The Southern Highland Reader

REGIONAL-The ongoing conflict over usage rights on the Chattooga River is worth following, if, for no other reason, as a harbinger of things to come.

In its December issue, Blue Ridge Outdoors writer Graham Averill does a nice job of making the issue clear, and the magazine throws in maps, a timeline and a “headwaters highlights” section.

Here is Averill’s lead:

For three decades, paddlers have yearned to paddle the pristine waters of the Upper Chattooga River. Earlier this year, the U.S. Forest Service finally granted limited access of the Upper Chattooga to paddlers, but a flurry of legal threats—including a legal challenge from the paddling community—prompted the Forest Service to rescind their decision a few weeks ago, once again leaving boaters high and dry.

Paddlers have been banned from the entire 21-mile headwaters of the Chattooga and its tributaries since 1976, after the U.S. Forest Service divided the river in two parts due to a series of user conflicts. Citing fistfights, slashed boats, and gun play, the forest service separated the two user groups: Boating would be allowed on the lower Chattooga, but the upper 21 miles of the river and its headwaters would be reserved for fishing.

Another clip:

Many conservation groups, including Georgia Forest Watch and the Chattooga Conservancy, support the current zoning of the river into boating and non-boating sections. Other popular recreation areas like Tsali and Bent Creek are also zoned; some trails allow mountain bikes, ATVs or horses, while others are designated foot traffic only. Anglers also support the current zoning of the Chattooga, saying that it’s a more-than-equitable compromise: the 36-mile lower Chattooga is given to boaters, while the 21-mile upper Chattooga is protected for fishermen and hikers seeking a wilderness experience.

Ironically, no parties concerned in the Chattooga access issue seemed to be happy with the Forest Service’s recent decision. Soon after it was announced, the Forest Service was threatened with legal action from all sides: four separate appeals were filed by boaters, anglers, and conservation organizations. As a result, the Forest Service withdrew its decision to fully consider the concerns raised by the user groups.

Averill sources the Cullowhee-based group American Whitewater quite a bit in the story, and offers quotes from all sides.

Read the story here.

REGIONAL–Smoky Mountain Times outdoor writer Jim Casada continues his series of columns on literature of the Smokies with a piece about waterfall books.

An excerpt:

For people who find joy in the incredible beauty and majesty of waterfalls, visiting them is an ideal way to find peace of mind. Some may stand in wonder while listening to their music – perhaps the crashing crescendo of a powerful fall or the cymbal-like tinkling of a tiny one dripping and dropping across a rock face.

Recognizing the enduring appeal and magnetism of waterfalls, writers have produced a number of guidebooks to the ones in the Great Smokies as well as surrounding mountains. Have one (or several) of these available when planning a hike, seeking advice on photography, or seeking new destinations.

Read the column here.

Lower Falls (“Gulahiyi” photo)

CASHIERS–Ruminations from the Distant Hills shares a hike, some history and a few images from the Whitewater River, which flows south from Cashiers into the Palmetto State.

An excerpt:

The final stretch of the Whitewater River is the part that I will never see, since it is lost forever beneath the waters of Lake Jocassee, built by Duke Power in the 1970s. Among the worlds lost to the Jocassee damnation was the trail of the French botanist Andre Michaux who explored the Keowee and its headwaters in 1878 and 1788.

Somewhere between the Whitewater and the Toxaway Rivers, he took notes on one unusual plant. The subsequent efforts of botanists to find the Shortia galacifolia described by Michaux continued for a century before the mystery of the Oconee Bells was finally solved.

Read Gulahiyi’s post here.

GSMNP–Smoky Mountain News outdoor writer Don Hendershot wrote last week that the 2010 omnibus spending bill, due to be signed in a couple of weeks, might  include the long-awaited cash settlement that would (in theory) lay to rest Swain County’s North Shore Road controversy.

Hendershot quotes anonymous sources, and hints that the dollar amount could be greater than the projected $30 million.

Here’s an excerpt from Hendershot’s story:

After more fits, there was another start at construction back in 2000 when then Rep. Charles Taylor and then Sen. Jesse Helms appropriated $16 million for construction of the North Shore Road. Even though the $16 million was about $550 million short of the estimated cost of such a road, the appropriation spurred some Swain County residents to action.

The Citizens for the Economic Future of Swain County was created in 2001. Although totally lacking in acronym-imagination, the CEFSC did strike a chord with many Swain County residents and environmental groups with its proposal for a cash settlement in lieu of the improbable North Shore Road. Through some mathematical calisthenics the group came up with a settlement figure of $52 million.

Read the whole piece here

See a timeline through 2001, also from the Smoky Mountain News, here.

REGIONAL–It’s a familiar complaint in the mountains: tax money, like water, runs downhill to Raleigh and never comes back.

The Asheville Citizen-Times‘ Joel Burgess contributed a history yesterday of western North Carolina’s under-representation in high-power state politics, quoting WCU faculty member Richard Starnes along the way and naming Jackson County’s Lacy Thornburg as an exception to the rule.

Here’s an excerpt:

With a few notable exceptions, including former House Speaker Liston Ramsey and Govs. Jim Holshouser and Dan Moore, modern mountain politicians have struggled to make a dent in Raleigh’s power structure. Reasons trace back centuries, scholars say, and range from geography to old grudges.“It has to do with the low population and also that WNC has often charted its own political path,” said Richard Starnes, head of the history department at Western Carolina University.

-and-

The list of western politicians who have held great sway in the Tar Heel State largely begins and ends with one man — former House Speaker [Liston] Ramsey.

Read the story here.

STATEWIDE–The Mountain Xpress reports this week that in an effort to improve various emergency services, North Carolina’s state Center for Geographic Information and Analysis will take high-res aerial photos of every square foot of the state this winter.

From the Xpress:

The project … will allow 911 offices to map buildings and structures that cannot be seen in older coarse-resolution, or “leaf-on,” photography. The last statewide “leaf-off” aerial photography was much coarser (2-meter) resolution, conducted in 1998, and funded by a federal program that has since been discontinued.

Blogger Gulahiyi, at Ruminations from the Distant Hills, can run with a much slipperier football than this one, and he’s off to the races.

Here’s a clip:

For a connoisseur of cartography, this is thrilling news. I spend several evenings a month poring over maps, and can hardly wait to see North Carolina in even greater detail. Google Earth just doesn’t provide the high resolution I need for some of my ongoing projects, such as looking for vulnerable spots in the hydroelectric dams of Western North Carolina.

and …

What’ll they think of next to put this data to good use? Ferreting out moonshine stills and marijuana grow rooms? What about the ol’ boys who raise game roosters? You can’t tell me they keep those birds around to hear ‘em sing. This new high-res map should allow us to get a doggone accurate census of game roosters in every county of the state. And you know those people with the gamers are up to no good.

REGIONAL–Two fascinating posts in a pair of regional blogs: one, from Dave Tabler at the amazing Appalachian History, describes efforts a century ago to push a railway up from Georgia to connect with the WNC railroad at Almond. Turns out they made it as far as Franklin, which is news to me.

The second, from Gulahiyi at Ruminations from the Distant Hills, remembers a 1977 flood that killed 39 people at Toccoa Falls College.

First, the railroad; the Murphy branch of the Southern Railroad is a long, lonesome and fragile strand of rails. It is the only railroad line west of Asheville, and it connects a string of small towns that once depended on it for their existence. That the line itself still exists is remarkable. Southern says it is still profitable as far as Sylva, and the Great Smoky Mountains Railway owns the line on west to its terminus in Murphy.

As I understand it, state law says it can’t be abandoned, so if the GSMR were to close up shop, ownership would revert to Southern.

Coming west, the line leaves Waynesville and climbs up to Balsam, which once boasted the highest railroad depot east of the Rockies. Balsam is still home to a railroading throwback – the grand, century-old Balsam Mountain Inn. The 42,000 square-foot inn, which had 100 rooms when it opened, was one of many such grand hotels that the railroad served. The line then drops down a serious incline (for rail) into Sylva, crossing and re-crossing Scotts Creek over dozens of trestles as it comes.

Tabler’s description of the Tallulah Falls Railway describes similar countryside.

An excerpt:

Perhaps the most distinguishing single characteristic of the Tallulah Falls Railroad was its fascinating variety of trademark trestles. Forty-two of these massive wooden wonders had to be negotiated along the scenic journey, each having to bear the full weight of a 140,000 lb. locomotive and its heavy load. It is these forty-two trestles which created much of the line’s personality, and more than any other single feature dramatically reflected the type of country that the TF served – rugged, wild and often dangerous.

The trestles of the Tallulah Falls Railroad were quite varied. The shortest of the trestles was approximately 25 feet in length, while the longest is generally considered to be the 940 feet long scenic wonder which skirted the rooftops over the town of Tallulah Falls. The only exception to the wooden trestles along the line was the massive 585 feet long steel and concrete bridge spanning Tallulah Lake.

Read Tabler’s post here.

Recent wet weather — the first such weather in the southern mountains in a few years — brought to mind for Gulahiyi the dam break just over 30 years ago.

He has a link to video from Toccoa Falls this week, and some nice photography of his own.

Read his post here.

REGIONAL–Tipper at the Blind Pig and the Acorn posts today about fall gardens.

Our relatively mild climate will allow for some light-frost-tolerant crops well into autumn.

An excerpt from Tipper’s piece:

Look for veggies that can tolerate a light frost-like you do in the early spring. Often here in western NC our first frost of the fall will be light and another frost won’t occur for several weeks.

Radishes, swiss chard, mustard greens, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, turnips, and lettuces, are all considered good choices for planting in the fall.

Read the post here.

SYLVA–Once, at one of the little-kid birthday parties we frequent these days, the pinata wouldn’t break. No matter how many anklebiters smacked it with the broomstick, and how hard they hit it, there it swung.

The father of honor, Tobias, was beside himself. “The one thing you buy from Wal-Mart that’s supposed to break …” he fumed.

Well, there will be no such letdown at little Araceli Anahi Oroz’s party on Sunday, we hear. She’ll be celebrating way up at Sol’s Creek Baptist Church, in Little Canada, and her mom says they won’t need any bootleg pinata at their place.

Candy aside, it’s not every day you go to a party nine miles up Canada, even if you live nine miles up Canada, and the invitation brought to mind a list of sayings, compiled by Loyal Jones. A folklorist and humorist, Jones, a North Carolina native, was the longtime director of the Appalachian Center at Berea College in Kentucky, and you see his writing here and there.

Once he collected a few aphorisms about living off the beaten path, and I came across it and tucked away. Here are some favorites:

• We live so far back in the sticks that the sun sets between our house and the road.
• And we use hoot owls for chickens.
• And we go towards town to hunt.
• And we have to grease the bushings three times to get to the store.

It’s hard to dip into Jones without being carried away by the current, though, because here is one of those rare, gentle, funny and altogether thoughtful people from whom its nearly impossible to turn away. His knowledge of southern mountain folkways is eclipsed only by his understanding of how the people of the mountains fit into our great national story.

While I was scratching around for the living-in-the-sticks list, I came across several more items of Jones’s that I’d put away.

One was a transcript of a speech he gave in Prestonburg, KY, a few years back, which was as concise a summary of the appalachian “war on poverty” as you’re likely to find.

Here are a few excerpts from that speech:

Down in Harlan County there was a man named Fiddler John Lewis. He was an old nineteenth century man. And he played the fiddle very well and he spoke in a very ancient English and so, a lot of people had played attention to him. Well, eventually, a professor at Berea who was interested in fiddle music went down there to interview him and he had him play and he played several tunes and he said, “Those are wonderful tunes. You play well, have good technique. Why don’t you play me your favorite tune.”

So he played one. And [the professor] said, “That’s really nice. What do you call it?” He said, “I call that ‘Napoleon crossing the Rockies.’”

Well, this was a professor, you see, who feel that they have to confront falsehood and establish truth whenever the occasion arises. So he said, “Well, you play well and you have good technique, but you know, Napoleon never crossed the Rockies…”

Clever John reflected and said, “Well, historians differ.”

Truer words were never spoken, of course, you know.

Another …

I had a real good friend. He was fighting the war on poverty … He had had a modest Dodge Dart, which, you know, was an appropriate poverty fighting vehicle. But he got hit by a coal truck, and he had, it was totaled, and he was almost totaled. But he got out, and got through, rehabilitated himself.

And he was getting’ ready to buy another car and a friend of mine told him, “You need to get a Buick. A used Buick is better than any Dodge Dart you’ll ever get,” he said. So he bought a Buick Electra – this was probably a 1962 Buick – and it had fins and it had chrome and it had … Electra … So anyway, he went over in eastern Kentucky, got lost going to a meeting in Leslie County and … he saw a fella standin’ on the side of the road and pulled up beside him – he’s over on that side, he reached over here and put down the window on that side – said, “Could you direct me to Lower Grassy?” This fella said, “Yeah, you go down here and turn left, you can’t miss it.”

They always say that, you know.

He said, “Thank you very much.” He put the window up and this fella, he wanted do a little talkin’. He pecked on the window and he put it back down again and he said, “What line of work are you in?” and Larry, not knowing what else to say, said, “I’m with the war on poverty.”

Fella stepped back, looked over that Buick, said, “It looks like you won.”

And one more:

Ron Thomas’ son, who has that wonderful band called The Dry Branch Fire Squad, said that when the war on poverty came his grandmother came down to the courthouse and offered to surrender.

REGIONAL–Asheville website RomanticAsheville.com offers up this list of what it considers the region’s top waterfalls.

Whitewater Falls, south of Cashiers, makes the cut at number four, and Gorges State Park and Graveyard Fields are in the top half.

The piece links to a separate list of Highlands-area falls.

An excerpt:

Upper Whitewater Falls is the highest waterfall east of the Rockies. The falls plunge an amazing 411 feet! The best part is that you can get a great view with a short walk. Just follow the paved walkway to the upper overlook. The walkway begins at the end of the parking lot and is accessible to wheelchairs. A lower overlook is located at the bottom of 154 wooden steps. More energetic hikers can continue down the half-mile spur trail that drops 600 feet in elevation to the Whitewater River and Foothills Trail.

Upper Whitewater Falls/Photo by Mark File/RomanticAsheville.com

Rob Young

BRUSHY MOUNTAIN–Well, it’s official.

No matter where in North Carolina you care to visit, there’s a strong likelihood that Western Carolina professor Rob Young will leap from the bushes and start fussing around with the rocks or sand you’re sitting on.

The Knoxville News Sentinel’s hike of the month takes us to the top of Brushy Mountain, in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where we find one of the region’s storied heath balds. These balds aren’t as legendary as grassy balds, but close, and Young, a geologist widely known for his expertise in matters of coastal erosion, holds forth on their origins. An excerpt:

“In 2005 researchers from Western Carolina University completed radiocarbon dating on soils dug from 12 heath balds in the park. The soils were deeper than expected – nearly two feet deep – and some of the bottom layers proved to be nearly 3,000 years old.

The research showed that heath balds, unlike the park’s grassy balds, are too old to be linked to man-made forces such as livestock grazing and logging. The study also found evidence of charcoal in the lowest layers of most of the balds, suggesting they originated from lightning strikes along the exposed, knife-edge ridges, perhaps during dry climate cycles.”

Read the whole piece here.

FRANKLIN-For each place of post-revolutionary war significance in the southern mountains, the Cherokee can counter with hundreds. In fact, significance of place is so central to Cherokee culture that in their long view one cove or mountaintop could hardly be considered more important than the next.

Not many folks take the long view now, though, and too often specific remnants of thousands of years of Cherokee and pre-Cherokee culture get in the way.

In Franklin, efforts to lengthen the runway at a small airport have uncovered a significant archaeological site. Airport developers want to do a quick dig and get on with things, while the Cherokee and others want it to stop.

The state and officials for the airport have said that they’re willing to spend just over $500,000 to excavate around 25 percent of the site before the rest would be buried under heavy fill to provide space for the runway extension.

From Marla Dalrymple’s story in the Macon County News:

[Dr. Michael] Trinkley said [his] Chicora Research Foundation did not bid on the removal because he found the continued project unethical. He even referenced North Carolina’s Unmarked Human Burial and Human Skeletal Remains Protection Act as further reason to abandon the extension.

Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Tribal Preservation Officer Russ Townsend said the tribe continues to be against current archaeological plans for the site. He said he doesn’t feel the FAA is doing what is required by law to protect the resources.

Townsend suggested either going forward with 100 percent of artifact removal or else not going forward with the project at all. “We have a problem with the graves being disturbed, damaged, moved or molested,” he said. “They cannot guarantee all are accounted for.”

So far, the county Airport Authority, the FAA and the state archaeologist have all signed off on the project.

The fact that state and federal agencies, including historical agencies, have agreed to the working plan blows Trinkley’s mind.

“It’s an abomination, it’s vulgar, it’s obscene, and it is disrespectful,” he told Jon Ostendorff of the Asheville Citizen-Times.

The leader of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians told Ostendorff that the tribe is also opposed. From Ostendorff:

Hicks said the tribal government had not opposed the plan outright when it was first floated.

He said tribal representatives tried to compromise with the airport board so that the artifacts could be collected and the runway built while respecting the historic significance of the land. But collecting only a quarter of the artifacts is not good enough, he said.

State representative Phil Haire pointed out to Ostendorff that he felt that the half-million dollar expenditure was worthwhile, even in the midst of a significant budget crunch, and that the extension of the runway was likely to be an economic boost to the area.

Other recent stories about efforts to protect archaeological sites include these:

• Ruminations from the Distant Hills on Judaculla Rock.
• The Southern Highland Reader on mounds.
• The Southern Highland Reader and Cashiers Crossroads Chronicle on Tuckasegee.

TUCKASEGEE–Residents of the Tuckasegee community south of Cullowhee are trying to have the beautiful valley where the east and west forks of the Tuckasegee meet added to the national register of historic places.

The site was home to a large Cherokee town, as well as to cultures that pre-dated the Cherokee.

“I’ve heard the story about the cave and the petroglyphs, but I don’t know where it is,” said Cherrie Moses, a longtime Tuckasegee resident whose great, great grandfather, Andrew Jackson Wood settled there in 1822.

“In most of the western part of the state we have artifacts going back 10,000 B.C.,” Assistant NC State Archaeologist Linda Hall told Jennifer Daniels, of the Cashiers Crossroads Chronicle. “And it’s pretty common to go back to 8,000 B.C. Tuckasegee actually does have material from several different time periods. The part known the best is the Cherokee village there.”

Nearby is Judaculla Rock, a flat boulder in an open field, covered with petroglyphs that seem to predate the Cherokee and have never been deciphered.

The community of Tuckasegee is feeling development pressure from a proposed rock quarry as well as assorted gated community projects.

Read Daniels’ story here.
Read about the quarry controversy from the Sylva Herald here and here.

CATALOOCHEE-When Charlotte Observer and McClatchy environmental writer Bruce Henderson ran a piece on the ongoing death of the american hemlock a couple of weeks back, it got some notice.

It was a well done story.

They’ll soon be gone, these evergreen anchors of our forests, victims of a combination of acid rain, drought, and a bug called the woolly adelgid. The emotions that surround their passing are probably similar to those earlier highlanders felt as huge american chestnut trees died by the thousands and, if they weren’t cut, eventually came crashing down — also victims of blight.

Partial view of the Plott Balsams, from Sylva

There are a couple of places I think of first when I think of the deaths of all these mountain firs: one is Caldwell Fork, high up the wall of Cataloochee Valley, not far from the spot Henderson visits in his piece. I used to spend some time up there, and the view from many spots along the trail gave me my perfect example of our high coves: steep, cool and damp, with clearly defined layers of evergreen and deciduous tree canopy and understories of rhododendron, laurel and all kinds of shrubs. Down low, where the stream tumbles along, is an absolute dance of life: ferns, wildflowers, mushrooms and mosses, salamanders and brook trout. Insects of all types.

The constant, cool evergreen ceiling makes all of this happen. Soon that canopy will go.

Another place — or sight, rather — is very different. Those of us who have spent our lives around Jackson County know the sight of the proud Plott Balsam mountain range like we know our own mantelpieces. They march away from Sylva toward Balsam Gap, and from many vantage points their silhouette is sharp and memorable. Sadly, though, the epaulettes of evergreens along the Plotts, signifying a truly formidable range, will soon be gone.

Here’s Henderson’s story, which is worth a read.

HAYESVILLE-Sylva blogger Gulahiyi offers up a post about a place called Smackass Gap, out beyond the better-known Chunky Gal mountain on U.S. 64.

I’d never heard of Smackass (the place), nor had I heard of it’s more notable products, an author named – wait for it – Eudora Rumph. Actually, Eudora Rumph is a nom de plume, but who can blame her?

This geographic revelation does bring to mind a story about Chunky Gal, though. A couple of decades ago two men were arrested for doing who-knows-what to one another at a picnic area on that mountain, and the local paper’s headline the following week, stripped across the top of the front page, read “Two arrested for lewd conduct on top of Chunky Gal.”

I’ve got a xerox of it around here somewhere.