Issuu

vo l ume 9 #1

The idea of a ramp approximately the gradient of the trail supported on vertical ‘trunks’ of concrete began to root itself in my mind. —Hubert Bebb, architect

SMOK IES LIFE MA GA ZINE

401013

$6.95

USA GSMA

SLcover vol9#1.indd 1

2/13/15 5:05 PM

SLcover vol9#1.indd 2

2/13/15 5:05 PM

PHOTOGRAPH BY HORACE KEPHART OR GEORGE MASA

James Cooper with his “puzzle tree” east of Bryson City. No one yet has been able to explain its mysterious growth pattern.

From the Editor: Mountains of Mystery Reading Napier Shelton’s article on mountain lions (“Phantom Felines,” pages 16 - 25) reminds me that one of the most valuable resources in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is mystery. For some reason we humans crave mystery and wonder in our lives; the notion of a world where all is explained and vivid is widely considered dystopian. This odd trait is evident in many of our most gratifying activities—the longing to explore outer space and the ocean depths, infatuations with vampire myths and lost worlds of goblins and hobbits, not to mention pop culture supernatural icons like Big Foot, ghosts, and Area 51.

With similar yearning, many of us feel that every hike or journey into the Great Smoky Mountains is an adventure, an exploration with a decent chance for discovery. More so than many other wild areas, especially arid landscapes where everything appears revealed, the Smokies verdant slopes and tangled ravines seem especially rich in mystery. This is no illusion. Bona fide mysteries do linger in these ancient mountain folds. Since 1998, Discover Life in America research has tallied 7,799 new species of plants and animals for the park and 934 that are completely new to the

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 1

science books. No one knows when the first elk will be sighted on Mount Le Conte or Clingmans Dome. Just as no one knew peregrine falcons had returned to Peregrine Peak or coyotes were occupying Cades Cove, until they were discovered. How many times in your own forays have you noted an unusual bird song here, or remnants of a home site far from the beaten track, or something just plain odd? What we don’t know about the Smokies is in many ways more precious than what we do. Steve Kemp, Editor Steve@GSMAssoc.org

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Volume 9 Number 1 $6.95 Publisher Great Smoky Mountains Association Contributing Editor Steve Kemp Lead Designer Lisa Horstman National Park Service Publications Liaisons Kent Cave, Elizabeth Dupree Designers Joey Heath Karen Key Editorial Assistance Kathy Antoniak Julie Brown Cyn Slaughter Research Assistance Michael Aday Advertising Sales Curt Talbot ©2015 Great Smoky Mountains Association. No portion of this magazine may be reproduced without written permission from GSMA. Executive Director Terry Maddox Marketing & Membership Director Lisa Duff National Park Service Coordinator Elizabeth Dupree Great Smoky Mountains Association Board of Directors Danny Bernstein Geoff Cantrell Mitch Crisp, Treasurer Herb Handly, Vice Chair William A. Hart, Jr. George Kimberly Dan Lawson Carolyn Leahy, Secretary Cheryl Light, Chair Tom Massie Wayne Shepherd Ken Smither Front /back cover photograph by Bill Lea

Attention Retailers To carry Smokies Life in stores, contact Curt Talbot, Curt@GSMAssoc.org or (865) 436-7318 x350 Advertisers: Contact Curt Talbot, Curt@GSMAssoc.org or (865) 436-7318 x350 416 Cherry St., Gatlinburg, TN 37738. Printed in the U.S.A. Smokies Life (ISSN 1937-0725) is published semi-annually by Great Smoky Mountains Association, a nonprofit organization. P.O. Box 130, Gatlinburg, TN 37738-0130 (865) 436-7318. www.SmokiesInformation.org This magazine is a premium for members of Great Smoky Mountains Association. To join, change an address, or make other membership inquiries, contact membership and special events coordinator Judy Collins at the address above or Judy@GSMAssoc.org. Memberships start at $35 per year. No submissions of manuscripts, photographs, or art, please. Written queries are welcome. Copyright 2015by Great Smoky Mountains Association. Send address changes or other membership queries to Judy Collins at the address above or Judy@GSMAssoc.org. Periodicals postage paid at Knoxville, TN. Postmaster: Send all address changes to Judy Collins, GSMA, P.O. Box 130, Gatlinburg, TN 37738-0130 or Judy@GSMAssoc.org. www.SmokiesInformation.org

This magazine is printed on paper certified to the environmental and social standards of the Forest Stewardship Council® and is printed with vegetable inks.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 2

2/18/15 1:23 PM

In This Issue Smokies Life Magazine Volume 9 Number 1

The 900 Miler Club There are no shortcuts on the long, steep, rocky, wet trail to membership in this elite organization. In fact, merely hiking 900 miles in the Smokies is not nearly enough to get you through the door. by Danny Bernstein

Phantom Felines Of any North American mammal, cougars once had the largest range. Scientists and amateur cougar enthusiasts are trying to answer questions about the existence of cougars in the Smokies, past, present, and future. by Napier Shelton

A Crowning Achievement: Building the Tower Atop Clingmans Dome Architect Hubert Bebb set off a whirlwind of controversy with his modernistic design for the mountain top observation tower. by Courtney Lix

Rewilding the American Chestnut A century ago, a person walking in the woods in the Smokies would have seen plenty of American chestnutsâ€”every third or fourth tree would have been one. But in the blink of an eye, the beloved chestnut and its endless bounty largely vanished, leaving mountain people in deep mourning. by Rose Houk

The Map Room An up close look at the backbone of Clingmans Dome.

The Smokiesâ€™ Winter Wren: Operatic Pixie of the Highlands Welcome to the high country of the Smokies, the dark haunts and lofty cathedral of the winter wren. by Stephen Lyn Bales

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 3

8 16 26 40 50 52

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 4

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 5

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 6

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 7

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Smokies Smokies Life Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 8

v 88

2/13/15 5:17 PM

You fill out a form, send in a few box tops or bucks, and viola!, welcome to the club. The Smokies 900 Miler Club is different. There are no shortcuts on the long, steep, rocky, wet trail to membership in this elite organization. In fact, merely hiking 900 miles in the Smokies is not nearly enough to get you through the door.

AN OBJECT IN MOTIONâ€Ś The history of the 900 Miler Club is as informal as the club itself. Though no one knows who had the first idea of

walking all the trails in the park, Margaret Stevenson and her hiking partner, Dr. Elgin Kintner, are credited for being the first ones to complete the trails in 1975. Stevenson was a hiking legend who also walked to Mt. Le Conte 718 times, the last time when she was 85 years old. The Smokies inspires hiking legends. Lou Murray, a member of the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club, and her teenage son, Andy, formally founded the Great Smoky Mountains 900 Miler Club in 1995. For many years, those who had hiked all of the marked trails in the Smokies sought some type of recognition for their accomplishment.

Smokies Smokies Life Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 9

v 99

2/13/15 5:17 PM

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF DANNY BERNSTEIN EXCEPT WHERE NOTED

Theresa Yu, Steve Pierce, and Lori Garufi on the Lakeshore Trail. All are intrepid hikers with the Margaret Stevenson Hikers group. Yu (of Oak Ridge, TN) and Garufi (from Walland, TN) are already 900 Milers at work on their “next lap.” Pierce is a “mapper” from Old Fort, NC.

e Smo ky Mo u n ta i n s H i k h t e r ' ers We

We have nothing else to do We spen d our spar e time hiking Like others seldom do.

Lou designed a patch and a certificate. Andy, 14 years old, became the association’s youngest member. The challenge is called the 900 Miler because, when the idea was first proposed, the National Park Service estimated that it had “about 900 miles of trails.” The park now has 803 miles of maintained trails, plus several

concession-maintained horse trails. However, you have to walk a lot more than 800 miles to reach all the trails. The lowest number of miles claimed by a 900 Miler is 1,025. Most members walk about 1,500 miles because they need to hike the same trail more than once to reach all the trails they haven’t hiked yet.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 10

2/13/15 5:17 PM

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF DANNY BERNSTEIN EXCEPT WHERE NOTED

Carolyn Ebel, the second president of the 900 Miler Club, walked the Smokies for quite a while before she met other passionate hikers like herself. She recalls, “Lou said ‘we’re going to have a group for people who’ve hiked all the trails,’ and directed me to write a song.” Ebel came up with a few verses to the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas. We’re the Smoky Mountains hikers, We have nothing else to do We spend our spare time hiking Like others seldom do. Ebel fell in love with the Smokies when she first flew over the mountains en route to an interview with the Levi Strauss Company, which had a facility in Knoxville. Ebel grew up in western New York State, along the Erie Canal. “We had a boat and I was outside all the time as a child. Maybe that’s where I got my interest.” Her small group of hikers ran on adrenaline. They started their Saturday hike at 5 a.m. and walked 18 to 25 miles. Ebel got home at 11 p.m. and started out early again on Sunday morning. “That’s all we wanted to do,” she recalls. She never slept in the park and walked all the trails as dayhikes. Once Ebel finished all the trails in the Smokies, she turned her interest to the Appalachian Trail, walking almost all 2,100 miles of it as long dayhikes, finishing when she was 60 years old. “I’ve had two hip replacements. I’m not so sure that these long day hikes didn’t contribute to my problems.”

Club, is more typical of completers. While working as a chemistry professor at St. Andrews College in the Carolina sandhills, a friend introduced him to backpacking in the park. Wetmore was hooked. A few years later, he and a colleague created their own version of Outward Bound, but without the “touchy-feely” component. For many years, they took a group of students camping in the Smokies in January. “We wanted the students to realize that they were tougher than they thought they were,” Wetmore says. “The students had to learn to deal with people they may not like. That’s part of life.” Wetmore and his colleague didn’t offer the course until they knew the Smokies like the back of their hands. When Wetmore moved to Brevard, North Carolina, he realized that he had done about two-thirds of the trail miles. He finished his map. In the process, he met Ebel and her band of adrenaline hikers. “By the time you’ve done all the trails in the park, you really know the Smokies. Most hikers only know the most popular trails.” John Gallemore, another club president now living outside Maryville, Tennessee, didn’t even know there was a 900 Miler group when he first started hiking in the Smokies. Gallemore started keeping track of his miles while still an undergraduate at the University of Tennessee (most mappers are much older). “I just started hiking. I was half-way around the map; next thing I knew I’d done it.” He contacted the Knoxville News-Sentinel and gave them his map. He was 23 years old when he finished the first time. He redid all the trails several times, once in a calendar

ARE THEY CRAZY? Hikers have many reasons for becoming mappers, (one who aspires to become a 900 Miler by hiking all the trails on the official Great Smoky Mountains Trail Map). For Ebel, it was all about the camaraderie and the logistics. “I love to plan hikes and understand the geography of the park,” she says. Sharon McCarthy, known as Smoky Scout, set a goal for herself to walk all the trails in one year. As she was approaching 50, she felt she was heading toward a midlife crisis. “There were some big changes in my life. My mom had died after a dreadful fight with lung cancer. My youngest child was leaving for college,” Sharon explains. “I started thinking about my life and what I wanted to accomplish.” When she thought about hiking the park, the network of trails seemed like a giant puzzle. For a while, Sharon didn’t feel comfortable hiking alone; she imagined bears around every bend. But she’s an organizer and a networker. She went out with Girl Scout leaders, friends, Carolina Mountain Club hikers, and members of other clubs from around the Smokies. She finally got the knack of hiking alone and completed all the trails in the park between her 50th and 51st birthday, walking 1,075 miles in all. She saved the Old Sugarlands Trail, an easy trail, for her finale, and invited her family and friends to hike with her. Dave Wetmore, the third president of the 900 Miler

John Gallemore and friend, hiking in the 1990s. Gallemore started his 900 Miler quest while a student at the University of Tennessee.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 11

2/13/15 5:17 PM

year. Other times, he planned to see a section in every season. Gallemore recognizes that he’s overly obsessed with goals. “It doesn’t matter if it rains, sleets, or snows. Like the post office, you’re going to get there and meet your goals.” The most difficult section for Gallemore was the A.T. section from Newfound Gap to Fontana Dam, 40.3 miles, which he did in one day. At Fontana Dam, the pay phone was out of order so he had to walk to Fontana Village, another three miles. “That quarter was burning a hole in my pocket. I wanted to call my wife to come and get me,” he remembers. Gallemore, the twenty-something hiker, and Wetmore, the middle-aged professor, also completed the 1949 trail map, published by the Sierra Club. That map showed over 1,000 miles, including many trails that aren’t maintained anymore. Most 900 Milers are squarely middle-aged or older. Jennie Whited, one of the original mappers, finished all the trails for her fifth time after her 65th birthday. Unlike the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and other linear trails, this challenge doesn’t seem to attract younger adults. Gallemore, who majored in history, believes that “older people hike the Smokies because they have a passion for local history. They look at chimneys and cabins. Instead, most 20-year olds would rather run on a track.” Bob Lochbaum has walked all the trails 14 times over his 25 years of retirement. He’s the volunteer who provides the distances and elevation gains for Hiking Trails of the Smokies. Surprisingly, you won’t find his name on the list of completers. “I hike for the fun of it,” he says. Gerri Trent, who finished in 1996, may win the prize for the most costly hike. He wrote on his 900 Miler report: When I did the last hike, (Lead Cove to Derrick Knob) it was on the day WIVK-FM gave away $15,000. We wanted to start the hike before 7 a.m. but discussed if we should stay by a phone until the “giveaway.” Being the dedicated hikers we are and having waited since August 1995 for this final hike we went on. Well, you guessed it. They called my birthday! This hike cost me $15,000. Logistics are difficult and the challenge isn’t well known outside of the East Tennessee hiking community. Over 325 “completers” live in Tennessee, most in Knoxville. Only 31 come from North Carolina. Two live in California and one came from Texas. The A.T. attracts hikers from all over the world while the Smokies 900 Miler challenge seems concentrated in eastern Tennessee. Compared to the 400 or so who’ve finished the Smokies map, the Appalachian Trail

November 21, 2008. The author finishing her “900th” mile on the Indian Creek Motor Trail, a minor trail in the Deep Creek area. It was important to Asheville resident Danny to finish on the North Carolina side of the park.

Conservancy reports that 812 hikers completed the A.T. in 2013 alone. For me, the Smokies 900 was my next obvious hiking challenge. When I moved to Asheville from the Northeast, I had completed the A.T., the New Hampshire Four Thousand Footer (the 48 mountains higher than 4,000 feet), the New England Four Thousand Footer, and other obscure challenges in New York State. I joined the Carolina Mountain Club and immediately set out to climb the South Beyond 6000 (SB6K), the 40 mountains over 6,000 feet in the southern Appalachians. Twelve SB6K are in the park, giving me a few more Smokies miles. I already had 71 miles of the A.T. through the park and had hiked the “Top of the Pops,” the prominent trails on the periphery of the park: Ramsey Cascade, Porters Creek, Boogerman Trail, Kephart Prong and all the trails that go up to Mt. Le Conte. However, reaching the internal trails is the challenge.

WHERE THERE’S A WILL… Each year, Great Smoky Mountains Association works with the Park Service to update and publish the park trail map, sold for one dollar. To get the 900 Miler patch, you

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 12

2/13/15 5:17 PM

MAP COURTESY OF CAROLYN EBEL

While an aspiring 900-Miler is still in the process of hiking every trail in the Smokies, they are known as “Mappers.” They chart their progress on the park’s official trail map, which displays every officially-maintained horse and hiking trail in the park. When they complete their last trail, the heavily inked document serves as “proof” for acceptance into the club. The map is updated a couple of times each year and sells for $1 at park visitor centers and other locations.

must have walked all the trails on the map. You have a lifetime to do the trails. Even with these simple rules, walking all the trails seems like working on a Rubik’s cube. You need to repeat some trails in the periphery of the park to get to the internal trails. Some people focus on repeating the fewest number of miles. But no one has worked out the shortest number of miles, based on the traveling salesman problem, a classic logistics research exercise. Elizabeth Etnier’s book, Day Hiker’s Guide to All the Trails in the Smoky Mountains, sets a blueprint for the challenge. She divides the park in several sections and reminds readers of all the short connecting trails that you don’t want to miss. For example, when hiking Dry Sluice Gap Trail from Charlies Bunion, you need to hike the 0.6-mile Cabin Flats Trail and back. If you’re section hiking a linear trail like the A.T., you know where you started and where you ended. With specific mountains such as the South Beyond 6000 or the Colorado 14ers, you go up and down the mountains and sometimes are able to scale several mountains in one trip. A.T. hikers believe that they’re more likely to finish the trail on their own than with partners. However, few

people accomplish the 900 Miler challenge by themselves. When you hike alone, you can only walk out and back or do a loop to get back to your car. For Carolyn Ebel, “the fun was the friends you did it with. We did many of the trails with two cars and a key swap. You had to make sure that you had the correct keys.” Logistics delight some hikers while they make other people’s heads spin. An informal band of serious hikers who call themselves the Margaret Stevenson group are experts at these techniques. The group, named after the legendary hiker, is just an email list, not a formal club; it doesn’t have dues or a website. If you finish the challenge on a Margaret Stevenson group hike, the other hikers will salute you by raising their hiking poles military style in an inverted “V.” The lucky finisher passes under a slew of poles. Stevenson used to hike on Fridays with another woman but then wanted to hike on Wednesdays as well. For a long time, hikers depended on a telephone tree. “These hikers thought nothing of doing 30 miles a day,” says Lori Garufi, currently co-directors with Ramsay Roth of the Smokies 900 Miler Club. Garufi and Roth proudly say that they’ve done all the trails without

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 13

backpacking. Roth has done the map four times; Garufi will soon finish her second go-around. Roth just likes to hike. “That’s why I retired here,” he says. He likes the exercise and the groups. “Different directions or a different season makes it seem like you’re walking a new trail.” He also volunteers in the park’s backcountry office and maintains the 8.5miles Cove Mountain Trail. “We use key swaps, car shuttles, boat or bus shuttles. There’s at least one bus company on either side of the park,” Garufi explains. On some days, people don’t hike; their assignment is to move cars, all in the name of helping others do long distances. A little explanation may be needed. In a shuttle, all the cars meet at the end point. Hikers pile in about half the cars and drive to the beginning of the hike. When they’ve walked to the end, hikers combine in the cars that are left and drive to the beginning of the hike to retrieve the other vehicles. It involves a lot of driving. Sometimes it’s easier to hire a bus or even a taxi. Hikers meet at the end of the hike, get in the bus or taxi, and go to the beginning of the hike. At the end of the hike, all the cars are waiting and everyone can go home. Around Fontana Lake, you can use the boat to be

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Sixty-eight hikers celebrating Margaret Stevenson’s birthday atop Mt. Le Conte in July 2014. Margaret would have been 102 years old last year. The birthday is an annual tradition with hikers going up to the summit from various trails.

dropped off at the beginning of the hike and picked up at the end. For a key swap, everyone meets at an agreed spot before the trailhead. Two groups form, one planning to hike from point A to point B, the other from B to A. Sometimes, the hike is uphill one way and downhill the other way, creating a lot of discussion. The drivers from group one take a car from someone in group two and vice-versa. Each group drives to their respective trailheads and starts the hike. Somewhere in the middle of the day, the two groups meet on the trail and return the car keys to their owners. At the end of the hike, drivers should have the correct cars waiting for them. If you’re willing to backpack, the logistics are much easier and you don’t have to walk mega miles each day. But there is that heavy pack… Hikers have done all the trails in one year and some repeat the challenge by taking the trails in the opposite direction. Still new challenges are possible. No one has yet “thru-hiked” the Smokies, i.e. walked all the trails in one shot. In this offshoot version, you’d camp in the park and resupply in the local communities.

PROVING YOU’VE DONE THEM ALL When you tell non-hikers about hiking challenges, their reaction, after “Wow,” is how do “they” know that you’ve done all the trails? All hiking challenges are on the honor system. As you learned in school, if you cheat, you’re only cheating yourself.

As president, Gallemore sometimes had to weigh in to judge who qualified and who didn’t. “In my mind, the philosophy is to help people celebrate their achievements. If you want to lie, I’m not going to verify it. I’m just looking for good stories in the park. If you achieve your goals, it’s going to mean a lot more to you.” Since all the trails form a network, keeping records is also a challenge. Most hikers color in their map after doing a piece of trail, along with the date that they first hiked it. The map gets very cluttered. It becomes a precious artifact, your record of all the trails completed. Usually, hikers buy another map to use on the trail. Using a spreadsheet of trails seems easier, since you’re able to keep track of when you’ve finished a piece of a long trail. See the sidebar. Others keep journals with lengthy descriptions of their hikes; now many write blogs. The web has changed the nature of record keeping. It changed again with Facebook. Why spend time getting a blog spot, write a few hundred words after each hike, upload pictures, and hope your blog is discovered by search engines? Facebook may have blunted the appeal of blogging. “If hikers say they did them, they did them,” Roth says. Smokies 900 Milers send their map with each trail highlighted and dated, a spreadsheet or a journal. The Smokies map includes two horse trails: Tow String close to Smokemont Campground and Deep Creek Horse Trail. I felt uncomfortable walking the horse trails. Equestrians only get a few trails to themselves; they have to share others

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 14

2/13/15 5:17 PM

OLD AND NEW WORLD CHALLENGES Hiking challenges in the U.S. get their inspiration from the Munros, Scotland’s highest mountains, measuring over 3,000 feet. The Munros are hardly the highest in the world but they certainly have one of the greatest followings. Millions of walkers from all over the world come to “bag” the 283 peaks on the list produced by Sir Hugh Munro in 1891. The New Hampshire Four Thousand Footer Club may be one of the oldest hiking challenges in America. The Appalachian Mountain Club started the challenge to get hikers off the heavily visited Presidential Range in the White Mountains and on lesser-known peaks. The High Pointers club encourages members to reach the highest point in each state. They all have the same basic rules; do them all, document them in some way, and apply for the certificate. Of the traditional national parks, Yellowstone has 1,002 miles of trail. Sequoia and Kings Canyon, taken together, have 810 miles. The Smokies, with 803 miles, is third. I have yet to find a club similar to the Smokies 900 Miler, a club that recognizes hikers who’ve done all the trails in a national park. In 2011, the Glacier Conservancy sponsored Jake Bramante to hike the 734 miles in Glacier National Park. He covered 1,200 miles and blogged about his experiences. The Conservancy doesn’t consider this a challenge program and doesn’t keep track of others who may follow in Bramante’s footsteps. A new group, Shenandoah National Park Hikers, promotes hiking the 500 miles of trail in that park. The group may evolve into a Shenandoah 500 Miler Club. For now, it’s just a Facebook page. To have a meaningful “hike all the trails in the park” project, parks seem to need most of the following: a large local population that lives close enough to dayhike in the park and go home, a climate that’s reasonable for hiking nearly year-round, and enough trail miles to make the project challenging and meaningful.

HAZE L C RE EK TRAI L

JOINING THE SMOKIES 900 MILER CLUB Aside from the real benefit of exploring all the maintained trails in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, new members receive a personalized achievement certificate, a 900 Miler Club cloth patch, and a bumper sticker. Their name goes up on the club website. Members pay a one-time $15 new member fee. See www.900milerclub.com Like any trail challenge, and like life itself, success doesn’t depend just on physical strength or stamina. Hiking all the trails in the Smokies is much more about perseverance, organization, and keeping your eye on the goal. And it’s about making friends. v Danny Bernstein is a member of the Carolina Mountain Club and the Smokies 900 Miler Club who has completed the Appalachian Trail, the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, and bagged all the “South Beyond 6,000” peaks. She writes frequently for “National Park Traveler” and is the author of The Mountains-to-Sea Across North Carolina, Hiking the Carolina Mountains, and Hiking North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. This is her first story for Smokies Life Magazine.

PHOTOGRAPH AND PATCH (OPPOSITE PAGE) COURTESY OF MARTI SMITH

with hikers. They didn’t need me walking their trail. “But if it’s on the one dollar map, you have to do it, unless the park removes those trails from the map,” says Roth.

14.7

Lakeshore Trail to Campsite 84

2003/08/22

4.5

many times

Campsite 84 to Bone Valley Trail

2007/06/29

0.8

backpack with Don & Jim

Boone Valley Trail to Welch Ridge Trail

2008/04/12

9.4

backpack with CMC

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 15

Above: Great Smoky Mountains Association Membership Associate Marti Smith celebrates her “900th” mile at Deep Creek Picnic Area. Her many friends who accompanied her on the last hike crowned her “Queen of the Smokies.” Left: “Mappers” often keep a spreadsheet of their trails to track their progress and, ultimately, for proof of completion.

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Phantom The Ghosts of Cougars Past, Present, And Future in the Great Smoky Mountains

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 16

2/13/15 5:17 PM

or thousands of years cougars

roamed the Smokies, as they did most of North America. Now, surprisingly, they may be on their way back, stalking deer, raising kittens, and generally staying out of sight. Many questions are raised in the Smoky Mountains by the mysterious, powerful but wary and shy cougar. Did its original eastern subspecies ever become extinct here? If so, when did that happen? Are cougars here now? If so, where did they come from, and are they reproducing? Will eastward-moving cougars from the West reach the Smokies? Would a sustainable population be a problem for managers of

Park, or a welcome return of a member of the original fauna, as are the reintroduced elk and river otter? Both scientists and amateur cougar enthusiasts are trying to answer these questions.

PHOTOGRAPH ÂŠ KWIKTOR, DREAMSTIME.COM

Great Smoky Mountains National

by Napier Shelton Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 17

2/13/15 5:17 PM

PHOTOGRAPH © MIKE LANE, DREAMSTIME.COM

Mountain lions are no pussy cats. Well-fed adults can grow larger than seven feet long and weigh upwards of 140 pounds. The fact that they kill elk for food should be enough to gain your respect.

Cougars (AKA mountain lion, puma, panther, catamount) once had the largest range of any North American mammal: from southeastern Alaska to the Straits of Magellan in South America and from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast. Cherokees called the cougar Lord of the Forest, “Klandaghi;” and stories of cougar encounters were handed down by early white settlers in the Smokies. “Painters,” as some settlers called them, were reported to make a loud cry, like a woman screaming, but recent researchers stated only that they “have a wide vocal range of cheeps, chirps, peeps, and whistles.” Place names—Panther Creek, Panther Mountain, Cat Run, Painter Branch, Painter Creek—attest to the wide former presence of this big cat. As settlement extended into most of the major mountain valley bottoms, the cougar became non grata, along with wolves and anything else that might kill livestock. In 1890, the last bounty for cougars in the East was paid—in the Adirondacks. By around 1900, after many years of killing and the decline of deer—the principal prey of cougars— the eastern subspecies of cougar was thought to be

extinct, though the western subspecies and the Florida panther remained. Soon after the turn of the 20th century the question— are there any cougars left in the East—began to be asked. In the Smokies, did any Eastern cougars remain in remote areas seldom visited where a few deer persisted? That question probably can’t be answered, because all North American cougars are now thought to be genetically similar. (DNA analysis by Melanie Culver suggests there are just six subspecies, with five occurring in Central and South America.) But continuance or presence of any kind of cougar in the East has been a hot question for decades. There have been two main camps: scientists who want physical evidence, such as photographs, tracks, hair, cougar kills, or cougar bodies, who remained skeptical; and true believers, one might call them, who were convinced by apparently credible sightings. The attitude of many of the scientifically inclined was humorously expressed in Michael Frome’s book, Strangers in High Places: “Once when a [GSMNP] ranger called in and said, ‘I think I just saw a mountain lion,’ the park dispatcher retorted,

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 18

2/13/15 5:17 PM

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY GSMA

‘Have another drink and you might see its mate.’” However, in the Appalachian Mountains generally, growing numbers of reports, with some physical evidence mixed in, suggest that the true believers may be right. To set the Smokies in an Appalachian context, we’ll begin farther north. John Lutz, founder of the Eastern Puma Network News, compiled cougar sightings and signs. Up to about 1995 he had collected well over 2,000 sightings of varied credibility. Most of these were in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia. Around eight percent of reports included kittens. Several Maryland reports, along or near the C&O Canal National Historical Park, have come to my attention. A woman walking her dog reported that a mountain lion had crossed the towpath in front of her. Jack Shoenadel, the proprietor of Bill’s Place in Little Orleans, told me that about 2011 he and his father (Bill) had seen a cougar with three kittens in nearby Green Ridge State Forest, and another cougar—“dark brown, about 70-80 pounds, with a long tail”—at another nearby site. In 1998, West Virginia coal miner Todd Lester and Christine Bolgiano formed the Eastern Cougar Foundation, with several prominent biologists on the board, to document cougar sightings in the East, and advocate protection of these cougars and a favorable public attitude toward them. Chris Bolgiano, who lives in the mountains of western Virginia, told me, “We were inundated with sightings.” But physical evidence was lacking; a camera survey in West

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY NPS ARCHIVES

The conundrum is this: There is virtually no chance that a relic population of mountain lions has hung on in some remote Smoky Mountain enclave since the early 1900s, yet credible sightings of mountain lions in the park are made quite regularly. Witnesses include park scientists Janet Rock (left) and Jim Renfro, (right). And mountain lions don’t closely resemble any other park animals. They are at least four times larger than bobcats and have very distinctive tails.

In the 1970s, Park Service biologists were curious enough about the existence of mountain lions in the Smokies to commission and publish the report: “Status and History of the Mountain Lion in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.”

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 19

2/13/15 5:17 PM

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY GSMA

Park superintendent Boyd Evison reported that he saw a very large cat track on the Rainbow Falls Trail in 1975.

Virginia caught no image of a cougar. The ECF, now called the Cougar Rewilding Foundation, switched to a focus on the last two objectives above. The Cougar Network, run by Ken Miller, a retired computer expert, took over the documentation of physical evidence of cougars in the East. Moving closer to the Smokies, let’s look at the work of Dr. Donald Linzey, a wildlife biologist at Virginia Tech. Since around 1980 he has recorded cougar sightings he considers credible and now has a map of Virginia dotted with about 350 pins, with different colors for specific time periods. Most of these are in mountainous western Virginia, but a few are far to the east of the mountains. A noticeable line of pins runs through Shenandoah National Park and down the Blue Ridge Parkway, mostly because of sightings of the big cat crossing Skyline Drive or the parkway. Clusters may indicate several sightings of the same animal. (The pins represent 43 percent of the reports he has received, and 40 percent of the 43 percent involved more than one person.) One pin represents a close-up sighting in Shenandoah National Park of a female with two kittens by my friend and expert naturalist Rob Simpson. Several of these reports are especially intriguing. There are three cases of a deer carcass hanging high up in a tree (with photographs). “I can’t imagine anything doing that except a cougar,” Linzey says. In another instance, a hunter told him he had shot a deer and left it for awhile. When he returned, it had been moved a short distance and covered with leaves and fur. Linzey photographed the pile after the hunter removed the deer. Linzey explained that a cougar

In 1956 or ’57, legendary tracker and park ranger J.R. Buchanon reportedly “saw lion tracks around Bunker Hill Tower, then saw a covered kill. He and Arthur Whitehead stayed to watch the kill, and saw a lion as it returned.” Bunker Hill is located at the far west end of the park in the vicinity of Chilhowee Lake.

stands on its kill and reaches out to cover it with whatever is on the ground, as well as the animal’s hair. Two cougar sightings were only ¾ mile from his house. Linzey said to a reporter, “There are just too many of these reports….and the details just sound too right, for me to have any doubt anymore that we’ve got cougars in Virginia.”

n Now let’s focus on the Great Smokies. Two sightings were described to me by the observer. Driving along the Foothills Parkway at the west end of the park around 6:00 p.m. in August 1990, park botanist Janet Rock “saw a dark shape coming down the slope” to her right. ‘That’s a very skinny bear,’ she thought. It crossed the road in front of her, about 30 feet away. “I saw the long drooping tail” and the loping motion. “It was all black, about three feet long in the body. I looked for paw prints but couldn’t find any.” The light was good, and she was sure it was black and not dark gray. Many “black panthers” have been reported, but editors of the book, The Eastern Cougar, state that “no black specimen has ever been scientifically confirmed,” and cougar expert Don Linzey said he “knows of no black cougar specimen in any museum anywhere.” He told me a mounted so-called black panther at Cherokee turned out to be a cougar from the West that had been blackened with shoe polish. Myth or reality, the “black panther” remains a mystery.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 20

2/27/15 11:33 AM

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY GSMA

Kim Delozier, who worked as a wildlife biologist in the Smokies from 1978-2010, remained skeptical that any resident mountain lions lived in the park.

Cades Cove farmer and sheepherder Tom Sparks was attacked by a cougar in 1920. It is believed the same animal that attacked him was later killed near Fontana Village.

n Also in the 1990s, NPS Air Quality Specialist Jim Renfro was driving up Cherokee Orchard Road one sunny day at noon toward his office at the Uplands Field Research Laboratory when he saw a cougar in the road about 100 feet away or less, looking at him. “It had a cat face, was about 50-60 pounds [size of a young cougar], was brown and had a long tail that was down and curved. Then it ran quickly up along a small stream on the left and disappeared. It was an amazing experience.”

it and killed it, and the two kittens that were found with it. He saw the body, and later the skin.”

Among the many cougar sightings in the park, some are certainly entertaining. Carson Brewer, writing in the Knoxville News-Sentinel in 1981, described what reportedly happened at a CCC camp in the late 1930s: “Three foremen saw a bobcat stalking a rabbit. What that bobcat didn’t know but what the three watchers could plainly see was that a panther was stalking the bobcat.” To get a better idea of the quality of sightings, Nicole Culbertson was hired to review the reports and talk to as many of the sources as possible. The following accounts are among 44 that she “judged reliable” out of 100 reports between 1908 and 1976.

n 1908-1909. “Reported by Rev. Conard, who was born and raised in Cataloochee before the park was established. A friend saw the lion by Tines Creek in the Big Cataloochee area. Later they went out to hunt it with dogs. They tracked

n 1920. “W. Orr killed a lion near Fontana Village.” [See details under the Smokies research of Donald Linzey, below.]

n 1956-1957. “Reported by J.R. Buchanan, park employee, who does considerable hiking in the park. He saw lion tracks around Bunker Hill Tower, then saw a covered kill. He and Arthur Whitehead stayed to watch the kill, and saw a lion as it returned.” [Buchanan was also a renowned tracker who worked on a multitude of search and rescues in the national park.]

n 1975 (July). “Park Superintendent Boyd Evison saw a large cat track (approx. 4”x4”) on Rainbow Falls Trail.”

n 1975 (August). “Carson Foard and daughter saw a lion and two kittens cross the Blue Ridge Parkway 1 mile east of Pisgah Inn. Several other tourists saw them, and one person (unidentified) jumped from his car and chased them.” As Foard said to another interviewer, ‘They were not fifteen feet away. They came right out of the woods and onto the road. A camper in front of me slammed on the brakes and I hit mine and stopped, and traffic jammed up behind us.’”

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 21

2/13/15 5:17 PM

n 1975 (December). “Mr. O’Harris, a retired animal trainer who trained big cats for 55 years, saw a female lion with two kittens near U.S. 441, near the Chimneys picnic area.” As O’Harris described the encounter to a park employee, ‘The cats crossed the road and went down to the river.’ Then he followed the cats upriver [West Prong of the Little Pigeon River] to the bridge at the picnic area. The cats then turned around and came back down the river and he followed them downriver for ½ mile sometimes getting within 25 yards of the animals. Mr. O’Harris said the kittens played all the way down the river but the mother cat kept an eye on him all the time.”

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY WWW.EASTERNCOUGAR.ORG

Culbertson’s listing of “reliable” accounts shows that sightings were increasing rapidly. Sixteen occurred before 1970. Twenty-eight happened during the 1970s alone. Another account, perhaps not so reliable but extremely surprising, appears on the park’s list of cougar sightings simply because it was reported: June 15, 2000. “This observation was relayed to Terry Wales (former personnel officer at GRSM) by a friend, who has a friend who is an employee at the Park Vista [hotel in Gatlinburg]. The employee witnessed two mountain lions mating in the parking lot of the Park Vista.”

Dr. Donald Linzey has been researching and writing about mammals in the Smokies since the 1960s. One of his goals is to find indisputable evidence of cougars in the park. Such evidence would include, scat (photo 1), a hair sample (photo 2) or a track (photo 3).

The principal effort to document the existence of cougars in Great Smoky Mountains National Park now lies in the hands of Donald Linzey. He told me about his work there as we sat in his house on a wooded hillside near Blacksburg, Virginia looking out over a landscaped part of his 35 acres toward a distant mountain. Linzey is in his late 70s, white-haired and lean. His wife wants him to get help taking care of the place but he resists that idea. He also doesn’t let age stop him from teaching and searching for evidence of cougars in Virginia and the Smokies.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 22

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Mammals of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1971. This book was revised in 1995. He also wrote A Natural History Guide to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2002, which he uses for a one-week Natural History Consortium course in the park each August for students from the University of Georgia, Purdue, and Virginia Tech. The depth of Linzey’s involvement with the park is also shown in his live-trapping of small mammals. “I’ve recorded 30,000 trap nights in the park [one trap set for one night = one trap night],” he said. “More than anybody else.” His search for evidence of cougars in the park began in 1965. Physical evidence has been hard to obtain. For two years he took his dog, Brandi, with him as he hiked park trails. She located many coyote, bobcat, and fox scats, but no cougar scats. When Dr. Linzey’s research permit was renewed, the Park Service decided not to allow dogs on any backcountry trails, even for legitimate scientific purposes. With the help of volunteers, Linzey set out approximately 100 “hair-snares.” These devices, made of roofing nails driven through a piece of carpet smeared with a cougar-attracting paste, caught hairs of bear, deer, bobcat, and foxes, but no cougar hair. Infra-red cameras placed along game trails have so far been equally unsuccessful. He showed me a few photographs that people have taken of what they thought were cougars. One was a bobcat, another was a brown dot in a field, and another a black dot in a forest. A good headshot was definitely a cougar, but Dr. Linzey couldn’t verify where it was taken. “A man reported at the visitor center that he had video footage of a cougar lying on a slope beside the road going up

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 23

PHOTOGRAPH ©MIKE LANE, DREAMSTIME.COM

Linzey taught at Cornell University for one year after receiving his Ph.D. degree, Alabama for ten, and Wytheville, Virginia, Community College for 25 years; and now is teaching herpetology and mammalogy at Virginia Tech. His association with Great Smoky Mountains National Park goes back to 1964, when he was working as a seasonal naturalist while researching his Ph.D. dissertation on the golden mouse. Art Stupka, retiring as long-time Chief Naturalist at the park, asked Don to pull together all of the park’s mammal data, a project that resulted in the publication of

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Confirmed Cougar Locations: 1990 to Present

Concentration of

mountain lions in the U.S.

Reported Cougar Sightings in the Smokies: 1920 to Present

Individual sightings of mountain lions in the U.S. Map Courtesy of the Cougar Network

Even today, mountain lions have a huge range across North and South America. To be a “confirmed” Cougar Network sighting there must be photo, DNA, tracks, scat, hair, or other strong evidence.

2000 to PRESENT 1990 to 1999 1980 to 1989 1970 to 1979 1920 to 1969

to the [Twin Creeks] Science Center. More cars came up the road and stopped to see what he was looking at. It was like a bear jam, with 20 to 25 people. They watched for 10 to 15 minutes—until the animal walked away.” The Science Center is located on Cherokee Orchard Road near the Park Vista Hotel, where several other sightings were reported. If it was indeed a cougar, a wonderful chance for clear evidence was missed by not getting the contact information. The best photos he’s received show a head looking out of a cave near Greenbrier, and one of an animal in a forest at Cades Cove that doesn’t show the tail, but has the right size and shape for a cougar. Other intriguing photos—taken in 2010— were of a horse that returned to its stable in Cades Cove with what appeared to be claw marks on its flank. These were several inches long, with red flesh exposed. The lacerations might have been caused by a cougar, but no physical evidence was found in the area where the horse had been. Linzey also showed me a map with colored pins placed at

the locations of some 80 “credible” sightings. They are overwhelmingly on the Tennessee section of the park. “This is probably because that’s where most of the visitors go,” he said. There are clusters of sightings where deer are common, and some clusters may indicate multiple sightings of one cougar. Two gold pins show where Sparks family lore says a man was attacked by a cougar, and where the presumably same animal was killed. Linzey described this in an article for the Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society in 1995: “The last report of a cougar being killed in the Great Smokies comes from the winter of 1920: Tom Sparks was attacked by a cougar while herding sheep on Spence Field [in GSMNP]. He inflicted a deep wound in its left shoulder. Several months later, a cougar was killed near what is now Fontana Village, and its left shoulder blade had been cut in two. It was believed to be the same cat that Sparks had wounded.” So, assuming that cougars have been seen in the park,

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 24

2/13/15 5:17 PM

where are they coming from? The common conclusion is that most or all of them are released or escaped pets. Young cougars can be purchased in many western states. Legally or illegally, in the East, depending on the state, cougars are bred to produce kits for sale to people who love the adorable young ones, but can’t handle the powerful animal as it matures. One solution is to let them go into some wooded area. What better place than a national park, they mistakenly think. People have released all sorts of nonnative animals in the park. NPS wildlife biologist Bill Stiver reports the following among them: a serval (African cat) in the spring of 2014, a capuchin monkey, a declawed black bear that hugged people around the legs, emus, peacocks, a long-horned steer from a nearby farm, and a 3-foot alligator in a stream. The park policy is to capture such animals and return them to the owner, if known, or to some appropriate place, such as a zoo. “We have indisputable evidence of monkeys, peacocks, gray wolf hybrids,and emus in the national park, but not mountain lions,” Stiver said. “Without evidence such as scat, tracks, a skull, or a kill, we can’t confirm the presence of mountain lions here,” he added. Nowadays, another consideration is the arrival of wild cougars from the West. Since 1950, cougars have been reported in nearly every state from the Great Plains eastward, and in the southern tier of Canadian provinces. While most credible reports are probably of escaped or released captives, a few wild cougars have been documented, based on lack of wear on claws and paw pads, tattoos, tags, or other signs of captivity, such as clipped claws, removed canines, or food in the stomach that is not of wild origin. In Missouri at least two wild cougars have been killed by cars, and one was killed by a train in southern Illinois in 2000. Another cougar, marked in South Dakota, was killed by a train in Oklahoma in 2004. Most amazing was the cougar killed by a car in Connecticut. It had traveled about 1,800 miles from the Black Hills of South Dakota. DNA analysis of hairs and scats in Minnesota and Wisconsin that matched the DNA of this animal indicated that it had traveled through those states. Cougar migration from the West is thought to be mostly young males ousted from established cougar territories. One thing that hinders establishment of new populations by such animals is the tendency of females to stay near the territories where they were born. Furthermore, according to Dr. Linzey, South Dakota, one of the more likely western sources, has declared the cougar a game species. The annual season is based on the number of females killed by hunters, thus greatly hampering the reproductive potential of the South Dakota population. So what if a substantial number of cougars start showing up in the Great Smoky Mountains? With released cougars, management would not be easy. Considering their wariness, how would it be possible to find and capture each one to determine if it is a released

pet? Track them with dogs until treed? That is unlikely. Such a practice would contradict several park wildlife management policies. More likely would be a wait-and-see approach. Released pet cougars have demonstrated the ability to return to a life in the wild, capturing prey, reproducing, and exhibiting wary, rather than tame behavior (although the latter has occasionally been the case). The Smokies and large adjacent national forests have some cougar prey, such as deer, and reduction of wild hogs would be welcomed. However, any killing of livestock near the park by cougars could be a serious concern for area farmers. So it’s not inconceivable that cougars could once again roam the Smokies, as they did 200 years ago, joining, though unintentionally, restored animals in the park such as elk, beaver, falcons, and otters. Some people would not welcome cougars, but others would. As Chris Bolgiano, up in the mountains of Virgina, has written: “Unlike bears, which have been teddified for nearly a century, and wolves, whose admirable family life is now well known, cougars offer little on which to hang a notion of kinship. They must be accepted on their own wild terms…. “Sometimes at dusk I sit on my deck and watch sunset-streaked clouds fade away toward Paddy Mountain. I wonder how it would be to know a panther crouches there again, yellow eyes gleaming, muscles taut, utterly focused. How it would be to accept the risks with understanding and respect, in return for the rightness….It would feel, I think, like freedom.” In the 1930s, the managers of Yellowstone National Park stopped killing cougars, finally recognizing their rightful place in the ecosystem of the park. Park Service policy then turned toward restoration of lost species. Denali National Park in Alaska, as far as I know, hasn’t lost any. In the summer of 1961, one of Denali’s grizzly bears tried to kill me, possibly because it was a mother with cubs nearby; but I would be very sad if the sight of a mother grizzly and her cubs ambling along the Teklanika River tundra became a thing of the past. Cougars are not nearly as dangerous as grizzly bears. They almost always run or slink away from humans when a rare encounter happens. There have been very few fatal cougar attacks. People who live in western cougar country know not to go hiking alone, and if cougars become a permanent part of the Smokies fauna, visitors would probably get similar advice. If cougars do return long-term, it would be a homecoming that nearly completes the original assemblage of life here. And it would be a presence that heightens the wildness and mystery of these beloved mountains.v Napier Shelton is the author of the National Park Service natural history handbook on the Smokies and Huron: The Seasons of a Great Lake. He worked as a writer/editor at the NPS headquarters in Washington, D.C. for much of his career. His last piece for Smokies Life Magazine was on rattlesnakes.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 25

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Smokies Smokies Life Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 26

v 26 26

2/13/15 5:17 PM

IN 1957,

architect Hubert Bebb began spending a lot of time on Clingmans Dome, the highest mountain in the Great Smokies. With sketchpad and camera, he’d hike up the half-mile trail to the mountaintop and study his surroundings. Bebb noted the incline of the trail, the way sunlight slanted through boughs of towering Fraser fir trees on clear days, the chill in the air when mist swirled around the peak. Sometimes he was alone on these hikes, other times, his architecture partner Raymond Olson was with him as he learned the moods and weathers of the Dome. Sometimes he invited national park staff on his hikes, to consult about the new observation tower that would be built on the mountain. The National Park Service had asked Bebb to design the tower seven years after the previous observation structure,

a rustic series of steep stairs and logs, had been deemed unsafe and torn down. For nearly a decade, no one had been able to see the view from the highest point in the Smokies. Bebb’s new tower would change that, becoming one of the most visited places in the national park. “As I studied the site and the beautiful stand of Fraser’s Fir with their perpendicular trunks,” he later explained, “the idea of a ramp approximately the gradient of the trail supported on vertical “trunks” of concrete began to root itself in my mind.” Park staff who saw the early versions of Bebb’s design liked it, even though its sleek, spiraling ramp up to the observation platform was a startling departure from the steps, wooden timbers, and heavy stone slabs more commonly seen in national park facilities. John B. Cabot, Acting Director of the NPS’s Eastern Office of Design and Construction

Smokies Smokies Life Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 27

v 27 27

2/13/15 5:17 PM

PHOTOCOPY COURTESY OF KROCH LIBRARY, DIVISION OF RARE AND MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF GSMNP ARCHIVES

Above: Superintendent Fred J. Overly was in charge at the Smokies from 1958-63. Right: Architect Hubert Bebb [age 25 in this photo] set off a firestorm of controversy with his modernistic design for the mountain top observation tower.

“...THE ENTIRE CONCEPT

[of the ramp] has rather a playful, even romantic, feeling, which would be liked by a great many visitors.” remarked, “...the entire concept [of the ramp] has rather a playful, even romantic, feeling, which would be liked by a great many visitors.” But in spite of Bebb’s inspiration and thoughtfulness, his modern, minimalist design became, for a few months in 1959, the epicenter of an emotionally charged argument about management of the national parks. It was called a “mechanical monster,” “glaring incongruity,” and “shocking disappointment,” among other things. The outrage was largely prompted by a drawing of the tower printed in the National Parks Association’s monthly magazine, read by many of the country’s die-hard national parks fanatics. For many of them, the

not-yet-built tower in the Smokies became a symbol for how the national parks were being ruined, developed, and turned into amusement parks. The original tower on Clingmans Dome was a rustic structure made from native trees. It was “classic fire tower style,” built by young men employed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1935. Visitors climbed a stairway to a small viewing platform 40 feet above the ground for the chance to see mountains as far away as Georgia and Kentucky on clear days. But with the arrival of World War II, the CCC was dismantled and park budgets were cut. Without sufficient maintenance, wooden structures in harsh

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 28

2/13/15 5:17 PM

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was created in 1933, and shortly afterwards, thousands of single men between the ages of 18 and 25 were hard at work in the Smokies for $30 per month ($520 in today’s currency), plus room and board. They built the handsome, rustic, 40-foot tall tower pictured below. Although it was a tasteful complement to the tallest mountain in the Smokies, it eventually would be inadequate to serve the millions of visitors who began flocking to the park after World War II.

BOTH PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF GSMNP ARCHIVES

environments—exposed to gusting winds, rain, snowfall, ice and more—began to deteriorate. The Clingmans Dome tower was no exception, and in 1950 it was declared unsafe and promptly dismantled. By the time Eisenhower was elected president in 1953, the national parks had received very little infrastructure investment for decades. They were also becoming increasingly popular tourist destinations; post-war prosperity meant more people owned cars than ever before. To address this shortfall, the Mission 66 program was implemented to help the national parks cope with increasing visitation, and to spruce them up before the NPS’s 50th anniversary in 1966. During its span from 1955 until the anniversary, Mission 66 emphasized simple, modern construction to make visitor resources more accessible, more easily maintained, and cheaper to build. The program encompassed hundreds of projects categorized as “facility development”: roads, visitor centers, and amenities like observation towers. The Clingmans Dome tower was one of nine national park observation towers constructed with Mission 66 funding. The Gatlinburg-based architectural firm of Bebb & Olson was selected to design the tower, and Hubert Bebb worked as the principle architect on the project. Bebb had grown up in Chicago and graduated from architecture school at Cornell University in 1928. He returned to Chicago and worked on projects like the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, and later joined the respected Chicago firm of Armstrong, Furst, and Tilton. But his brother Douglas had moved to the Smokies, and on family visits to Tennessee, Hubert and his wife fell in love with the mountains too. They left Chicago for a new home in the Smokies in 1950 and Hubert opened his own firm with Raymond Olson shortly thereafter. Fittingly, the office windows of Bebb & Olson looked out at the national park’s Greenbrier Pinnacle and Sawtooth peaks. Bebb’s designs, from homes to corporate buildings, suggest the prairie style of Frank Lloyd Wright. Hubert bristled a bit at the comparison, but their architectural philosophies were rooted in similar elements: site-sensitive design and a conviction that architecture should honor the natural world and complement human-nature connections. Hubert would later become more famous for his design of the Knoxville World’s Fair “Sunsphere” in 1982, and would receive an Award of Merit from the American Institute of Architects for his building design for the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in 1970, but the Clingmans Dome tower was one of his first major commissions. The tower holds true to Bebb’s architectural style—minimalist design, strong lines—but he had to meet certain specifications as well, namely the height of the viewing platform and visitor load capacity. Bebb’s original design was modified slightly by several National Park staff before receiving final approval—the tower base and viewing platform became more streamlined, but the spiraling ramp remained. From the very beginning, John Cabot, Acting Director of the Eastern Office of Design and Construction approved

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 29

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Clingmans Dome tower was just a small part of a larger nationwide effort to upgrade facilities in national parks called Mission 66. The program was initiated in 1955 in response to a surge in park visitation that was outpacing the limits of existing infrastructure. The goal was to complete work on all projects by 1966. Because of the times, many of the new facilities had a modern design that contrasted with the rustic look of those created in the 1920s and ’30s.

Knoxville architect, Chas. I. Barber, who wrote to the superintendent a few days later: “As one who has been active in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park project, I wish to express disapproval of the proposed design for the tower on Clingman’s Dome… It would be equally at home in a sports arena… While I hope I will not be misunderstood in this gesture, I do urge a reconsideration of the design.” He was answered four days later by a polite letter from Superintendent Overly, “… I am sorry your views do not coincide with ours. We believe the observation tower is properly designed to accommodate the vast number of people who visit the area each year and at the same time will not intrude too much on the natural setting… I feel sure that upon completion of the project you will find it less objectionable than you do now.” Superintendent Overly, newly appointed to be the head of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, surely thought that was the end of things. It can be hard to get everyone to agree on what constitutes aesthetically pleasing architecture, so a negative letter or two was nothing to be concerned about. The NPS moved ahead, selecting a Waynesville, North Carolina-based contractor to build the tower in the fall of 1958; the winning bid for the work was $57,000. But the extreme weather on the mountain which had beaten down the tower’s BOTH DRAWINGS COURTESY OF GSMNP ARCHIVES

the design enthusiastically. However, the National Park Service’s Director, Conrad Wirth (who was a trained landscape architect) objected to the ramp design the first time he saw it. He preferred a spiral staircase that would circle around the outside of a stone tower. But John Cabot met personally with Director Wirth and talked through the advantages of the ramp—it was more accessible than stairs, and would enable the tower to have a smaller “footprint” on the mountain. Director Wirth was persuaded. In early May 1958, John Cabot received approval on the design for an observation tower with a spiraling ramp and a simple viewing platform—“a column with a mushroom type cap.” Hubert made some minor revisions to the design to accommodate the wishes of the National Park Service leadership, and on September 28, 1958, Great Smoky Mountains National Park publicly revealed the tower design. The only hint of the controversy to come was a letter from

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 30

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Bebb’s observation tower design was featured in National Parks Magazine, a publication of the National Parks Association, which has long served as a promoter and watchdog for America’s national parks and the National Park Service. Many members of the group were shocked by the “space age” aspects of the design.

predecessor had a significant impact on the plans for the new tower as well. Construction was impossible through the winter months, so construction workers, NPS staff, and Hubert had to wait for spring before the tower could begin to take shape. Aside from that uncontrollable element, things seemed to be going smoothly for the project. On February 2, 1959, however, Superintendent Overly received a letter from Anthony Wayne Smith, the Executive Secretary of the National Parks Association (NPA). The NPA had a long legacy as a citizen watchdog group focused on development issues in national parks, most significantly

opposing any form of damming, mining, or logging within park boundaries. And something in the Smokies had recently caught their attention. Mr. Smith wrote, “The National Parks Association is keenly interested in following the development of National Park Service plans in the various parks and monuments with a view to making constructive suggestions, and being helpful to the Service.” He went on to explain that the NPA had created new, locally-based “Action Groups” which would consult on various plans and programs undertaken by the National Park Service. The Action Group for the Smokies consisted of

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 31

three men—among them, the architect Chas. I. Barber who had previously written so disapprovingly of the Clingmans Dome tower design. Additionally, the February issue of National Parks Magazine, distributed to all NPA members, included a sketch of the Clingmans Dome Tower. The image was drawn with the specific purpose of emphasizing the form of the design— which is to say, the tower was shown jutting up from a bare mountain as if in a clear-cut; in reality, Hubert had identified sixteen tall Fraser fir trees which would be encircled by the spiral ramp. Anthony Wayne Smith’s editorial, which accompanied the image, criticized the Park Service for not holding

2/13/15 5:17 PM

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF GSMNP ARCHIVES

Left: Wilhelm is lowered by a crane into the tower’s main support column to inspect the quality of the materials and construction. Below: Concrete is mixed and forms and bracing are in place for pouring the last section of the ramp.

an early public referendum on the design, and objected to it with colorful language: [“I]t is eccentric, urban, mechanical… It expresses technical power on the loose; it suggests the Sputniks; man’s mastery over nature may be symbolized here, but not his community with nature… This is a Coney Island facility, a Steeplechase Pier feature, and much too strongly suggestive of a roller coaster at a commercial playground.” He concluded that “The Park Service should put its efforts into better things than noisy architecture” and promised that the NPA would be prepared to protest every time a similar project was considered. The illustration and editorial had the desired effect: readers were incensed. A flurry of letters arrived—letters for and against the tower design were sent to NPS Director Wirth, Superintendent Overly, NPA Executive Secretary Anthony Smith, Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton, and eventually a host of Senators and Congressmen. Everyone from the Federated Garden Club of Michigan to the Daughters of the American Revolution seemed to have an opinion. In the end, the Clingmans Dome Tower had the dubious distinction of being one of the two most controversial Mission 66 projects; the other was Tioga Road in Yosemite National Park. Mrs. Cord H. Link, Jr., of Tullahoma, Tennessee wrote to Associate Director of the National Parks Service, Hillory A. Tolson on January 29, 1959: As a subscriber to National Parks Magazine I was shocked and sickened to see on the inside cover of the February issue a drawing of the proposed Clingmans Dome observation

tower into the Smokies. Is this a sample of what Mission 66 is going to do for our park? If so, give the government back its money! … [the old tower] fitted right in with the theme of other Park buildings… I see no point in building such an obvious and glaring incongruity—unless perhaps these other structures are also to be replaced… for instance the log comfort station a few hundred feet away from this “contemporary architecture”—will it be replaced by a sleek affair of pink and black tile? Where will this madness end?” Kenneth Burley of Chicago, Illinois, asserted, “Let’s keep streamlined elements out of the wilderness.” Olaus J. Murie, a noted conservationist and advocate of wilderness preservation didn’t weigh in on the aesthetic appeal of the design, but simply decried the fact that there was a tower at all: “The artificial viewpoint at Clingmans Dome in the Smokies is another shocking disappointment in the progress of Mission 66. Do we have to frame the scenery… tell [visitors] how to enjoy nature, and in every way conform to the gadget spirit of modern times? Why should there be any structure on top of Clingmans Dome?” Charles H. Porter from Temworth, New Hampshire wrote to NPS Director Wirth and concluded, “I am now too old to climb or hike but I would rather forego any chance to see the National Parks again than have them spoiled for my children and grandchildren.” Behind the scenes, NPS staff was stunned at the outcry, but determined not to set a precedent for public referendum on the architecture of every structure built in a national park. The official stance from the National Park Service to the Clingmans Dome Tower controversy was largely that the NPA article “caused needless anxiety on the part of a

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 32

2/13/15 5:17 PM

creating jobs—therefore, the designs were intended to be labor intensive. Mission 66 construction, on the other hand, was intended to create cost-effective facilities that could be built quickly and efficiently. Although the Park Service had significant input and approval over Hubert Bebb’s final design, he took public ownership of the project and defended it vigorously. His written response, printed in the subsequent National Parks Magazine, explained the time he’d spent contemplating the nature of the mountain, and how his design was meant to complement and not compete with the setting. He argued, “The last thing I would want to do would be to impose an ill-conceived structure amidst the magnificent beauty of these mountains that I sincerely love…Why does a conservationist prefer to build a cheap steel tower totally lacking in beauty rather than a carefully designed structure of concrete?” Many people heartily supported Hubert’s design. Philip Ewald, a member of the National Parks Association, The Wilderness Society, and the Smoky Mountain Hiking Club Park Committee wrote to Anthony Smith: “To those who know the Smokies, the proposed tower is eccentric, but not objectionable. It has novel features that may set a new standard for observation towers in wooded areas: the sense of walking up through the trees… If the trees were to be stripped from around [the tower] much of the criticism would be justified, but we trust that NPS will see to it that the contractor leaves the forest intact.” W.P. Bebbington of Aiken, South Carolina wrote, “I think I should like to stroll up the spiral on a pleasant fall afternoon, looking off in various directions as I began to be able to see over the treetops. I don’t think I’d begrudge having to share the space along the long railing

BOTH PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF GSMNP ARCHIVES

great many persons…” according to the Regional Director’s notes on March 6, 1959. Even as letters—both supporting and opposing—poured into mailboxes, the officials at Great Smoky Mountains never seriously considered altering construction plans. On March 10, 1959, John Cabot sent an encouraging note to R.A. Wilhelm, the tower’s project supervisor: “Don’t let the blarney upset you. The controversy is unfortunate, but, as conservationists, I am sure we far outshine those who sit behind the shiny desks and create the editorial policy of the National Parks Magazine.” A few folks even found humor in the drama; Superintendent Overly received a sympathetic note from Yosemite’s Superintendent, John C. Preston: “I am sure you are aware of my battle with Tony Smith on the Tioga Road. Nice of you to take some of his time and get him off my back.” While much of the criticism focused on the tower, it was related to a larger referendum on Mission 66, at least as far as the NPA was concerned. Wilderness advocates saw Mission 66’s emphasis on facility development as a threat to the natural integrity of many parks. They were also frustrated that the National Park Service’s decision-making processes largely ignored their input, a problem which the NPA’s local Action Groups were meant to remedy. Even people who liked the tower design couldn’t argue with the fact that it embodied a departure from the expected approach to national park infrastructure—but there were practical reasons for Hubert’s design. Until Mission 66, most of the construction in national parks had been created during the New Deal era, often called the “Rustic Parkitecture” style. It was characterized by rustic wooden and stone structures, very traditional architecture that utilized local materials. These New Deal programs had emphasized

Left: The naturalistic wooden railing at the top of the original tower was a typical “parkitecture” feature. Right: Raymond Olson (right) checking the steel reinforcing lattice prior to pouring concrete for the new observation deck. Top: A note of encouragement to tower project supervisor R.A. Wilhelm from Acting Director of the National Park Service Eastern Office of Design and Construction John B. Cabot.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 33

2/13/15 5:17 PM

with many other people, some of whom would not have been able to climb the many flights of open ironwork stairs of a fire tower…” In general supporters of the tower responded to the letters of concern and outrage with a couple of general points: First, they defended the choice of a ramp instead of stairs. The ramp design, they argued, was specifically and thoughtfully chosen to increase accessibility for young and old—and therefore it would widen the spectrum of people able to enjoy the park’s natural resources. Second, they explained that the image used in the National Parks Magazine was an architect’s sketch that showed the tower out of context. They felt the image mislead readers by making the tower appear unrealistically large and overbearing. On February 26, 1959, Carlos C. Campbell, Secretary of the Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association based in Knoxville, sent an apologetic letter to Superintendent Overly, assuring him that “… All of us recognized that the whole opposition was a “sour grapes” action on the part of Chas I Barber, one of

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF GSMNP ARCHIVES

Below: Workers near completion of the observation platform and ramp. Right: A clipping from the Knoxville Journal, Oct. 24, 1959.

our Board members… It is our opinion, however, that he has taken officials of the National Parks Association “for a ride” on this tower design.” Could the whole hullabaloo be traced back to Chas. I. Barber’s personal opinion about the design? We will never know for sure, but it seems he may have played a significant behind-the-scenes role in stirring up the controversy. As the letters for and against the tower design poured into mailboxes in Gatlinburg, Washington DC, and elsewhere, the tower’s construction was still stalled because of weather. At 6,643 feet above sea level, the Dome stayed snowy longer than many of the lower elevations. But as soon as spring thaws began in April 1959, the crews resumed their work in earnest. Under the supervision of R.A. Wilhelm, a landscape architect for the park, crews from W.C. Norris Company went to work. Due to the challenging terrain of the mountain, concrete had to be mixed on site and cast into sections that could be carried by hand. Bebb also designed an ingenious approach to building the ramp that didn’t require scaffolding; instead, the ramp itself was assembled in such a way that it became its own supports and construction apparatus. R.A. Wilhelm made quite a few inspections of the work by climbing into a leather harness suspended from a crane and “flying” up and down the tower supports. Once construction began, even with the difficulty of the site, the tower parts came together rapidly. By August, the ramp and observation deck were complete and the crew was finishing the stone masonry. In September, Superintendent Overly reported that the tower was 92 percent complete— with only short sections of handrails, minor finishing details, the paving of the half-mile trail, and assorted cleanup left to do. And then the rains began. It was the wettest October in the Smokies in a decade. The tower opening was repeatedly delayed because of rain. The official ceremony, which took place on October 23, was announced at the very last minute—and only because Superintendent Overly wanted the tower to be open should they be lucky enough to get a dry day before the end of autumn leaf color season. Newspapers recorded the event with approval; the Maryville Alcoa Daily on October 21, 1959 announced the opening of the tower on Friday and

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 34

2/13/15 5:17 PM

FEBRUARY 12, 1959 Dear Mr. Overly, The pictures of the ramp and tower as given in the News Sentinel today is very beautiful. However I wonder how it would feel to get to the top and find a mama bear and her cubs. Quarters would be rather close… -Forrest Andrews Dear Mr. Andrews, Thank you for your comments about bears on the ramp of the observation platform at Clingmans Dome. I believe such a situation will not develop frequently and if it does the Park Rangers will be able to handle it.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF GSMNP ARCHIVES

-Superintendent Overly

The circular area at the start of the ramp was designed for visitors to pause and catch their breath and savor the Canadian-zone environment atop the Smokies highest peak. It’s also the perfect place for an impromptu talk with a park ranger. To the best of our knowledge, no encounters with bears have been reported on the tower proper.

concluded: “While the tower top resembles a “flying saucer” in design, its modern look blends gracefully into the scenic beauty around it.” Knoxville News-Sentinel reporter Carson Brewer wrote later, “The ramp takes off from a wide circular approach, beautifully floored with native stone. The ramp proper travels the first few yards on a stone base and then takes to the air.” The weather did not cooperate for the ceremony. Superintendent Overly reported it was “a driving rain.” Still, fifty or so people showed up to celebrate even though the rain and wind became so fierce that umbrellas and raincoats were practically useless.

Hubert Bebb and Raymond Olson ceremoniously snipped a bright green ribbon that hung across the entrance to the tower’s ramp. The speeches that followed were short and to the point. “We’re in the color season,” Superintendent Overly told the crowd. “We have at least two more weeks of viewing weather [for fall color] and for that reason we decided to open the tower. And we picked a fine day, didn’t we?” He asked, smiling. Hubert kept his remarks short too, thanking Conrad Wirth, the Director of the National Parks Service, and others who supported the design during the flurry of controversy in the beginning of the year. Secretary of the Great Smoky Mountains Conservation

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 35

2/13/15 5:17 PM

GSMA PHOTOGRAPH BY GARY WILSON GSMA PHOTOGRAPH BY KAREN KEY

PHOTOGRAPH BY VERNON M. LIX

The dramatic, curving, 345-foot-long ramp allows a large number of people to climb the last 54 vertical feet to the top of the tower at their own pace. Itâ€™s also a rare opportunity to look down on the canopy of a natural Fraser fir forest where warblers flit about chasing insects and cones stand upright on the branches of the endemic evergreen. Interpretive signs with panoramic photos point out distant landmarks.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 36

2/13/15 5:17 PM

PHOTOGRAPHS RIGHT AND TOP BY VERNON M. LIX PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK

During fair weather, over one thousand people a day make the pilgrimage to the “top of old Smoky.” Without the tower the view would be only dense conifers. Left: Two other towers were built using the Clingmans Dome design: the Shark Valley Tower in Everglades National Park (shown left) and the Look Rock Tower on the Foothills Parkway in the Smokies. Both were also Mission 66 projects.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 37

2/13/15 5:17 PM

WHERE EXACTLY IS THE TOP OF CLINGMANS DOME?

According to the United States Geological Service, the summit of the Smokies’ highest peak is located very close to the base of the observation tower. The mountain’s elevation of 6,643 feet does not include the tower itself. The Appalachian Trail reaches its zenith just off the summit of the Dome. Facing page: Photographer Vernon Lix used a fish eye lens to capture the tower with unique perspectives in contrasting seasons.

Association Carlos Campbell, joking and serious at the same time, remarked, “Those of us who are here today are not fair weather friends.” A friend of Superintendent Overly’s, Virlis L. Fischer, who lived in Las Vegas, wasn’t able to attend and sent a letter expressing his regret: “Thank you for the invitation… I would have enjoyed this occasion very much, and therefore regret that I was unable to be present. I know that a great deal of careful thought went into the planning of this structure, and am confident that it will add greatly to the enjoyment of your many park visitors. Alongside the new facility I hope you excavated a convenient hole for the self-anointed “park saviors” to crawl into when they realize the absurdity of their criticism.” Superintendent Overly also sent a personal invitation to Chas. I. Barber to attend the opening, but there’s no record of whether he made it or not. The completed tower had an elegance and simplicity to it that none of the drawings could capture. It was such a success at accommodating visitors that two other Mission 66 towers were based on the Clingmans Dome design: Shark Valley Tower in Everglades National Park in 1964 and Look Rock Tower on the western edge of the Great Smoky Mountains in 1965. Hubert Bebb stayed in the Smokies and practiced architecture for the rest of his life, designing many homes for local families along with more high profile, civic buildings. But Clingmans Dome remained an enduring symbol of his early work, and a deeply personal accomplishment. When he died in 1985, his ashes were scattered from the top of the tower.

In 2009, the tower was nominated for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, for both its association with Mission 66 program and as an example of mid-century modern architecture (specifically “Park Service Modern”). Cynthia Walton, a Park Service historian based in the Southeast Regional Office in Atlanta, prepared and submitted the paperwork; the tower was officially listed on August 15, 2012. On a recent afternoon, over thirty people face out in all directions from the Clingmans Dome tower. They gaze at the view of mountains stretching to the horizon, and pose for photos of themselves at the highest point in the Smokies. Some glance back and forth between the skyline and the interpretive signs, trying to identify peaks, pointing out the towns where they’re staying, imagining where trails might lead through the valleys far below the Dome. They’d rather talk about the view than the tower—perhaps the ultimate complement to Hubert’s design. v Courtney Lix grew up in the Great Smoky Mountains and is the granddaughter of Henry Lix, a long-time ranger in the division of interpretation. She is the author of Frequently Asked Questions about Smoky Mountain Black Bears, and is a regular contributor to Smokies Life Magazine. Her writing awards include the Ferris Prize for Journalism from Princeton University, and the Gregory T. Pope Prize for Science Writing. She lives in Virginia, but returns to the Smokies as often as possible.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 38

2/13/15 5:17 PM

BOTH PHOTOGRAPHS BY VERNON M. LIX

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 39

2/13/15 5:17 PM

“Where there are mountains, there are chestnuts.” —Gentleman of Elvas, with the Hernando de Soto expedition, 1540

Glenn Taylor cranes his neck to look into the treetops along the trail to Look Rock. Here on the west end of the Great Smoky Mountains, he’s searching for a tree with a distinctive toothed leaf and a storied life. After a short walk, mostly among oaks, he finally spots it—a fairly good-sized chestnut with sprouts and saplings branching from the base. He compares the smooth, silvered bark of the sapling to the rougher, thicker bark of the more mature tree, but both have the same leaf. On closer inspection, the bigger tree, about a foot in diameter, is in trouble.

SSmokies m o k i e s Life L i f ev v4040

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 40

2/13/15 5:17 PM

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE DIGITAL COLLECTION, ALBERT “DUTCH” ROTH ARCHIVE

cut through it with their 10-foot crosscut saw. And, it was At first glance you might not even notice the small orange said a settler could build an entire log cabin for his family dots, resembling innocuous lichen, spattering the bark. But from a single large tree. Taylor, the park’s forest disease and insect specialist, knows Long-time park naturalist Arthur Stupka declared Amerbetter. The tree, a relatively large one of its kind these days, ican chestnuts, along with tulip poplars, “the monarchs of is infected with the deadly chestnut blight. “This one,” he the Southern Appalachian forests.” Place names on the park states in a matter-of-fact tone, “is on the way out.” map—Big Chestnut Bald, Chestnut Flats, Chestnut Top— It’s lived long enough to drop a few spiny burrs on the memorialize its former presence. ground, which had split open and released dark brown nuts. The Cherokee found myriad uses for all parts of the But the seeds are dry and probably not fertile, Glenn thinks. chestnut: dark brown dye from I’m intrigued to find the nuts, and the bark; medicinal tea from distressed by the sight of the blight. the leaves; delicious dumplings But, as I pause and gaze up for a and bread from ground up moment at the sapling, I’m transfixed nuts; lumber from the wood of by its soft green leaves waving in the the tree. Later white settlers spring breeze, backlit and reaching cherished chestnut for timber for the sun. This sight captures the too. Slow to rot, it was ideal for conundrum of the American chestnut floors, barns, fence rails, even today: the hope that young trees may caskets. As firewood, chestnut live, while ones that have reached a burned hot, sending out sparks certain age will almost certainly die. but almost no smoke, making A century ago, a person walking good fuel for a man’s distillery. in the woods here would have seen In June and July, bees swarmed plenty of American chestnuts—every the creamy dangles of flowers third or fourth tree would have been and transformed the nectar into one. Castanea dentata once covered copious amounts of honey. nearly 160,000 of the 520,000 acres And those nuts—big as a of Great Smoky Mountains National quarter, polished mahogany Park—accounting for 30 to 40 perbrown, and abundant every cent of the forest cover. They were year— held infinite value to magnificent beings, some reaching mountain folk. John McCaulley 100 feet in height, growing tall and of Cades Cove reported seeing straight and with gigantic girth. a hundred bushels piled near a Individual specimens were things herder’s cabin at Rich Gap, with of legend. In 1859, one chestnut four men packing them off to tree on the west side of the Smokies sell. Whole families went out to measured 33 feet in circumference. The Smoky Mountains Hiking Club pauses at “the big gather the nuts in the fall, and According to Horace Kephart, who chestnut tree stop,” 1932. toted them in sacks and wagons resided in the Hazel Creek and Deep to Knoxville or other markets in cities. McCaulley rememCreek areas in the early 1900s, chestnuts grew “6 to 9 feet bered his family carrying them by mule and receiving four across the stump.” People told of a fallen tree on Indian dollars a bushel. “There was worlds of ‘em,” he declared. Camp Creek large enough to accommodate a standing adult “I’m telling you the whole earth’d just be black with them.” in the hollow portion. There’s the story of a man losing For personal use, families would dry or roast the nuts, some livestock during a snowstorm, but he found them safe enhancing their sweetness. They’d also store them through and snug in the empty cavity of another chestnut. Loggers the winter, but had to pack them in salt or pour boiling encountered one so massive they finally gave up trying to

S Smokies m o k i e s Life L i f ev v41 41

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 41

2/13/15 5:17 PM

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE DIGITAL COLLECTION, ALBERT “DUTCH” ROTH ARCHIVE

PHOTOGRAPH FROM GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK ARCHIVES

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE DIGITAL COLLECTION, ALBERT “DUTCH” ROTH ARCHIVE

Top left: Jim and Caroline Shelton’s family standing by a large chestnut tree below Tremont Falls. Top right: Albert “Dutch” Roth (right) assists Dr. H. M. Jennison with measuring a chestnut tree in Porters Flats. It was twenty-eight and a half feet in circumference at the time. Below: Margaret Roth peers through a chestnut log at Rhododendron Creek, 1955.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 42

2/13/15 5:17 PM

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

water over them to kill the worms inside. People loosed their hogs in the woods in the fall to fatten on chestnuts. And because the nuts were such reliable hard mast, they also fed a large collection of native wildlife—deer, squirrels, rabbits, mice, and more. Walter Cole said “bear got fat on chestnuts, coons got fat on chestnuts, and the woods was filled with wild turkey, coon, most all game ate chestnut and got fat.” (A raccoon plumped on them would bake up as tender and juicy as anyone could want for Thanksgiving dinner.) Even the pollen of chestnut was important to certain insects—soldier and tumbling beetles and butterflies and moths. Logging companies coveted the timber and cut mighty chestnut trees from every part of the mountains—many hundreds of thousands of board feet from Big Creek, Forney Creek, Hazel Creek, Ravensford, Smokemont, and Little River watersheds. Reuben Robertson, head of Champion Fibre’s plant in Canton, North Carolina, said “We came to the Great Smoky Mountains for two reasons. The first was spruce and the second was the enormous stand of chestnut.”

But in the blink of an eye, the beloved chestnut and its endless bounty would largely vanish, leaving mountain people in deep mourning.

A Blight on the Land It all started far from the Great Smoky Mountains. In 1904, at the New York Zoological Park, a man first spotted dying chestnuts. The cause—soon identified as a fungus—sparked emergency cutting and spraying programs but to no avail. The fungal spores got under the bark, infiltrated the tree’s living tissue, killed cells and bark, then appeared as fruiting bodies on the outside of a tree. Along with those visible orange spots, or cankers, the leaves withered and turned brown, and the bark shed away leaving “gray ghosts” to haunt the woods. The blight’s effects were swift and certain. People watched it spread through the forest like a firestorm; some said they actually heard the trees falling to the ground.

The American chestnut blight, beginning in 1904, quickly spread through the Appalachians and reached the Smokies around 1925. By the 1940s the blight had killed an estimated 4 billion chestnut trees across the country. The ghostly forest of blighted chestnuts pictured here existed in Virginia. Only a few doomed root sprouts from tenacious old trees have survived catastrophe.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 43

2/13/15 5:17 PM

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Though the fungus had yet to be identified, it was unstoppable. Wind and rain and animals carried it down the spine of the Appalachian Mountains with frightening speed. Everyone was watching the southern Appalachians, home of the last, best stands of chestnuts. The blight reached the Great Smokies around 1925. Ten years later, H.M. Jennison wrote: “Most of our chestnut is gone.” The exception was a healthy chestnut-silverbell forest of several hundred acres still growing on the sheltered, moist, northeast slopes of the State Line Ridge between Gregorys Mountain and Ekaneetlee Gap, enough that they appeared “as though snow had fallen on it when the trees were in bloom,” Jennison said. In another two years, in 1937, only a few trees even at the higher elevations were wholly free of the blight. That same year, Dorie Cope and her family moved to a logging camp on Middle Creek in the Smokies. She wrote, “The chestnut trees no longer dropped their nuts to be picked up by eager young hands…. The once proud and sought-after trees stood decaying and bug-infested. The Indians had mourned their passing most of all.” To naturalist Art Stupka, the chestnuts had a role in death, as in life. He reported that a crew went out to cut down a dead tree deemed a fire hazard. As they began sawing, they watched a flying squirrel appear from a cavity high up in the trunk. In amazement, they counted another 25 flying squirrels emerge and flee from what had been their winter nest in that chestnut tree! In his essay “Farewell to the Chestnut,” Stupka wrote that “Within the memory of man there has been no forest tragedy so calamitous nor so devastating.” In the span of ten years, one fourth to one third of all the trees in the hardwood forest ecosystem of the Great Smoky Mountains was nearly gone. By 1940, when Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the national park, about 85 percent of chestnuts were dead or dying. In fact, by the 1940s the blight had killed an estimated four billion chestnut trees in the country. It was an ecological—and human—disaster beyond imagining. As one author put it: “When the American chestnut fell, the whole forest shuddered.” Those dying trees were still of value to logging companies though, and they moved swiftly to harvest millions of board feet of chestnut from the forests. The bark was also valued. With a tool called a spud, men peeled away the acid wood, or tanbark, to be sold and used in tanning leather. Between 1939 and 1949, sawlogs and chestnut acid wood were big business in the Southern mountains. Champion Fibre saw yet another opportunity—it began turning the spent wood chips into pulp for making paper. An article in the 1949 issue of Southern Lumberman magazine noted, “This area contains the last remaining merchantable stands of

Cryphonectria parasitica, the fungus which kills American chestnuts, infiltrates the tree’s living tissue, kills cells and bark, and appears as cankers on the outside of the tree.

dead and dying chestnuts.” In the national park, Civilian Conservation Corps crews cut the remaining chestnut; some of that lumber panels the lobby of the park headquarters building. If you look closely at the paneling you will see it is actually “wormy chestnut,” a term used to describe tunnel markings left behind by the burrowing of the chestnut timberworm grub. The insect attacks both living and dead trees, so the fabled wood was in existence even before the blight, but was not so revered. Mountain residents would find substitutes for their fence rails and house framing; wildlife shifted to less reliable acorns for food; and the forest began to fill in the bare patches left in the wake of the fallen chestnuts.

The Dream of Restoration The gaps created by the passing of the American chestnut—both in people’s psyches and in the forest canopy— were immense. Yet nature, as they say, abhors a vacuum. The ever resilient and dynamic forest of the Great Smoky Mountains first started to grow in with sweet birch, black

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 44

2/13/15 5:17 PM

PHOTOGRAPHS THIS PAGE COURTESY OF THE AMERICAN CHESTNUT FOUNDATION

The American chestnut’s male (left) and female (right) flowers. Chestnut trees bloom in late June, so its flowers are safe from frost. Most other mast-bearing trees in the Smokies bloom in spring and frequently lose their flowers (and subsequent nuts) due to cold spells.

American chestnuts—big as a quarter, polished mahogany brown, and abundant every year—held infinite value to mountain folk and wildlife such as deer, bear, and wild turkey.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 45

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Above: The prickly burr of the American chestnut. Below: When the burrs dry and open they usually reveal 3-4 ripe nuts.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 46

BOTH PHOTOGRAPHS THIS PAGE COURTESY OF THE AMERICAN CHESTNUT FOUNDATION

locust, sassafras, and ferns. By the late 1950s, chestnut oak and red oak were the main species occupying former chestnut habitat, along with red maple and sourwood. The blight-causing fungus had been identified as Endothia parasitica (now renamed Cryphonectria parasitica), an Asian import. Its destruction was so complete that people were declaring the chestnut extinct. But as time went on, they saw that the blight did not affect the roots of the trees, and seedlings freely sprouted from the massive stumps. Botanists also observed that Chinese chestnuts were infected with the fungus but were not dying. That gave rise to the suggestion to crossbreed them with what was left of American chestnuts, hoping to impart that apparent blight resistance. But such breeding experiments with trees, unlike with corn or other crops, is a slow and laborious process. Through the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, Chinese and American chestnuts were crossed, but the program eventually was stopped. Attention shifted to a hypovirus—a “blight of the blight”—that appeared to weaken the fungus. The hope was that the hypovirus could buy time by building tissue around blight cankers and allowing the trees to defend themselves. Recently, scientists from West Virginia University have taken samples of the blight fungus from American chestnuts in the Smokies, looking for strains of the virus and trying to determine whether it moves from tree to tree. But some

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Top: U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station scientist Stacy Clark examines a young chestnut tree. “As the 21st century unfolds, the chestnut restoration goal may be closer to reality,” she says. Bottom: A University of Tennessee research technician measures a chestnut tree planted in 2011.

BOTH PHOTOGRAPHS THIS PAGE COURTESY OF U.S. FOREST SERVICE

Other troubled trees on the brink of extirpation in the Great Smoky Mountains include white ash, green ash, eastern hemlock, and butternut. It’s possible the work on the American chestnut will pave the way for their eventual recovery as well.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 47

2/13/15 5:17 PM

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY U.S. FOREST SERVICE

problems have slowed that work. Meanwhile, seeking to speed up the process, foresters in New York have been engineering trees that are genetically identical to wild American chestnuts but immune to the blight. Also in the 1980s, a breeding program was resumed by the American Chestnut Foundation in orchards at its farm in southern Virginia. This time they began backcrossing Chinese and American chestnuts, producing hybrid trees that are now almost all American, with a small percentage of Chinese for blight resistance. They continue to select those trees that display the closest physical traits to American chestnuts, with canoe-shaped leaves with longtoothed margins, duller rather than glossy, and taller rather than shrubbier trunks. Now, the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and the American Chestnut Foundation, is raising seedlings for test plantings in the real world. This is a major leap forward in rewilding the chestnut, seeing how backcrossed hybrids will do under a wide range of climate, insects, and everything else nature can throw at them. Stacy Clark is the Forest Service lead for the project in the South. She explained that nuts, supplied by the American Chestnut Foundation’s backcrossing program, are sown in nursery beds at UT, then are mulched and left to overwinter. Saplings sprout the following spring. Pure American chestnuts are the control in the tests. In 2009 the first test plantings were done on three national forests in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia, and have continued each year since. (Exact locations aren’t revealed, she said, because the seedlings are “highly valuable” and they don’t want them disturbed.) The seedlings are planted by hand, given no water or fertilizer, and pollinate naturally. Great care is taken in selecting sites for the test plantings. The presence of tuliptrees indicates a good quality site, where the soils are deeper and well drained, with adequate moisture and fertility. The biggest problem, ironically, is another non-native root fungus found in soils in the South. It’s called ink disease because it turns the roots black. If present, it’s a death knell for chestnuts. “There’s no coming back” from ink disease, Clark declared. Nearly 4,000 seedlings have been planted, and data are being analyzed on all kinds of physical traits to “see if they’re acting like American chestnut,” noted Clark. So far, overall survival is 80 percent, with the trees averaging 7 feet tall, some reaching 20 feet. However, about 12 percent of the pure American chestnuts are showing blight, while only 4 percent of those bred for resistance are affected. And what about the goal of chestnut survival in the wild? “With a few more years of tinkering,” said Stacy

This third generation test planting is 94% American chestnut and in good condition at 4 feet tall.

Nearly 4,000 seedlings have been planted, and data are being analyzed on all kinds of physical traits. So far, overall survival is 80 percent.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 48

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Clark, they hope to know what it takes to grow a chestnut that can compete in the field. “We’re getting really close” to that, she said. The second big question, whether blight resistance will ultimately result, is still unknown. “I can’t answer that yet,” she added. That depends on the breeding program, and may take many more years. So while the American chestnut remains in a biological never-never land, others cannot resist furthering the cause on their own. Bill Owens, uncle of singer Dolly Parton, has planted several acres of chestnuts at Dollywood, just outside the park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Owens, who was born just as the chestnuts were dying out, said he’s heard stories about them all his life. Dolly’s father, who lived in the Greenbrier area of the Smokies, told of a family member who got married and needed a place to set up housekeeping with his new bride. The couple found a big chestnut tree, roofed it, moved in their bed, and honeymooned there. Driven by a dream of bringing back those trees, Bill Owens joined with the American Chestnut Foundation and has helped raise money to plant his chestnut orchard. “I’ll never see any big’uns, of course, but I’ll see them growing,” he said, and that’s good enough to keep his dream alive. In the past, Great Smoky Mountains National Park has provided chestnut budwood and other material for outside restoration projects. But for now, the park has elected to remain a refuge of pure American chestnuts, a reservoir, if you will, of native genetic diversity rather than a home for hybrids. Within its boundaries there are still American chestnut trees that reach flowering age, about 12 to 15 years old. In 2003 forest technician Matthew Wood covered 800 miles of park trails, surveying for flowering chestnuts and entering their locations on GPS. He recorded nearly 300 individual chestnut trees—almost half of them flowering, and a nearly equal number showing the blight. Last fall the staff at Cades Cove Visitor Center reported numerous visitors walking in with chestnuts in their hands wanting to know what they had discovered. Glenn Taylor keeps a spread sheet of all the chestnut records he can, and still gets reports from visitors who’ve located yet another worthy specimen in a far-off corner of the park. Some of the trees are of notable size, some are blooming, some are producing nuts. Sadly, they will likely go the way of the big one we saw up at Look Rock. Still, there’s something about the American chestnut that inspires eternal hope. It resides in those young saplings, among them possibly a rare individual that will cast a sunnier light on the future of this never-say-die species.v

Chestnut Bread 2 8 3 3

pounds chestnuts, shelled and broken into bits cups plain cornmeal tablespoons baking powder tablespoons baking soda

Boil the shelled chestnuts 10 to 15 minutes in a half gallon of hot water. Add sugar to taste. Pour this boiling liquid into the cornmeal mixture and stir well. Add enough hot water to make a stiff dough. Form this into round dumplings. Wrap each dumpling in blade from green corn, tuck in loose ends. Drop dumplings into a big pot of boiling water. Cook an hour or more. When they sink to the bottom, they’re done. Best served hot, some like them with butter. Recipe from Beuna Winchester, Food & Recipes of the Smokies

University of Tennessee graduate Rose Houk is the author of Smoky Mountain Elk: Return of the Native and Storied Stitches: Quilts & Coverlets of the Smokies. In addition, she has written over 40 other books on national parks and cherished public lands. Her last piece for Smokies Life was on grand homes.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 49

2/13/15 5:17 PM

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 50

2/13/15 5:17 PM

It’s always gneiss not to be taken for granite A short hike to the top of Clingmans Dome (6,643’) is a “high point” for any trip to the Great Smoky Mountains. The mountain and most of its environs are a massive bed of sandstone and slate that accumulated on an ocean floor and were unceremoniously compacted between two massive colliding continents. This collision some 200+ million years ago created the Smokies and raised Clingmans Dome to its lofty situation. Interestingly, on the north slope of Clingmans Dome, toward Mount Collins, at an elevation of 4,350’, there is a small, uncommon outcrop of rock called an igneous dike. In this case, the igneous rock was molten magma that filled a crack in existing formations and slowly cooled. The only other such outcrops in the Smokies are near Eagle Creek, where copper, zinc, silver, and other minerals were once mined. Although Clingmans is the highest promontory in the Smokies, it is not built of the oldest rock. That honor goes to the billion-year-old granite gneiss found just downstream from Juney Whank Falls in the Deep Creek area.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 51

2/13/15 5:18 PM

The

Smokiesâ€™ Winter Wren:

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 52

2/13/15 5:18 PM

Operatic Pixie of the Highlands by Stephen Lyn Bales illustration by Lisa Horstman

In May and June, if you park your car along Newfound Gap Road at the Alum Cave Bluff trailhead and begin to climb the steep southern flank of Mt. Le Conte, you pass through an old northern hardwood forest that features buckeye, beech and birch, towering giants still. If you listen closely above the roar of Walker Camp Prong that flows into the West Prong of the Little Pigeon River, you’ll hear an avian chorus that features the chit-chatty red-eyed vireos, flute-like wood thrushes, the hollow swirling song of veery and the high buzzy thin notes of blackburnian and black-throated blue warblers, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zee. All add a lithe sweetness to the damp vernal air. The understory here is thick, often sodden, with rosebay rhododendron, blooming dog-hobble, primordial looking ferns and moss. It’s lush with life; in the spring it’s wet and fecund. Still you climb, past Arch Rock, past the rock hugging heath balds, past Alum Cave Bluffs and the screaming peregrine falcons, kak, kak, kak, that dominant the rocky spur, the Eye of the Needle, that points west to the cove hardwoods far below and Sugarland Mountain beyond.

Yet, still you climb higher, passing through the zone of eastern hemlocks and above 5,000 feet you’ll find a taste of the Canadian woodlands pushed south by the last Ice Age. You are now in remnants of spruce-fir forests long since left clinging to the tops of the Smokies like castaways on isolated isles. Here in the high country it gets quiet, almost spookily so. Yes, occasionally you hear the deep-voiced gurgling croak of a raven as it flies overhead and if your ears are so attuned they grasp the high-pitched whistled threenotes of the black-capped chickadee, hey, sweetee and the barely audible kinglets, tsee, tsee, tsee. But, beyond this, if you are lucky, you soon hear one of the longest, most melodious songs, as spiritual and zealous as any Gregorian chant ever quavered by any Benedictine monk. Yet the songs are not solemn or mournful, their joyousness is unmistakable. It’s life affirming and sweet. Dr. Fred Alsop calls it a “musical series of bubbling warbles and trills that may last five seconds or more.” You are in what Alsop calls “the dark haunts of the spruce-fir forests,” the high domain and lofty cathedral of the winter wren.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 53

2/13/15 5:18 PM

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHANN SCHUMACHER

At first glance, winter wrens look like something created in a crafts class with a Styrofoam ball, a couple of striped feathers, and some push pins. They appear to have almost no neck and a tail so stubby one wonders if evolution will eventually do away with it entirely.

With this species, the analogy to a chanting choir of monks is not out of line. Cloistered away in their respective enclaves, winter wrens can exhibit antiphonal singing. As Alsop notes, “just as one singer gives his last note, the song is picked up by another singer, and then another, until the tune cascades up and down the mountain slopes for several minutes.” Though it sounds like an “Ode to Joy,” it is actually a highly territorial declaration of ownership of turf. Sadly, there is a downside. Tucked away in the highlands, winter wrens are easy to hear but hard to actually see. Tom Howe, a member of the Tennessee Ornithological Society, remembers, “the impact the incredible song this tiny bird has on people.” While doing a breeding bird survey along the Appalachian Trail near Peck’s Corner, Howe met several young ladies at the shelter one evening. He recalls, “When they noticed my binoculars, they asked if I could tell them what bird it was they were hearing on the trail that thrilled them. When they tried to describe the song, I played a recording I had just made of one that morning and they exclaimed, ‘That’s it!’ They were rather incredulous when I mentioned how small the singers were.” Diminutive. It’s almost too big of a word to describe the winter wren. Weighing in at roughly nine grams, two U.S. Jefferson nickels total one gram more. They are uncommonly small puffballs with dark barred rounded bellies like Buddhas, topped with a small head, thin pointed bill and impish black eyes, plus the classic erect tail, albeit short, that gives the wren its characteristic shape. Tiffany Beachy is Citizen Science Coordinator at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont. She’s also a

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 54

2/13/15 5:18 PM

bird-bander who has actually held live winter wrens. Beachy recalls, “How tiny they are, and how difficult to hold and how Houdini-ish they are at escaping your grasp!” The Cornell Lab of Ornithology calls the winter wren, “Small in stature and incomparably energetic in voice,” and that “Per unit weight, the winter wren delivers its song with ten times more power than a crowing rooster.” Winter wrens are aptly named. They seem to thrive in cold dark places that other birds shun. Males return to their claimed territory in the high elevations by late April and sing enthusiastically defending their turf into July. The presence of upturned roots, fallen trees and rotting stumps seems essential in winter wren habitat. The wee birds forage, roost and nest in these low dank moss-covered hidey-holes. Such secretive locations mean that not a lot is known about the nesting habits; records are scarce. Noted Tennessee ornithologist Albert F. Ganier located and described a nest on Mt. Le Conte. Ganier reported, “On 21 June 1933, [prior to park establishment] I was fortunate enough to find a nest with five young, 75 feet above the trail from the Gap to LeConte, altitude 5,500 feet. Attracted by calls from the parent birds, I began to look closely in all probable sites along the banks of the little ravine. Presently I noticed a small black hole in the green moss and opening it slightly, out flew a young one on its initial flight. It was at once followed by its nest-mates until five had emerged and flown from twenty to thirty feet to join their vociferous parents. The nest, which I collected, is a round ball of soft materials five inches in diameter and included in its soft lining were small feathers of the Ruffed Grouse. It had been tucked among the roots of a tree behind the moss. This was the first nest to be recorded from our southern mountains.” Arthur Cleveland Bent, the great complier of a shelf full of life histories of North American birds, reported that the male constructs several basic nests with small twigs, moss and leaves (called “cock nests”) and the female completes the one of her choice with a dome of moss and other fine plant fibers, often lining the chamber with found fur and feathers. The pair may build several nests that are used for both roosting and repeated breeding attempts should one brood fail. Clutches usually contain five or six pure white eggs with fine variable brown spots. Yet, a clutch of nine eggs has been reported which seems impossible because such an output would represent a high percentage of the female’s body weight, yet just about everything about these high mountain pixies seems unbelievable. Arthur Stupka, the first true naturalist who roamed and studied in detail the new Great Smoky Mountains National Park, noted that the winter wren, like a few other Canadian Zone species—golden-crowned kinglet, brown creeper and red-breasted nuthatch—were fairly common permanent residents in the park. And like those other species, they spend the majority of the year in the highest elevations of the park.

Noted for being the smallest, darkest and perkiest of the wrens, and this means a lot since all wrens are noted for their perk, winter wrens are widespread across the northern climes. Former Tremont educator Charlie Muise recalls being surprised when he first heard one singing during nesting season along Alum Cave Trail. Muise was very familiar with the species in the north but didn’t realize they nested in the south. “But there is no mistaking that song,” he recalled. In Stupka’s day, as it has been most of my life, the winter wren was known as Troglodytes troglodytes (trog-low-DIEteez); this binomial nomenclature literally means “creeper into holes, creeper into holes,” from the Greek trogle meaning “hole” and dyein meaning “creep.” The repetitive name underscores their special talent. Winter wrens are so adept at creeping in and around low-to-the-ground places searching for insects and spiders that the original describers gave it the creeper moniker twice. Mouse-like is the descriptor most often used. Species classification is often a difficult, ever-changing process especially with winter wrens that occur in such isolated locations essentially all around the northern half of the globe. Even in Stupka’s day, he noted that the Smokies’ winter wrens were different than the ones that occur in

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 55

“Suddenly the air was filled with a slim torrent of exuberant music. What a rush of notes, tripping over themselves, spreading through the green caverns of the forest in a thin riot! It was the winter wren, hardly bigger than my thumb—bursting with zest and rending its tiny body at intervals with its riotous notes. No song, no sight in the forest fills me with half the thrill.” —Harvey Broome, June 11, 1941 Out Under the Sky of the Great Smokies

2/13/15 5:18 PM

PHOTOGRAPH BY JACKSON EVANS

PHOTOGRAPH BY DEBORAH ALLEN

northern forests in both North America and Eurasia. He cited a Thomas Burleigh 1935 paper that, on the bases of collected specimens, described the Smokies’ wren as a separate race, Troglodytes troglodytes pullus, an isolated population that nested in the highest elevations of the southern Appalachians from near Lexington, Virginia south to Brasstown Bald in North Georgia and wintered in the lower elevations. Nesting occurs from 6,600 down to 3,500 feet of elevation. Stupka noted that the majority of the petite wrens migrated downslope to wintering sites below 2,000 feet in elevation in the national park, although some hardy souls brave the cold to remain in the high country throughout winter. It has often been noted that severe winters have reduced population sizes; but their numbers seem to recover in a few years. As far as their diet, Bent notes that, “Vegetable food is of practically no interest to the winter wren; the bird wants flesh and its choice of meat most commonly strikes upon such creatures as beetles, true bugs, spiders, caterpillars, ants and other small hymenoptera.” This begs the question: How do any of the tiny birds survive winter in the mountains? Perhaps their habit of moving to lower elevations and foraging around root balls and other tangles allows them to find the few insects that are available year-round. The special classification of the Smokies’ winter wren isn’t the entire story. As a species, their complex diversity didn’t and couldn’t stop there. It’s almost overwhelming. To deal with the variability of populations living in such isolated locales, taxonomists began to divide the species into subgenera such as Anorthura, Olbiorchilus and even Nannus. Still there were clarity issues. Finally, in early 2010, the American Ornithologists’ Union voted to split the species formerly known as the winter wren into three separate species: Eastern winter wren, Troglodytes hiemalis, Pacific winter wren, Troglodytes pacificus, with the Eurasian winter wren retaining the original nomenclature, Troglodytes troglodytes. But, hold onto your hat. Here’s where it truly gets

Winter wrens are often heard but seldom seen. Being well-camouflaged and not much larger than your thumb is one reason for this. Another is their trogloditish habit of hanging out around the root balls of trees, under overhangs, and in the shade of other cave-like environs. Bottom: A winter wren is banded by biologists after being captured with a net along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 56

2/13/15 5:18 PM

no interbreeding. The females in each subspecies only mate with the males that sing their appropriate and unique song. Time is the great disperser. It took millions of years to create the Smokies. One would assume if you could leave the planet for several millennia and come back, winter wrens could have morphed like Darwin’s finches into 46 or more separate species. But, only one of which would still be claiming the lofty environs of the Great Smoky Mountains as its home. And, we might add, claiming it rather vociferously.v Stephen Lyn Bales is senior naturalist at Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville and the author of Natural Histories and Ghost Birds published by UT Press. A native of Gatlinburg, he is the great-grandson of Jim Bales whose home site is preserved on the Roaring Fork Nature Trail. His last story for Smokies Life was on fall hawk migrations.

PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHEN DALTON/MINDEN PICTURES

complicated. Using variables in location, song, plumage and DNA, these three species were then parsed into no less than 46 subspecies. (Do not fear. Only 16 subspecies occur in North America; two in the east, 14 in the west.) The distinct Smokies’ inhabitant is now designated as the Southern winter wren, Troglodytes hiemalis pullus. If this complexity is hard to get your mind around, it might be helpful to picture the various winter wren populations isolated in their respective high mountain environs as breeding inhabitants of little islands scattered around the northern tier of the planet as separate as Darwin’s finches are on the Galápagos archipelago. Each group, although virtual lookalikes, has its own DNA and, outwardly, its own variation of the complicated song. Perhaps incredibly, initial studies of two separate groups living in close proximity indicate that there is really

A winter wren provides a juicy insect for its nest full of chicks. Nests are often built under banks and are tiny domes with a cryptic entrance on the side.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 57

2/13/15 5:18 PM

Thanks to these business members and our other advertisers for helping support the educational, historical, and scientific programs of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. LODGING Auntie Belhams Mountains of Experience 1024 Charlotte Court Pigeon Forge TN 37863-6100 Phone: 800.436.6618 Email: john@auntiebelhams.com www.auntiebelhams.com GSMA members in good standing will receive 10% off current room rate. Special events, holidays, and October excluded. Carr’s Northside Cottages & Motel Experience Gatlinburg at its finest—in a natural part of the city—away from the traffic and noise, yet close to everything. 421 West Laurel Road Gatlinburg TN 37738 Phone: 800.370.5593 vacation@carrscottages.com www.carrscottages.com Chalet Village Chalet Village, the premier destination for Gatlinburg Cabins. 1441 Wiley Oakley Drive Gatlinburg TN 37738 Phone: 800.262.7684 Email: info@chaletvillage.com www.chaletvillage.com Clarion Inn in Pigeon Forge Clarion Inn, Pigeon Forge, TN is arguably the finest and most luxurious hotel in the area. 124 Walden Main Street Pigeon Forge, TN 37863 Phone: 865.868.5300 Email: jon@clarionpf.com www.pigeonforgeclarion.com GSMA members in good standing will receive 10% off current room rate. Special events, holidays, and October excluded.

Hampton Inn (Pigeon Forge) 2497 Teaster Lane Pigeon Forge, TN 37863 Email: Charles.wilson@hilton.com www.pigeonforge.hamptoninn.com GSMA members in good standing will receive 10% off current room rate. Special events, holidays, and October excluded. Heartland Rentals Have you got Cabin Fever? Are you sitting around your house, or is your day filled with plenty of work? If this is what your life feels like day after day, Heartland Cabin Rentals has the answer for you. 745 Powdermill Road Gatlinburg TN 37738 Phone: 800.836.9541 Email: reservations@heartlandrentals.com www.heartlandrentals.com GSMA members in good standing: Stay two nights get the third free. Special events, holidays, and October excluded. Holiday Inn Hotel and Convention Center Welcome Home 3230 Parkway Gatlinburg TN 37738 Phone: 865.428.2700 Email: kembre@cooperhotels.com www.4lodging.com GSMA members in good standing will receive 10% off best flex rate. Excludes July, October, holidays and special event periods. Maples Ridge Cabin Rentals Your Place to Stay in the Smokies 1804 Wears Valley Road Sevierville TN 37862 Phone: 800.752.9052 Email: maplesridge@comcast.com www.maplesridge.com

Eden Crest Vacation Rentals Escape to paradise. 652 Wears Valley Road Pigeon Forge, TN 37863 Phone: 855.874.2450 marketing@edencrest.net www.edencrest.net

Parkside Cabin Rentals Break away from the vacation routine with a cabin rental in Gatlinburg, Tennessee 122 Parkway Gatlinburg TN 37738 Phone: 865.436.5053 reservations@parksidecabinrentals.com www.parksidecabinrentals.com GSMA members in good standing will receive 10% off lodging.

Golfview Vacation Rentals Welcome to the heart of Pigeon Forge in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains 718 Golfview Boulevard Pigeon Forge, TN 37863 Phone: 888.705.7368 Reservations@golfviewvacationrentals.com www.golfviewvacationrentals.com GSMA Members in good standing will receive a 15% discount on lodging, excluding holidays.

Riverside Tower After all, it is your vacation. 3455 Parkway Pigeon Forge TN 37863 Phone: (865) 453-5500 Email: mapjuvinall@aol.com www.riversidehotels.com GSMA members in good standing will receive 10% off current room rate. Special events, holidays, and October excluded.

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 58

2/13/15 5:18 PM

SERVICE S

Timber Creek Realty & Cabin Rentals 3121 Wears Valley Road Sevierville TN 37876 Phone: 865.774.8988 Email: kay@timbercreekcabins.com www.timbercreekcabins.com Wears Valley Realty Group Often you will hear real estate agents talk about “selling” your home or property. The reality is that while your goal may be to sell your house it takes real “marketing” to get it done. We market your home or property! 3240 Wears Valley Road Sevierville, TN 37862 Phone: 865.908.8430 neva@wearsvalleyrealtygroup.com www.wearsvalley4sale.com

SHOPPING GSM Outfitters Our passion is to bring quality products at a reasonable price to the outdoor enthusiast. 3275 Wears Valley Road Suite B Sevierville TN 37862 Phone: 865.366.2608 michael@gsmoutfitters.comcastbiz.net www.gsmoutfitters.com GSMA members in good standing will receive a 10% discount on merchandise Sugarlands Distilling Company Stories in every jar! 805 Parkway Gatlinburg TN 37738 Phone: 865.325.1355 Christin@sugarlandsdistilling.com www.sugarlandsdistilling.com GSMA Members in good standing will receive a 10% discount on apparel.

Home Federal Bank of Tennessee You’ll know you’re home! 515 Market St Knoxville TN 37902 Phone: 865.456.0330 online.banking@homefederaltn.com www.homefederalbanktn.com Richardson Turner Construction Co. Our company has enjoyed a rapid rate of growth since its beginning in 1981, accelerated by our retention of customers, reputation for quality, and the ability to understand and meet our client’s needs. Knoxville TN 37932 Phone: 865.966.8999 Email: rturner@rtcc.net www.rtcc.net

FOOD AND DRINK Heinzelmannchen Brewery Your Gnome Town Brewery—Purity, Freshness, Tradition. 545 Mill Street Sylvia NC 28779 Phone: 828.631.4466 Email: gnome@yourgnometownbrewery.com www.yourgnometownbrewery.com GSMA members receive 10% off merchandise, excluding alcohol. The Old Mill There’s nothing like The Old Mill Square in Pigeon Forge, an authentic and historic dining and shopping destination. 175 Old Mill Avenue Pigeon Forge TN 37863 Phone: 865.806.4700 Email: lauriefaulkner@old-mill.com www.oldmillsquare.com

ATTRACTIONS

Butterfly Baskets We deliver happiness! 855 Fairgarden Circle Sevierville TN 37876 Phone: 865.366.5562 butterflybaskets@gmail.com www.butterflybaskestinthesmokies.com GSMA members will receive a 10% discount. Misty Mountain Soap Company We make all our products with lots of love and quality natural ingredients because we care what goes on your skin and into this world. 849 Glades Road Suite 2C6 Gatlinburg TN 37738 Phone: 865.325.8084 cindy@mistymountainsoap.com www.mistymountainsoap.com GSMA members in good standing will receive a 10% discount on products.

Big Creek Expeditions Big Creek Expeditions specializes in offering large groups the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of the Great Smoky Mountains on a professionally guided whitewater rafting adventure. 3541 Hartford Road Hartford TN 37753 Phone: 877.642.7238 Email: jfelderman@bigcreekexpeditions.com www.bigcreekexpeditions.com GSMA members receive a 25% discount. Scenic Helicopter Tours Helicopter Adventures in the Smokies 113 Helicopter Boulevard Sevierville, TN 37876 Phone: 865.453.6342 dan@scenichelicoptertours.com www.flyscenic.com GSMA members in good standing will receive a 15% discount on tours.

VACATION PLANNING SERVICES Smoky Mountain Tour Connection, Inc. Your one stop shop for vacation packages. P.O. Box 914 Pigeon Forge, TN 37868 Phone: 865.908.9100 Email: lora@traveltn.com www.traveltn.com Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 59

2/13/15 5:18 PM

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 60

2/13/15 5:18 PM

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 61

2/13/15 5:18 PM

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 62

2/13/15 5:32 PM

Smokies Life

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 63

2/13/15 5:18 PM

SL_issue_vol9#1.indd 64

2/13/15 5:18 PM

SLcover vol9#1.indd 2

2/13/15 5:05 PM

vo l ume 9 #1

The idea of a ramp approximately the gradient of the trail supported on vertical ‘trunks’ of concrete began to root itself in my mind. —Hubert Bebb, architect

SMOK IES LIFE MA GA ZINE

401013

$6.95

USA GSMA

SLcover vol9#1.indd 1

2/13/15 5:05 PM