Mount Khomyak in the Carpathian Mountains, Ukraine image credit: Wikimedia Commons
My maiden name is Chomiak, anglicized from the Ukrainian, Хомяк. When I was a little girl I asked my father how to pronounce it and what it meant. The son of Ukrainian immigrants, he spoke Ukrainian fluently. But however hard I tried to copy him I couldn’t master the starting “kh” sound of the name. “What kind of Ukrainian are you?” he would tease me. He then told me the name translated to hamster, and I thought he must have been kidding.
Apparently Mount Khomyak is a popular Ukrainian hiking destination. It is 5,059 feet tall. The Visit Ukraine website says that it gets its name from its peak, which resembles the back of an alpine hamster. (Well, there you go, Papa wasn’t kidding!) The top is completely covered with stones, and lower elevations have green meadows and coniferous woodlands. I thoroughly enjoyed looking at all this beautiful mountain’s pictures on the Visit Ukraine website.
My heart is still broken over the invasion of and endless war in Ukraine. But it was fascinating to learn something more about the land of some of my ancestors.
10.16.23 ~ Occoneechee Mountain State Natural Area Hillsborough, North Carolina
So far the fall color here is pretty patchy. Occoneechee Mountain is the highest point (867 feet) here in Orange County, where we now live. So Monday we climbed a trail up to the top to see what the view might be like. Even though we see deer almost every day in our yard it’s still a thrill to see a wild one out deep in the woods.
getting ready to cross the trail
she spotted me as I zoomed in
proceeding across the trail
approaching the overlook
a view from the overlook
a side view from the overlook
part of Hillsborough below us
Eno River, 350 feet below the overlook
On our way back to the parking lot we heard quite a commotion in involving several crows and possibly another kind of bird. We kept stopping to try to see what was going on, but we never saw anything.
Part of me thought perhaps we had chosen the wrong week to visit Mt. Mitchell, that we might have waited a week in order to see more fall colors. Well, it turns out it was a good thing we didn’t go a week later. They had enough snow over there in the mountains to close Mt. Mitchell State Park and 37 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We would not have been able to go see any of what we did!
10.10.23 ~ view of Glassmine Falls Blue Ridge Parkway, Pisgah Region, North Carolina
On our way back to our hotel in the charming little town of Black Mountain we retraced our drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway. This overlook was especially beautiful. We saw some fall colors but they hadn’t come to a peak yet.
The waterfall (below) was dry on this day but apparently after a good rain a narrow stream of water falls 200 feet over the cliff. That dark hole at the base is an old mica mine. Mica is sometimes called isinglass and miners called it glass for short, which is why it was called a glassmine.
Glassmine Falls
valley on the other side of the overlook
path back to parking lot, elevation 5,200 feet
The clouds were always on the move, casting dramatic shadows over the peaks and valleys and changing the lighting moment to moment. It was a nice way to end a most wonderful day.
10.10.23 ~ start of Balsam Nature Trail Mount Mitchell State Park
Another trail! After visiting Mount Mitchell’s peak we found the Balsam Nature Trail, a 3/4 mile loop off of the Summit Tower Trail. The terrain here was very uneven, much to Tim’s relief after the flat pavement going up to the summit. Lots of up and down, even steps in some places and narrow passages between outcrops.
We didn’t encounter any wildlife or hear any birds calling. I’m guessing because this is a well-traveled trail and the creatures are hiding from people, if they are there at all. Every few minutes a couple or a family or small group of friends would overtake us and pass us. And just as often we’d pass folks hiking in the opposite direction. It was the most traffic we’ve ever experienced on a trail.
huge outcrop
ferns everywhere
a hemlock sapling – good luck precious little being
The best part of this walk could not be photographed — it was the amazing scent of balsam and Fraser fir. What an unforgettable olfactory delight!
Sadly, though, there wasn’t much left of healthy evergreen foliage. Most of the green we saw was mosses and ferns.
I am very familiar with the hemlock woolly adelgid insect pest that destroyed the hemlock grove surrounding my childhood home. It originated in East Asia and arrived here in 1951. According to Wikipedia, by 2015 90% of the geographic range of eastern hemlock in North America had been affected.
But I had never heard of the balsam woolly adelgid until I saw it mentioned on a trailside sign, explaining why there were so many dead and dying trees in this forest. This insect pest arrived here from Europe in 1900 and was discovered in this forest in 1957. The devastation is obvious in many of these pictures.
Mosses and mushrooms seem to be thriving with such an abundance of dead wood. I tried to identify the moss in the above picture — it seems to be some kind of feather moss. It looked different than the mosses I usually see. According to Britannica there are approximately 12,000 species of moss distributed throughout the world.
The spruce-fir forest is a forest type dominated by needle-leaved, evergreen red spruce and Fraser fir trees. It exists only at elevations above 5,500 feet, and contains plants and animals that are adapted to cool, moist conditions. Some of the plants and animals living in Mt. Mitchell’s spruce fir forest are found over much of the state. Others, however, are the same as (or are close relatives of) those found in the spruce-fir forests of New England or southern Canada. ~ trailside sign
The climate of a spruce-fir forest can be harsh. Wind and ice storms are facts of life here: trees with their tops missing are common sights. And, as with any high-elevation ecosystem, rain, fog, sleet or snow can occur unpredictably — in any month, at any time of day. ~ trailside sign
uneven uphill terrain
halfway point
Though spruce-fir forests are found in a broad region of northern North America, they occur south of New England only in a thin zone along the Appalachian Mountain chain. ~ trailside sign
red spruce roots
All that being said, I was still enchanted with this forest and will cherish my memories of this little taste of New England here in North Carolina.
10.10.23 ~ start of Summit Tower Trail Mount Mitchell State Park, Burnsville, North Carolina
It was a steep quarter-mile trek from the parking lot to the summit and observation deck, but the view at the top of Mount Mitchell was well worth it!
Elisha Mitchell (August 19, 1793 – June 27, 1857) was an American educator, geologist and Presbyterian minister. His geological studies led to the identification of North Carolina’s Mount Mitchell as the highest peak in the United States east of the Mississippi River. … Elisha Mitchell fell to his death at nearby Mitchell Falls in 1857, having returned to verify his earlier measurements… ~ Wikipedia
looking up from along the trail
one of the rest stops Tim made good use of
a view from along the trail I believe these are other mountains in the Black Mountains range
After reaching the summit we went up a ramp to the observation deck. From there we had an impressive 360-degree view of forests, mountains and clouds, as far as the eyes could see.
On the way back down I started noticing the many kinds of lichens growing on the trees and the wooden fences.
Sometime back in the 1980s we took our kids on the Cog Railway up Mount Washington in New Hampshire. All this time I thought it was the highest mountain on the east coast, until moving to North Carolina and reading about Mount Mitchell, which is 396 feet higher!
Mount Washington, in New Hampshire, is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at 6,288.2 ft (1,916.6 m) and the most topographically prominent mountain east of the Mississippi River. ~ Wikipedia
I can see what is meant by Mount Washington being the most topographically prominent mountain, though. Mount Mitchell is surrounded by other peaks in the Black Mountains range, which has 12 summits higher than Mount Washington’s.
I had another treat waiting for me as we headed back down the trail.
On Tuesday we left early to vote in the Connecticut primary and then drove down to the pond by way of the road along the Thames River. Some of the river’s banks are covered with an unattractive cement ramp, but, I happened to notice a swamp rose mallow popping through it as we were driving by.
Fascinated, I asked Tim to stop the car so I could hop out and examine the wildflower up close. How could it be growing in such an inhospitable spot? It wasn’t that big yet, maybe 2 feet tall, and I wonder how high it might be able to grow there. (They can grow to 7 feet, and the flowers are 4-6 inches in diameter.)
As I was enjoying the close encounter I noticed another wildflower growing through another seam. I loved the shades of purple on its petals.
Back in the car and on to the pond. So sad to see even less water remaining in it. I’m surprised the shorebirds don’t do their fishing over at the beach but they must have their reasons for hanging out here still.
drought-stricken Beach Pond
lesser yellowlegs
Nature, like a loving mother, is ever trying to keep land and sea, mountain and valley, each in its place, to hush the angry winds and waves, balance the extremes of heat and cold, of rain and drought, that peace, harmony and beauty may reign supreme. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Feminist as Thinker: A Reader in Documents & Essays)
great egrets strolling by
snowy egret with lesser yellowlegs behind him
snowy egret
great egrets mingling with snowy egrets
swamp rose mallow, this one growing by the pond
We’re supposed to get a break from the heat and humidity this weekend, which will be nice, but we also need some rain!
Boatman, I am a river I am a mountain, to the sea Boatman, taker, and giver Can you deliver for me? And can I forever run free? ~ Livingston Taylor ♫ (Boatman) ♫
“At the First Touch of Winter, Summer Fades Away” by Valentine Cameron Prinsep
The days move more swiftly now, too, with late dawns and early dusks. The days march toward the winter solstice like a winter farmhand with the wind at his back. And the long nights become the sleep of the earth itself, the rest, the waiting.The fox barks in the night, in the glitter of winter starlight. The deer shelter in the hemlock thickets on the mountain. The woodchuck sleeps, breathing only once in five minutes. And that hurrying wind whistles in the naked maples. November is at hand. This is the hurrying, impatient wind of winter that I hear in the night. ~ Hal Borland (Hal Borland’s Book of Days)
