North Carolina - page 3 of 4

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Sugarlands Nature Trail - Great Smoky Mountains National Park
March 20, 2011

Cataract Falls
[Small, low water flow waterfall darkening the rocks.]

An apparent lightening strike
[Side view of large, splintered tree which looks like it was hit by lightenting about 4 foot from the tree base. Top of tree out of picture off to the right.]

Another view of the tree
[View of same lightening hit tree looking down the fallen length of the top of the tree.]

Question mark butterfly (The "question mark" marking is on the other side of the wings.)
[Close up of moth with orange wings with black spots resting on a wood rail. Antenna are clearly defined against a blurred background.]

Shallow stream
[Interesting, oval-like light reflections across rocks in a shallow stream bed.]

One tight bud among the fully-opened blooms
[One flower is a tightly closed dark blue clump, but the other three are fully opened. They each have five rectangular-shaped petals forming a pinwheel of sorts around the white concave center. The leaves are thin, relatively long, and dark green.]

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Laurel Falls Cove Mountain Trail - Great Smoky Mountains National Park
March 21, 2011

Leafless trees everywhere
[View of the hillsides full of trees with no leaves.]

Some trees decided to give up.
[Side view of roots of a toppled tree.]

Bottom view of same tree
[Bottom view of same root ball.]

No tree stops the trail.
[Portion of trail with tree roots as a visible tripping hazard.]

This one didn't stop the trail either.
[Very large diameter tree which fell across the trail and was cut in the middle so hikers didn't have to climb over it.]

Lots of moss on this side of the mountain
[Fallen tree with moss covering portions of it. Moss on surrounding trees and stumps as well.]

Nature decomposing this fallen ash tree.
[Fallen tree with hunks of outer bark missing resulting in a great view of the bark thickness.]

Colorful fungus
[A cleanly-broken dark brown stump has more than a dozen growths on its end. They are leaf shaped (minus the stem) sticking out from the tree base. The smaller growths seem to be shades of blue while the larger ones are lighter shades.]

This was the view near the top of the mountain.
[View of valley below through a very thick screen of tree branches.]

The only wildlife I saw other than birds.
[Squirrel standing on paved trail eating.]

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All photos © S. M. Garver