by Don McGowan | Nov 28, 2020 | November 2020
It is sometimes true that things are not what they seem. Often when I am in the massive forests of the Great Smoky Mountains I see the trees as they have been seen by human eyes for many thousands of years; and their beauty in those forms carries me completely away....
by Don McGowan | Nov 21, 2020 | November 2020
As if to offer an encouraging wave to the passing waters, an old sycamore, whose roots long ago reached into the flow of Big Creek, extends an autumn colored branch to the rippling stream. Perhaps the golden throng will join an already-fallen sibling, poised on a rock...
by Don McGowan | Nov 15, 2020 | November 2020
Just because the autumn leaves are on the ground does not mean the season of color has gone. Some of the most appealing intimate landscapes of fall can be found only when the leaves have loosened their grips on the stems that have held them since spring and allowed...
by Don McGowan | Nov 7, 2020 | November 2020
After passing through a wonderfully forested and lightly farmed portion of Alger County, County Road H58 turns northeastward to skim the boundary of the eastern reaches of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on its run to Hurricane Beach and beyond to the village of...
by Don McGowan | Oct 31, 2020 | November 2020
Buck Fork begins its descent not far below the Appalachian Trail near the towering of Mount Guyot, where the great path has taken a sudden and short-lived turn to almost due north-south at Tri -corner Knob. Running east-west below the crests of Mount Chapman and...
by Don McGowan | Oct 24, 2020 | October 2020
Just beyond Mile Marker (MM) 469, at the very end of the Blue Ridge Parkway, growing on the banks of the fully integrated Oconaluftee River on River Right at the confluence of Raven Fork with the other already joined forks of the great stream, a many-yeared sycamore...
