Yesterday, columnist Sam Venable took a somewhat humorous look at how hikers have been trying to "grow" the summit of Mt. LeConte by placing a rock or two from the trail on High Point. He writes about how some people are dropping rocks from other places around the world, as if to trip up geologists. It's an interesting read - click here to check it out.
On Wednesday the paper published an article on how researchers are study the effects of balsam woolly adelgid on Fraser firs. The park is currently monitoring 36 high-elevation fir forests on five different peaks. The study began in 1990, with researchers revisiting the monitoring plots every 10 years. This summer marks the third cycle of data collecting for the fir monitoring study. You can read the full article here.
Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com Detailed information on trails in the Smoky Mountains; includes trail descriptions, key features, pictures, video, maps, elevation profiles, news, and more.
