1) When Professor Turtle (someone's trail-name), who is far ahead of us, writes in the journals left at each shelter, he sometimes writes a fun nature fact along with his name. I read one that informed me of what kind of trees/bushes we've been seeing. There are these shrubs with flat, glossy, year-round leaves that tend to grow in moist areas - usually around streams. If you're out of water, follow these trees to find a source! They are apparently Catawbiense Rhododendron! It feels good to be able to put a name with these plentiful shrubs.
On a side note, I'm really wishing I knew more about the forest, so I could tell what I was looking at. I'm realizing I know very few names of different types of foliage. I can only separate trees into two catagories: evergreens and not evergreens (to be fair, I can identify some trees, I'm only exaggerating due to my frustration at how little I know). We recently met a man from the U.P. (another Michigander! Woot woot!) who, after he retired, went back to school and got a second Masters in Forestry since he loves being outdoors so much. He is a true wealth of knowledge regarding the forest, and Christianity since his other Masters is in Theology. Quite an interesting guy - very intelligent and a fast talker! He clued me in on my next question:
2) I don't remember if I mentioned this on my blog or not (it's in my journal, though!), but back in Georgia we hiked through about a mile and a half of dead forest leading up to Wayah Bald. I was very puzzled about why it was all dead. Every tree, regardless to type, was nothing but a tall trunk without any branches, covered is various types of mosses. However, there were many young saplings growing up, about to bud. I ruled out acid rain, invasive bugs or plants, fire, frost, storms, and pollution. I couldn't figure out the cause, and it was maddening! Forrester Gump (trail-name of the gentleman I was typing about up there^), believes it is a case of perpetual dieback. He thinks the combination of too much moisture and too little soil causes the trees to continuously die off.
3) I kept hearing this low, pulsing sound, almost like a helicopter starting up of a bouncy ball being dropped and slowly speeding up. I thought it was something man-made, but it was everywhere! A fellow thru-hiker, ghostbuster, informed me, days after I had gone crazy trying to figure out what the sound was, that it was a grouse! We actually saw one a week or so ago - cute little bird, slowly waddling it's way off the path in front of us. Apparently, it is very rare to see one (although hearing them is a regular occurrence out in the middle of nowhere), but at the time we didn't realize how lucky we were to have spotted one, not 6 feet away!
No comments:
Post a Comment