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Johnny Molloy
196 pages (June 2007); 4.9MB download
Menasha Ridge Press; ISBN: 978-0-89732-960-6
DESCRIPTION
A Guide for Car Campers Who Hate RVs, Concrete Slabs, and Loud Portable Stereos.
The only guide to the Smokies and Southern Appalachian's best tent camping just got better! Completely updated, re-organized for ease of use, and containing five new campgrounds, The Best in Tent Camping: The Southern Appalachian and Smoky Mountains continues to lead tent campers to the best of the area's best. The newly designed campground layout maps, UTM and latitude/longitude coordinates for each campground entrance, descriptive text, and ratings for security, quiet, and beauty make this new edition a must-have for every tent camper's library.
At the heart of the Southern Appalachians are the Smokies --the 500,000-acre master mountain chain containing the highest, wildest country remaining in the East. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park justifiably attracts millions of people per year. The allure of the Smokies often overshadows special areas adjacent to the park. Literally encircling the park are millions of acres of state park and national forest land that avails Smoky Mountain country to the public. This book covers not only the Smokies, but also the highlands of eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, northern Georgia, and western South Carolina.
This is a region steeped in human and natural history. These mountains played a significant role in the formation and westward expansion of our country. Oftentimes, this expansion was at the expense of the Cherokee, who battled the settler and lost, but eventually managed to hold on to some of their ancestral lands. Aside from a few Civil War skirmishes, this land became a forgotten backwater, the land of "do-without." That was until logging interests discovered its magnificent forests and began to cut them down. Thankfully, some stands were left intact; the Smokies still contain some 125,000 acres of old-growth woods. After the harvest in the early 1900s, the Forest Service took over the fire-scarred and eroded lands, protecting and managing the area for commercial and recreational purposes: the multiple-use concept. Other special mountain places came under state protection, forming a nucleus of fine state parks.
A trip into the Southern Appalachians is like going from Georgia to Maine without all the driving. The elevation rise from 700 to 6,700 feet creates climate conditions like those ranging from Dixie to New England. Within those climate zones are habitats that foster plant and animal life found from Georgia to Maine. These conditions create the biodiversity that makes the Southern Appalachians special.
Generally speaking, spring takes six weeks to climb the mountains. Conversely, autumn descends the mountains six weeks earlier than in the surrounding lowlands. All of this adds to the biodiversity and makes for varying weather conditions to suit your whims as you seek the wildflowers of spring, the lushness of summer, the colors of autumn, and the snows of winter. Luckily for us, there are plenty of campgrounds tucked away in Smoky Mountain country.
About the Author
Johnny Molloy is an outdoor writer who averages over 100 nights in the wild per year backpacking and canoe camping throughout the United States. He has written numerous books and articles for magazines and Web sites.