The Southern Highland Reader

GSMNP–Great Smoky Mountains National Park has announced its spring opening schedule for Park facilities and availability of services.  Beginning this year, a variety of new concession services will be offered to visitors and new facilities will open. LeConte Lodge will provide day hikers and backpackers with an opportunity to buy a prepared bag or dining room lunch, beverages, and baked snacks at the lodge.  Cades Cove Riding Stables will begin offering wheelchair accessible carriage rides and hayrides.  In addition, new facilities nearing completion at Sugarlands Riding Stable include a modern wood and steel frame barn for housing horses, office, and hay shed.
A majority of campgrounds and secondary roads will open starting on Friday, March 13.  The schedule follows:

Roads–The secondary roads that are set to open on March 13 include:   Little Greenbrier, Rich Mountain, Straight Fork/Round Bottom, Forge Creek, and Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail.  Clingmans Dome Road is set to open on April 1 and the Heintooga Ridge and Balsam Mountain Roads will open on May 8.  Parson Branch Road will have a delayed opening resulting from storm damage over the winter and is expected to open late spring.

Operating Hours for Visitor Centers – The three visitor centers are open daily and the operating hours through March are as follows:  Sugarlands Visitor Center, near Gatlinburg, TN, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Cades Cove Visitor Center, near Townsend, TN, 9 a.m.-6 p.m., and the Oconaluftee Visitor Center near Cherokee, NC, hours will be 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

The National Recreation Reservation Service (NRRS) provides visitors an opportunity to make reservations to many federally-managed recreation areas, including the National Park Service, all across the U.S.  The system allows campers to reserve specific campsites and to make reservations 6 months in advance.   In addition, group campsites and picnic pavilions can be reserved up to 12 months in advance.  To make reservations at three of the Park’s developed campgrounds, and all group campsites, horse camps, and picnic shelters, visitors can go to  “http://www.Recreation.Gov” www.Recreation.Gov or, alternatively, book reservations by calling 877-444-6777.

Campgrounds open on a staggered basis starting March 13. (See the following schedule for exact dates.)  Three of the Park’s 10 campgrounds are on NRRS from May 15-October 31: Cades Cove, Elkmont, and Smokemont. Cosby Campground has a limited number of reservable sites through NRRS.  Camping fees are $14 per site at the smaller, more primitive campgrounds, and $17-$23 at the larger campgrounds.

Campers have an opportunity to camp in “generator free” campsites at three campgrounds:  Cades Cove, Elkmont, and Smokemont campgrounds.   Campers can reserve a site in the generator-free loop sections of Cades Cove and Elkmont campgrounds.   At Smokemont, while there is no separate generator-free designation, loops A, B, and C are managed as tents only and are generator free, and RV campers who prefer a generator-free site may reserve a site in those loops.
Group Camping will be available at seven campgrounds (see schedule for opening dates) and reservations must be made through NRRS.  Group camping is available at Big Creek, Cataloochee, Cosby, Deep Creek, Elkmont, Cades Cove, and Smokemont.  The cost for group camping ranges from $26 to $65 per site/night.
Horse Camps at Anthony Creek, Big Creek, Cataloochee, Round Bottom, and Towstring will open April 1 and reservations are only available through NPRS.  The horse site fees are $20 at all horse camps except for Big Creek where it is $25.
Picnic Areas - There are 10 first-come, first-serve picnic areas.  Open all year are Big Creek, Cades Cove, Chimney Tops, Cosby, Greenbrier, Deep Creek, and Metcalf Bottoms.  Collins Creek Picnic Area will open on March 13 and Heintooga and Look Rock are scheduled to open on May 8.  The Park’s largest picnic pavilion at Twin Creeks opens on April 1 and reservations are required through NRRS only.  Twin Creeks fees range from $35-$75 depending on the number of people. In addition, picnickers can reserve five other picnic pavilions on NRRS.  They are located at Collins Creek, Cosby, Deep Creek, Metcalf Bottoms, and Greenbrier picnic areas.  The cost is $20, except at Greenbrier where it is $10.
Horseback Riding  - The opening dates for the three horseback concessions located on the Tennessee side of the Park are:  Smoky Mountain Riding Stable is open and the Sugarlands Riding Stable and the Cades Cove Riding Stable will open on March 21.   In addition to horseback rides which cost $25 per horse per rider, Cades Cove Riding Stable will offer their customary carriage rides and hay rides, but later in the season one of the new offerings will be wheelchair accessible carriage and hay rides.  The Smokemont Riding Stable in North Carolina will open April 1 and a will continue a service started last year that provides visitors with a chance to experience a horse-drawn wagon ride along the route of the historic Oconaluftee Turnpike.

LeConte Lodge, accessible only by trail, will open on March 23.  Reservations are required and can be made by calling 865/429-5704, fax 865/774-0045 or e:mail reservations@lecontelodge.com.  One night at the lodge costs $110 per adult and $85 for children 10 and under (tax not included).  The price includes two meals–dinner and breakfast.   For the first time this year, day hikers and backpackers can purchase a prepared bag or dining room lunch and snacks/beverages at the lodge.  Reservations are required for the dining room lunch.

Campground Concessions – The Cades Cove Campground Store is open.  The store provides groceries, camping supplies, firewood, ice, vending, limited food service, souvenirs, and bike rentals.  Continuing a service that was new in 2008, the Cades Cove store has multi-speed comfort or mountain bikes available for rent, in addition to single speed cruisers.  The Elkmont Campground concession will open March 13.  The concession provides firewood, ice, and vending of soft drinks, newspapers, and snacks.

CAMPGROUND SCHEDULE

North Carolina:

Campgrounds, Fee, Open, Group, Sites

*Smokemont    $17, $20    March 13    March 13
Balsam Mountain    $14    May 8
Deep Creek    $17    April 1    April 1
Big Creek    $14    March 13    March 13
Cataloochee    $17    March 13    March 13

Tennessee:

Campgrounds, Fee, Open, Group, Sites

*Cades Cove     $17, $20    Year-round    March 13
*Elkmont    $17, $20    March 13    March 13
Cosby    $14    March 13    March 13
Look Rock    $14    May 8
Abrams Creek    $14    March 13

*$20 per site during the reservation period May 15-October 31.  At Elkmont, riverside sites are $23 during reservation period only.

REGIONAL-My grandfather tried his level best to convince me that some things are worth doing because it feels so good to stop. It’s kind of a riff on the “hit the wrong note hard” theme, I suppose, so that you’ll know the difference when you hit it right.

Well, that’s how I look at squash, and so does my wife.

But it is plentiful, especially if you get your produce locally, and Sarah can make most anything palatable, so we make the best of it. And this piece from the Independent Weekly picks up the theme, giving winter squash a good going-over.

While we’re on the general theme, it might be worth noting the candy roaster, which is an enormous, sweet member of the same school of thought as the butternut squash. It is a longtime mountain favorite, and since it’s often used as a pumpkin might be, it’s generally better thought-of (at least in my house). The following recipe for “candy roaster puff” was one I first encountered at Maggie Valley’s Cataloochee Ranch. This popular dude ranch along the Cataloochee Divide is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, and several of its recipes were recently featured in Blue Ridge Country Magazine.

Candy Roaster Puff (from the Cataloochee Ranch, Maggie Valley, NC)

A candy roaster is a member of the pumpkin family, but has a much more delicate flavor and does not have the stringy texture. It is indigenous to these mountains and comes in all colors, shapes and sizes from ugly warty green to a gorgeous orange hue, from quite small to huge. In this area, the County Fair has competitions for the largest candy roaster and last year one weighing 450 pounds walked off with the blue ribbon. The owners treat them like babies to achieve their goal, placing the young squash on a clean bed of hay and religiously picking off any competing siblings so that their prize will get all the nourishment from the parent plant. They water at precise times in precise amounts and appoint guards at night to watch for vandals.

Cut into chunks, it freezes very well without blanching. If you can’t get a candy roaster, you may use sweet potato or butternut squash. If you have taken a candy roaster home with you from the mountains, here is a hint on peeling it. It has a very tough outer skin and is very hard to cut and peel, so saw it in half, scoop out the seeds and place it in a 325¼ F oven for about 30 minutes. Then you can scoop out the pulp and freeze it as is or make the following puff.

Serves: 5-6

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked candy roaster, mashed with a little butter. (If you are using raw chunks, place them in a small amount of water and simmer about 15 minutes or until very tender and mushy.)

1 1/2 cups cooked candy roaster, mashed with a little butter

1/3 cup sugar

pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

sprinkle of nutmeg and cinnamon

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together and turn into a buttered 1 quart casserole. Bake at 325¼ F until set, approximately 45 minutes. Serves 5 or 6.

MAGGIE VALLEY-The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is off and running on ski season, with this feature about the Cataloochee Ski Area in Maggie Valley.

Southern mountain ski areas are becoming more and more rare as temperatures warm, and Cataloochee has held on to its business through a combination of it’s relatively high elevation and aggressive snow-making efforts.

People who range northwards and westwards during ski season make light of the Cataloochee experience, but Cataloochee’s Tammy Brown, director of marketing, reminds us to slide before we schuss. 80 percent of Cataloochee’s skiiers rent equipment, indicating that it is a place to learn.

“We’re only a three-hour drive from Atlanta, so people come here to learn to ski and snowboard, or to warm up their skills for a trip out West”, Brown told the Atlanta paper. “We also have guests who ski regularly here for the love of it. Since we’re so close to so many cities, it’s really convenient for a day trip or a quick getaway.”

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.