Winner: Craggy Gardens!!

After going back and forth between locations, we eventually landed on Craggy Gardens. The mystical land of crags (yes Ken I found out there are crags indeed.) At first I was like I have no idea what to set as deadline or really what we were intending on doing at all. But after some initial brainstorming Katie and I realized that not only do we want to enhance our connection with a landscape and discover it’s “deep map” but for this to be a way for others to understand how to connect with the roots of their landscapes. That was the main point of our mission statement.

As for the tools, other than story map and a few other basic technical tools, I am lacking in that department. So I am planning on going to the mixed media lab on campus where they help you with anything technology related, especially developing websites. So I’m excited to learn more about how I can creatively express Craggy Gardens on the computer.  I do want to show the old hand drawn maps that we found in the archive and possibly draw our own as well and utilize the postcards we also collected.

As for the who will do what section, Katie and I work best together. There are a few things we can divide up like our passions for Chestnut and Hemlock trees and who will contact which person which we added to our milestones. Going over the milestones with her was a great way to envision our project, though I was a bit overwhelmed because I have’t really thought of deadlines, it ended up easing stress because we can follow a set guideline now.

Anyways I’m so excited to go to Craggy, probably late this afternoon, and experience in person what our project is all about!!

Bent Creek Excursion

Entrance to the forest, courtesy of google images

 

Winding down the smooth asphalt descent into the experiential wilderness, bike clipped to my trunk, I decided to go a little farther into the depth this time around. Engine grinding up the hills I have entered Bent Creek, established in 1925. This is an experiential forest encompassing 6,000 acres of the Pisgah National Forest, studying the growth of planted oaks and hardwoods. I thought my phone and I needed some space but forgot that was my only way to take pictures so sadly you will not be able to see it. Driving down here on a sunny weekend means cars lined up with bikes and slobbery puppies jumping out trunks and moms running after their little toddlers wobbling into the woods.

These trees here are on display like a mannequin in a clothing store. All observed, watched, but by scientific eyes. This is an experiment anyways, roots held and nurtured by man’s hand. Pulling up into the parking lot, I felt like I was showing up late to a party. Hikers and bikers clad in 2014 festival t-shirts and farm-to-feet wool socks unloading their precious cargo (puppies, babies, and bikes.) The highway drone has dulled to a faint woosh. Only heard if you listen for it, a faint engine roar reminding me I’m not allowed to forget I’m an animal of the concrete jungle.

I noticed Colorado, Utah, and New Hampshire license plates and asked the Colorado guy with a faded orange beard and gray tights under black mesh shorts what he was doing out here and he said simply “just hitting up some trails.” I realized he was looking at me expectantly, being the semi-native with a Virginia license plate, I quickly summed up the only trail I’ve loyally ridden the past year or so. Seeming satisfied with that piece of information he pedaled away. Everyone’s just trying to get a piece of life out here. Clipping into my bike I headed down a flat gravel path as well, rocks churning and gurgling beneath my wheels, hoping to discover new trails without getting too lost.

Feeling a little less like a roaming pedestrian on their day off and more like a scientific investigator, I jumped off my bike when I noticed a curious silver glint 10 feet off the path. As if strapping on my chem lab goggles I discerned the fence of metal to be purposeful, not left out here to fend for itself but could not figure out why. I then I realized I was surrounded by about 5-10 year old oak trees, same height, same species, equal distancing. This doesn’t seem like natural primary succession, but whatever floats these rangers boats I guess.

Wandering through the baby oaks my foot slips into a modest creek. I watch our liquid life flow in casual canorous curls through the slimy decomposing leaf bed. It is February yet I smell awakening. The magnetic pull of hydrogen bonds glide my arms across their cool filmy surface. My limbs, feeling like branches, dance on it’s tension. Sterile skin sliding off onto the banks and eddies, my arms now crawl with microorganisms and mud. Relieved not to be hiding from my roots behind closed doors, my pores open and seep out my purest essence. This is a classic North Carolina woods, naked trees spaced out on top of a thick layer of brown leaves, churning with chipper squirrels, laced with creeks that used to carry creepy crawlers but now glint with aluminum. I sure am filled with romanticism for the natural but where would I be without it?
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Hours later I arrived back at my car, shooting out of a steep trail coincidentally right where I parked, feeling proud of my navigation skills I put my bike back on the car, feeling wild and drenched in bloody cuts and mud from “accidentally” falling into the mud. I laugh at the beauty of it all.

The road in here abruptly lead out to blaring civilization and with that….the urge to shower.

Blue Ridge Parkway Research

The Blue Ridge Parkway is a vast and diverse landscape reaching 469 miles from northern Virginia to Western North Carolina. For me the Blue Ridge is a cocoon that I’ve nestled in throughout my life, looking up to them for strength and adventure. But after going through archived materials in UNCA special collections office, I realized these mountains and the construction of the parkway has affected not only the wildlife but the human inhabitants in the region as well. I went through this book that detailed the experience of a family that had to sacrifice their farmland for the construction of the parkway in 1936 during the Great Depression and ultimately got paid way less than they originally bought the land for. This is information that I’m discovering through looking at these archives that never would have crossed my mind just peering up at them from my window growing up. It was built and designed to create jobs and to “protect” the natural environment but there is a lot more to it than that.

Transferring over to the story map website proved to be very difficult for me. It took me a long time to figure out how to pull together the information into an aesthetic layout for the website. I can definitely see now how digital interpretations of information adds another layer to understanding a place. Once I develop more skills with these websites (I will probably head over to the office on campus and ask for some pointers) I hope to portray all the interesting information I’ve collected better.

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