Baby's First (real) Dayhike - Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest

We took the opportunity of this spring-like day here in late February to take our daughter on her first real hike. We went to Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest in Graham county and walked the approximately two-mile figure eight shaped loop through the huge trees and by Little Santeetlah Creek. Our little girl is just three months old and she was mesmerized by the trees and new scenery...until she fell asleep of course.

Mom and baby check out the awesome trees.

If you haven't been to Joyce Kilmer Memorial forest, it is several hundred acres of preserved, virgin hardwood forest. This area, unlike much of western North Carolina was not logged during the early part of the 1900s. Much of the surrounding forests, uincluding much of the Great Smokies National Park have been logged at some point in time. This lack of human intervention means the tulip poplars and white oaks have grown to incredible sizes - 15 to 20 feet around in some cases!

Two huge poplars!

However, the area has not been without intrusion, especially in the past ten years. The wooly adelgid is wreaking havoc on the hemlock trees up and down the Appalachians. Entire stands of these trees are dying, leaving only their trunks as a reminder of their former glory. The dead and dying hemlocks have proven to be at best a nuisance and at worst a serious hazard for anyone that might be caught under one on a windy day. 

Huge dead hemlocks are becoming all too familiar in the southern Appalachians.

 Three or four years ago, the Forest service realized that they were going to have to address the hemlock issue in Joyce Kilmer. However, this area is designated as a "wilderness" meaning it should be kept as close to natural as possible. The use of gas-powered machinery is forbidden and the idea of leaving sawn off stumps wasn't appealing to the wilderness idea anyway. So the solution came to use dynamite to blow up the dead hemlocks, giving the illusion that they broke off themselves during a wind storm. I'll admit that I was skeptical and was not impressed when I went hiking just a few months after it was done. However, after several years, the forest is starting to reclaim the blown down and broken logs as planned. 

These logs were cut with traditional hand tools after being dynamited.

A dynamited stump of a dead hemlock.

Joyce Kilmer memorial forest is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been and it is a place I have some of my earliest memories of hiking with my family. I will make sure it is one of my daughter's earliest memories too.

I always assumed that design was a leaf, but it is actually a relief of the Little Santeetlah Creek watershed.

After a wet winter, all the wet weather springs were running - some even through the trail!

Trail conditions on this day were good with a few muddy spots. Our wet winter has led to several springs running where they might not be found in the summer. There are a few new logs down that require either a big detour or some scrambling, but the forest service should have things cleared up soon.

Little Santeetlah Creek runs through the heart of Joyce Kilmer.

Joyce Kilmer is part of the Slickrock-Citico Creek wilderness

This dynamited tree has formed a big pool (full of fish, I'm sure).