WWW.NATURALLYCURIOUSWITHMARYHOLLAND.WORDPRESS.COM
The hike up the mountain took six hours. Along the way, Dr. Buckner, a University of Tennessee professor of forestry, stopped two dozen times to point out facets of forest ecology. It was a good thing he stopped as often as he did; had he not, most of us students wouldn’t have survived the trip.
For years after, I awoke from nightmares wherein I would be starved for breath and water, my legs aching, and my ears hearing his words, “OK, we’ll just take a little swing up this ridge.” In Buckner’s class, a “little swing” equated to the first leg of the Matterhorn.
We were studying a beech gap, one of those marvelous Great Smoky Mountain ecological jewels hidden from all but the most intrepid wood-slover. We topped out into a saddle and were surrounded by great blue-gray monoliths — unbelievable trees that towered 150 feet above us, whose massive trunks measured more than 5 feet
