One of the most memorable Easters of my life was in 2011 when I attended a solo sunrise service in Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest just across Lake Santeetlah from Robbinsville, NC.
It was part of my weekend wildflower pilgrimage in the mountains. Easter is a fickle date since it is held in tandem with the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. That year would be one of the latest dates it would fall, and with time off from grad school classes, it would coincide perfectly with peak bloom in the mountains.
I left Cherokee, NC at... well I don’t even remember when. Probably 5:00 or 5:30 in the morning. I drove a little over an hour until I reached the Cherohala Skyway very near my destination. I pulled off into the Hooper Cove parking lot (elevation 3096 ft) at just before 7 am, and I watched the sunrise. From there, I left to head to Joyce Kilmer.
Sunrise at the Hooper Bald overlook on the Cherohala Skyway
Vibrant foliage of Rhododendron flank a stream in Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest.
But, why all the effort to visit this forest? Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest is one of the few virgin forests left in eastern North America. I had heard tales of the mammoth trees, and I just had to see them. You may also wonder who Joyce Kilmer is. He authored the poem “Trees”. It is a fitting passage for an Easter morning spent in the woods.
“I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.”
Tiarella, Phlox, and a host of other perennials blanket the understory in Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest.
He died in 1918 during World War I in France, and to remember him, the New York chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars asked the government to name a forest in his memory in the mid–1930’s. Around the same time, the government purchased 3,800 acres of pristine forest in North Carolina to preserve “one of the few remaining examples of the great hardwood forests that covered the slopes of the Appalachians when Columbus discovered the New World”. It was this tract of land that would be named in his honor in July 1936.
Fronds as far as the eye can see.
I was enraptured upon my arrival, and I saw not another soul while I walked the trail. I quickly saw why the government paid $28 an acre instead of the typical $3 or $4 an acre cost at that time. I stood in a forest cathedral with the rays of light coming through the stained glass foliage above and the choir of songbirds singing in the broken morning. The trees had these interesting lolly-pop crowns, few branches below from self pruning and rounded tops from crown shyness. I suppose both those effects were due to being ancient and clustered so close together. They were MASSIVE, over 100 feet tall, and many of these giants from this long lost era had been dated to at least 400 years old.
Hard to have scale for how massive this tree is…
…until I stand at the base.
Look at this little cutie. Viola canadensis or Canada viola. One is lovely…
…and thousands are even lovelier. Look at all those white flowers!
And, there was magic. The forest floor was carpeted with wildflowers and natives of all kinds, and the earth-hugging tapestry shifted with habitat—ferns on one hillside, violets on another, and Tiarella and Phlox scattered along side a dry creek. I encountered half a dozen species of Trillium. Most were past their prime, but Trillium vaseyi and Trillium cuneatum still looked good.
In Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest I met Carex plantaginea for the first time. Most know it by its seersuckered foliage, but I was enchanted by the inflorescences.
Adiantum and Uvularia, zig and zag.
My first encountered with the urn-shaped flowers of Gaylussacia ursina.
One of my favorite Trillium is Trillium vaseyi. I love it for its large (about the size of a camera lens cap) crimson flowers.
A close up of Trillium vaseyi.
I saw plants growing on top of fallen trees. These nurse logs as they are called were covered with Tiarella and other flora of the forest. And, I saw the shadows of these life forces, evidenced by the tree root stilts showing where the log’s circumference used to be.
My jaw dropped at seeing plants growing on logs for the first time. The white-flowering Tiarella cordifolia looks quite happy. These habitats must be moist to support plant growth on fallen timber.
And, here the ghost of a log can be seen. I wonder how long ago it faded into the forest floor.
When I see such sights, I am filled with wonder and awe but also a bit of sadness as I think that much of the world used to look like this virgin forest before we spoiled it. Even some parts of the forest showed the effects from mankind. Along the path were massive Tsuga canadensis that had fallen with trunks twisted like toothpicks. I wondered what had caused such damage. Later, I read how they used dynamite drilled into the trunks to explode them and mimic these snags falling from a storm. These ancient ones had to be felled because they had died from the horrid woolly adelgid, and those near the trail had become a liability for potentially dropping detritus on pedestrians.
Dynamite-exploded trunks of Tsuga canadensis, eastern hemlock. A few dead trees still stand.
Here’s a close up so you can see how gnarled they were.
I count 225 rings on the cross section of this fallen Tsuga canadensis. A few small sections were too faded to count, and I didn’t include them. With that error it means that this tree likely was a seedling at the founding of our country. So sad to see that we led to its demise with the introduction of the woolly adelgid.
However, even in its brokenness, visiting places such as Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest reminds me of the wonders we can still experience on this planet. And, it resurrects the belief that we need to do all we can to protect these special treasures. For, I too, think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree. And, a forest as lovely as Joyce Kilmer.