Great Smoky Mountains National Park Bans Backcountry Campfires

Smoky Mountain campfire ban in effect.

Smoky Mountain backcountry campfire ban in effect.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park bans backcountry campfires. Park officials have placed the ban due to recent drought like conditions in the mountains and surrounding area. These conditions sharply increase the chances for wildfires starting and spreading. Backcountry visitors should expect the ban to remain in place until conditions change.

Only people enjoying trail shelters and backcountry campsites will be affected by this ban for now. Front country camp sites like Cades Cove, Cosby, Elkmont, and Smokemont are still allowed to use the fire rings at campsites. Picnickers can continue to enjoy charcoal grills for now also. Visitors are advised to use extreme caution with fire and always be sure and use water to extinguish them. The use of backpacking stoves with pre-packaged gas canisters is currently still allowed in the backcountry.

The park is experiencing abnormally dry and moderate drought conditions throughout the park,” said Superintendent Cassius Cash. “With little rain and hot, dry conditions predicted over the next week, it is imperative that we reduce the risk of human-caused wildfires.

Finding  drinking water may also be difficult for hikers and backpackers. Some locations that still have running springs have significantly reduced water flow. If flowing, a quart – sized bottle may take over five minutes to fill. The water sources at campsites 5, 16, 26  and Mollies Ridge Shelter are currently bone dry.

When entering the backcountry use your head and plan your route to maximize available water sources whenever possible. If you know you are heading into a dry area carry as much extra water as you can. Unseasonably high temperatures continue to dry out the region and heat stroke is a real possibility.

Symptoms of Heat Stroke

  • Throbbing headache.
  • Dizziness and light-headedness.
  • Lack of sweating despite the heat.
  • Red, hot, and dry skin.
  • Muscle weakness or cramps.
  • Nausea and vomiting.
  • Rapid heartbeat, which may be either strong or weak.
  • Rapid, shallow breathing
Source material AMA and GSMNP

Smoky Mountain Fairy Rings

Smoky Mountain fairy rings are cool!

Smoky Mountain fairy rings are cool!

Smoky Mountain Fairy Rings. Finding a Smoky Mountain fairy ring is always a special event! Last year was one of the wettest on record, more than 13 inches of rainfall above the norm.  And one of the consequences of so much rain is mushrooms.  As you hike through fields and woods this year, you may notice an arc or circle of mushrooms.  In grassy areas you may also see circles of either dead grass or exceptionally green grass.  All of these are fairy rings!

The visible rings are fascinating and have been the subject of mythical lore from ancient times.  In fact, it’s still fun to imagine a midnight meeting of fairies, gathered in their circle beneath a waxing moon to dance and sing while other sprites watch from their seats on the surrounding mushrooms.  But the real magic is taking place underground.

Purple puffball mushroom. Photo credit: fichas micrologicas

Purple puffball mushroom. Photo credit: fichas micrologicas

Fairy circles start with a few mushroom spores being naturally deposited in a given area, usually by rainfall or by an animal brushing against a mature mushroom.  When conditions are favorable (think wet weather, think 2018), the spores germinate to form mycelia (the mushroom equivalent of roots).  The mycelia emit enzymes that dissolve the nutrients in the soil so that the mycelia network can absorb them and grow. As the nutrients and moisture are used up around the original spot of germination, the mycelia move outward to form a circle.  The resulting lack of nutrients can cause the vegetation within the circle to die.  This happens within the circle of the flat-topped mushroom called the giant funnel (Leucopaxillus giganteus).  But the enzymes of another mushroom, the purple puffball (Calcatia cyathiformis), actually releases nitrogen into the soil, creating a circle of richer, faster growing grass.  Little wonder that legends about these fairy circles variously attribute both good and bad luck to their appearance!

When a fairy ring appears in the lawn you’ve spent so much time and money to develop, you may not care all that much about moonlit midnight dances; you want to be rid of it.  Treatment, however, can be difficult.  If you have a brown circle, try hand watering the area and applying a lawn fertilizer.  If the circle is green, try applying nitrogen to the entire area to mask the circle. But the best strategy is prevention. Most fairy circles develop in lawns because of thatch build up.  Annual removal of thatch followed by soil aeriation, typically done in the early spring, are the best preventative actions.

But when you find fairy circles in our meadows, fields, and forests—just enjoy them; the fairies do! A few of our favorite places to find fairy rings in the Smoky Mountains are Cades Cove, Cataloochee, and Oconaluftee.

HeySmokies.com is honored to have Carl Parsons as a contributing writer. Carl is Deputy Editor for Storyteller Magazine, a member of the Writers’ Guild of Sevier County, TN, and a Tennessee Master Gardener.

 

Source material credit: Fairy rings

 

Free Smoky Mountain Ranger Events

Find all the free Smoky Mountain Ranger events on the HeySmokies.com daily events calendar!

Find all the free Smoky Mountain Ranger events on the HeySmokies.com daily events calendar!

Free Smoky Mountain Ranger Events occur each day all summer long. 2019 is the perfect year to enjoy some quality time with a ranger in Great Smoky Mountains National Park! All the free events can be found on our HeySmokies.com daily events and special events calendars year round! Your favorite places in the Smoky Mountain like Sugarlands, Cades Cove, Elkmont, Oconaluftee and Cataloochee all offer fun and informative ranger events that the entire family will enjoy.

Bring out the Junior ranger in yourself and your kids with a fun program like Stream Splashers. This is your chance to get wet and wild with a ranger.
You won’t have to guess what all those crazy critters are that you find in our cool, clear mountain streams. Tadpoles, salamanders and more slimy things than you can shake a stick at are waiting to be discovered.

Got a hankerin’ to do some hammerin’? Regular blacksmithing demonstrations will introduce you to the ways of the anvil. Cades Cove blacksmith shop will be stoking the fires and creating useful tools and decorative works of art. Once the blacksmith was an integral part of every community forging everything from nails to build homes to horseshoes to keep the farms and mountain commerce moving. Discover the mysterious art of working metal.

Ranger campfire talks are your chance to discover secrets of the Smoky Mountains. Topics discussed are bear safety, what kind of snakes and reptiles inhabit the park, what is an elk rut and much more! Kick back and relax under the stars with a cozy fire burning bright and let your imagination run wild through the hills!

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Smoky Mountain Grist Mills

Mingus Mill was the hub of the beautiful Oconaluftee valley.

Mingus Mill was the hub of the beautiful Oconaluftee valley.

Smoky Mountain grist mills. Mountain streams and rivers provided water power for early grist mills. The fast-moving creeks of the Great Smoky Mountains proved perfect sites for grist mills which were often the gathering place for early pioneers who traveled miles over winding mountain roads and trails to get corn and wheat ground by the great mill stones. Corn was possibly the settler’s most important crop and one of its greatest virtues was that it could by crushed into coarse meal. Corn could be planted on uncleared land and an acre, which provided up to 20 times the yield as an acre of wheat, was a source of food for both the family and farm animals. Corn had a variety of other uses for early residents. Men and women enjoyed smoking ground shuck in corncob pipes; corn shuck was used to stuff mattresses and to make children’s dolls.  It was also found in outhouses (we will leave that to your imagination.)

You can still purchase buhr (stone) ground cornmeal today at several of the active grist mills that remain in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Cable Mill is one of the many jewels of Cades Cove.

Cable Mill is one of the many jewels of Cades Cove.

John P. Cable Mill in Cades Cove is perhaps one of the most popular and picturesque mills in the Smoky’s. Cable built his mill in the early 1870s along Mill Creek and dug a connecting channel to Forge Creek to insure against times of drought. A low dam directs water from the upper end of a millrace and several water gates allow the regulation of flow. The last water gate is operated by a long lever located inside the mill. The water from the millrace meets the flume and is channeled through a chunk rack which acts as a giant wooden comb preventing debris from entering the 235 foot flume that slopes slightly downward before veering towards the mill and the eleven-foot high overshot waterwheel rising vertically alongside. Water from the flume fills the wheel’s 40-plus buckets- turning the huge wheel and driving a shaft that propels the millstones inside.

Cable considered milling a part time job and his mill had specific hours and days but unexpected arrivals could ring a large bell, located adjacent to the business, to summon Cable from his nearby fields.

Cable’s Mill is located about midway on the road in Cade’s Cove. In addition to the mill, the site also features a vintage farmhouse, barns and outbuildings. During the season, volunteer millers are often on hand to demonstrate the art of grinding grain. The finished products are sold in the park store also located on the property.

Mingus Mill, on its original site, is a scant half mile north of the Oconaluftee Visitor Center in Cherokee on U.S. 441. Built in 1886, the mill uses a water powered turbine instead of a water wheel to activate the machinery in the building. Water flows down a millrace to the mill where a working cast iron turbine turns the heavy millstone. An onsite miller demonstrates the process of grinding kernels into cornmeal which is offered for sale, along with other mill items. The grounds are open daily. The miller’s hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. mid-March through mid-December. It is also open Thanksgiving weekend.

Alfred Reagan House and Tub Mill, circa 1900, is one of the best places to imagine just how isolated life in the Smoky’s was for early settlers. Densely forested high ridges surround the narrow valley which is home to the Roaring Fork River- the mill’s source of power. Beyond the sound of rushing water are silence, solitude, and many say a profound sense of loneliness. Nearby, almost perpendicular, overgrown fields where corn was once planted, bear witness to the labor intensive business of farming in these rugged mountains. Reagan’s tub mill, one of the most common types of mills in these mountains, utilized wooden channels to carry water to a primitive horizontal wooden turbine wheel which turned and provided direct drive power to the mill’s stones. A small tub mill could produce about a bushel of cornmeal a day.

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Smoky Mountain Super Moon

Smoky Mountain Super Moon!

Smoky Mountain Super Moon!

Smoky Mountain Super Moon will rise above the Southern Appalachian mountains Wednesday, March 20, 2019. This Smoky Mountain special event is the final Super Moon of the year appearing on the same day as the vernal equinox, the beginning of spring! This super moon is known as the “Full Worm Moon.”  The full moon and the spring equinox arrive within four hours of each other. The last time this occurred was March 2000, but the last time it was on the same date was March 20, 1981.

A “supermoon” means the Moon will be almost at its closest point to the Earth for the month. This is the third and final supermoon of 2019. The moon will seem bigger and brighter than normal.

Traditionally Native American and other historical names for full Moons were used to keep track of the seasons. Each full Moon name was applied to the entire lunar month during which it appears. The Moon we view in March is known as the Full Worm Moon. During this time of year the ground begins to soften from the cold extremes of winter inviting earthworms to begin to appear and do their thing. Robins and other birds begin to feed on them and this was always considered a verifiable sign of spring. This re-birth of the earth is accompanied by roots pushing their way through the soil with green shoots popping up.

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