Unseen elevation

January 25, 2025 Tigerotor77WColorado, Denver Art Museum, elk, Garden of the Gods, Rocky Mountain National Park, Sky Pond lake, Sunrise, waterfall1 Comment

N.b. the following several posts will be wildly out of chronological sequence as I finally get to synopses of photos since 2019.

The 24 months after my repatriation into Charleston was tumultuous for two reasons. First, I wanted badly to scratch the hiking itch, which isn’t so accessible from a Charleston doorstep; and second, because COVID rendered travel impractical for months. Just prior to airline and border lockdowns, I was back in Germany on an equipment preacceptance. Two weeks later after I got back, international travel into the US stopped altogether. In late 2020, once domestic travel restarted awkwardly, I realized it was faster to fly to Denver than to drive to the Blue Ridge Mountains, and in June 2021 I found myself flying to Colorado again as the snows thawed.

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Essence of the Smokies

June 3, 2014June 3, 2014 Tigerotor77WCharleston Hiking and Outdoors, Chimney Tops, elk, Elkmont, fireflies, glowworm, glowworm beetle, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Newfound Gap, synchronized fireflies3 Comments

It’s flat in Charleston, but 300 miles to the west-northwest is a string of mountains whose name I still haven’t fully figured out: the Great Blue Smoky Ridge Appalachian Mountains. Among them is one of the few fee-free National Parks: the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I have been there before, but never for watching synchronous fireflies; in fact, I had never even heard of the phenomenon until the Meetup event was posted.

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