm.

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