Recently my son visited his cousin, my nephew, in North Carolina. Last year parts of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee were devastated by Hurricane Helene. Roads were washed out. These included roads around my nephew's house. Although his home did not suffer any significant damage, he was isolated without power, which meant he was without a working well to draw water. While he was alright for a few days, he had to find a way out. Eventually he did.
My nephew traveled a circuitous route along remote mountain byways to get down to Georgia. Although he escaped disaster, he learned a lot about surviving another natural disaster, and has since made modifications so that in the future he will not be so vulnerable to nature. Fortunately, the property is not in a flood zone, or in the path of rushing water. Homes located at lower altitudes did not fare so well.
In good weather, the trip up from Georgia's Atlanta airport to his North Carolina home is pretty direct. When he picked my son up from the airport it was dusk. My son took some pictures of the sky and the highway as they drove. Here's one of those pictures.
Here is another:
Here is a view of the forest around my nephew's house, as seen from his back porch. His lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains. These mountains are only one section of the grand Appalachian Chain.
Here is another view from that back porch.
My son changed the angle of his view a bit and caught in the distance a majestic peak looming above the nearer mountains. This is a famous mountain, Satulah Peak. This mountain was known to the Cherokee who lived in the area, as a place to stay away from. Today it is designated as a North Carolina Heritage Registered Area and is a park open to the public.
Although my nephew's house is in the area of an established community, the setting for his home still offers advantages, and risks, of the wild. Here, for example is a picture of a bear that was walking toward his porch just yesterday morning.
In the next picture you can see the bear got pretty close, before it turned and walked away.
The bear in the picture is a black bear, the kind of bear that is quite commonly found in the Blue Ridge Mountains. This bear looks (to my untrained eye) like it might be a juvenile, because male black bears weigh up to 250 lbs. and females up to a hundred. Hard to tell from the picture how big that bear is. Anyway, the bear eventually walked away. The picture below seems to have been taken through a window or a screen...which seems like a very good idea!
The Blue Ridge Mountains, as I have already mentioned, are only one part of a much larger chain, the Appalachians. These stretch from the state of Alabama in the south up to Canada in the north. The chain is not a unified structure. Parts of it were formed at different times over approximately the last billion years. The part that comprises the Blue Ridge Mountains was formed 1.1 billion, to 250 million years ago. Because of its age, this range is not one of the highest in the world, although it is one of the oldest. Erosion over time winnows a mountain.
The Himalayas, among the youngest mountains in the world, are among the world's highest. They were formed 50 to 60 million years ago.
Here is a picture of my nephew's dog as it enjoys the view from the porch. The dog wears a sweater because it can be chilly up in the mountains and that dog is very skinny. I wonder what the dog would do if it saw the bear?
To me, the Appalachians seem very familiar. I grew up in the shadow, perhaps even the foothills of one section that runs through New York State. We lived in or near a subrange called the Marlboro Mountains. Every day, when I was very young, we would leave our backyard, cross a stream and head up into the mountains. To me they were our playground.
I don't have a picture of the woods behind my home and the mountain we used to climb, but here's a picture of Marlboro Mountain, close to my home. The mountain in the picture looks just like our childhood playground. The photo was taken in Plattekill, where my grandparents lived. As you can see, the terrain is very similar to that we can see in the photos of my nephew's backyard view.
Lithiu6ion public domain
Here is a map that shows the approximate location of the Appalachian chain, from the U.S. Geological Society. Public domain. My home, when I was a child, was located in the New York State area described as 'Valley and Ridge' (dark grey on the map).
Parts of the Appalachians in New York are the Catskill Mountains, and the Shawangunks. Both mountain ranges are younger than the Marlboro Mountains, though not by much. While the Marlboros were formed by sediment, both the Catskills and the Shawangunks had their modern forms carved by glaciers.
I have visited other parts of the Appalachians without being aware that I was in them. We went to the Poconos one summer. The Poconos are located in the Allegheny Mountains, which are part of the Appalachians found in Pennsylvania.
The Alleghenies were formed about 299 to 250 million years ago. This range runs through four mid-Atlantic states. The range is about 500 miles long and stretches from mid Pennsylvania to Virginia.
One year we went to New Hampshire, to an area in that state's White Mountains, a northern stretch of the Appalachians.
Here is a picture, taken by my daughter, of the White Mountains.
As mountains go, the White Mountains are relatively young, younger than many sections of the Appalachians. They were formed between 124 and 100 million years ago.
Another picture of the White Mountains.
And one more picture of those mountains.
These days I live on the coast, but to me the mountains are more like home. When I look at my nephew's pictures, it seems I am looking at scenes from my childhood.
Going back to my son's vacation in the Blue Ridge Mountains, there are more shots he shared with me. Here is a shot of the horizon at dusk.
Below is a picture of the woodshed my nephew built for holding his firewood. There is plenty of wood available. He's not likely to run out of that resource.
Here is a picture of the wood-burning stove.
Here is a shot of the valley. My son took this picture from a scenic overlook as he was heading toward my nephew's home.
Here are two dramatic shots of mist rising in the forest. I don't know if this is evening or morning, though the second shot seems to have more light and suggests a rising sun peeking through the clouds.
In this second shot Satulah's peak is more clearly seen in the distance.
My son said the barely discernible opening in the underbrush, photo below, was the trail the bear followed to get to the house. It must have been something to see that bear come out of the woods.
I hope you enjoyed this little excursion into the Appalachian Mountains. I really haven't scratched the surface of my experience. There are, for example the Hudson Highlands, soaring cliffs that loom over the Hudson River. At one time it was the fastest way to drive from Newburgh (near my home) to the George Washington Bridge. I traveled that route, as a passenger, countless times. And then there is Hungry Mother State park, in the Virginia Appalachians. There I vacationed with my children and my nieces and nephews.
My daughter loves the sea. My husband loves Las Vegas. But for me, I think my heart will always be happiest when I'm somewhere near home, which seems to be the Appalachian Mountains.
Thank you for reading. Peace and health to all.
