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.
It’s been a long time since I went on a hike — and the last time I tried to summit a mountain, I ended up circling its base for five hours. I therefore wavered on going on a hike up Mt. Cammerer, just under 5,000′ in elevation but requiring a six mile plod to summit. About 40 miles west of Asheville and just barely inside the borders of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the hike was intended to showcase some of the fall foliage in the area. The weather was supposed to be great (no rain this weekend!), and the only real unknowns were my tolerance for a 12 mile hike and how many leaves were going to have turned this early in the season.
En me brossant les dents 