- Title
- Our State
-
-
- Date
- April 2000
-
-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
Our State
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•m nini t/c.sliiialions
Adventure
Trekking into the Xorth Carolina
C?
пиша
I ains in search
о/
I he firs! spring
irildjloirers isn '/ Jar the Joint -of-feeh
but — oh — the rewards.
by Lynn Setzer
yellow dogtooth violets. royal
hluedw-.iri irises, while- irilliiiin. (Minted liilliiun, pttiple bird-
loot violets. Nolhiug is more heaulilul ihau ilu- ilii<
к
i aipets
ol spring wildllowers that bloom in llu* Ninth Caiolina mourn
uins. Hut where do von find them and when do you l«x>k?
Hun Komegay. owner and operator ol Slickrock
K\|H‘(litions. knows. and ea< h veai he li-ads
а
Imc kpa< king nip
into the Nantahala National Forest to lind the lloweis. ( )lten
In- hikes in the Joyce Kilmer-Slii
кии к
Wilderness.
"It's one ol the lie lu-sl coves I know ol." he si". “It’s also a
veiv wet area, receiving nearly 70 inc lies ol rain a vein. That's
dose to a icni|K‘i*aie rain lorest." In addition, the route In¬
takes — Iroiii the ton ol niilr-high IJoh Stratton IValcI down
into the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest — descends nearly
3.000 I eel. I likeis walk Ironi wintei into spring.
Komegay started offering the springtime exclusion about 10
\eais ago. “I don't know exactly where tlu- idea came from,
and it took a little bit to calc h on. " he remarks. "But now the
trip fill' everv year." And is it only women who tome to see the
llowciv “Oh. no." he laughs. “Alxuit half of the |>cople who
hike with me are men. Alxuit hall ol the hikeis tome Ironi
North < aiolina. and anothei
2Г»
(rercenl come from Florida."
Filch trip, ol course, has its own adventure. Tlie trip I
joined. Hint reminded me. had one doo/v ol a wintei sionn.
\ rising w inti
Fite skies had lookc*d threiitening from the stall, and
46 Our State April 2000