Blue Ridge Mountains

“ It is a summer morning, and the eastern mountains fling their shadows long and huge across the lonesome valleys. Our little party of surveyors, [Pg 86] having spent the night on the summits of one of the less lofty peaks of the Blue Ridge, are slowly descending its shrubby skies to the more densely wooded parts of the wilderness below, of whose waste fertility many a broad tract have they yet to explore, and many a mile of boundary-line have chain and compass yet to measure and determine. ”

“ The Blue Ridge is the most easterly range of the Appalachian mountain system. I presume you are unaware that it actually has its beginning at West Point on the Hudson River, whence so many fine young officers went out to fight for their country in the great World War. ”

“ What with good roads, the radio, and better schools and more of them the scene is rapidly changing in the Blue Ridge Country.
The little one-room log school is almost a thing of the past. Only in remote sections can it be found. No longer is the mountain child retarded by the bridgeless stream, for good roads have come to the mountains and with them the catwalk—an improvised bridge of barrel hoops strung together with cables—spanning the creek has passed. The mountain mother’s warning is heard no longer. ”

“ The Blue Ridge is a well-watered region, and characteristic of the country are the innumerable springs which form creeks and small streams. A mild and bracing climate results from these physical features. The rapidity with which the streams rise and their swiftness, together with almost constant breezes in the mountains, reduce the humidity so prevalent in the southern lowlands. Although the rainfall is greater than anywhere else in the United States, except Florida, the sudden fall in the topography of the watercourses brings quick drainage. ”

“ Summer in the Blue Ridge is a refuge from the warm temperatures, the altitude accounting for as much as five degrees of coolness per thousand feet. The eastern mountains, forest covered, are notable for their summer greenery. ”

“ But if you should ask a name of any of the old folk of the Blue Ridge country they doubtless will tell you, “We are mountain people.” Never hill-billies! 42 A hill-billy, the true mountain man or woman would have you know, is one born of the mountains who has got above his raising, ashamed to own his origin, one who holds his own mountain people up for scorn and ridicule. To mountain folk the word hill-billy is a slur of the worst sort. ”

“ On the 25th of November, we set out for Charlotteville, thirty-two miles distant, passing over the Blue Ridge. The road is through a country little cultivated, and without a single village; and the number of separate houses could scarcely be more than a dozen. After we had gone about five miles, we arrived at the western base of the Blue Ridge, which affords an agreeable view, being overgrown with wood up to the top. Then we entered a narrow valley, and when the road began to ascend, we alighted and walked over the mountains. ”

“ That plain was a fact, the result of definite conditions of erosion; it exists no more in consequence of changes. What were the original conditions? In what manner have they changed? Let us take account of certain other facts before suggesting an answer. Of the mountains which wall the Asheville amphitheatre, the Blue Ridge on the east and the Unaka chain on the west are the two important ranges. The Blue Ridge forms the divide between the tributaries of the Atlantic and those of the Gulf of Mexico, and the streams which flow westward from it all pass through the Unaka chain. ”

“ The South-west Mountains run nearly parallel to the Blue Ridge, and are the first which you come to on going up the country from the sea coast in Virginia. These mountains are not lofty, and ought indeed rather to be called hills than mountains; they are not seen till you come within a very few miles of them, and the ascent is so gradual, that you get upon their top almost without perceiving it. ”

“ To aggravate matters, if such a thing were possible, a more serious obstacle now rose in front of the intrepid explorers. The ridge, which was their only hope, contracted to a width of 20 feet, and appeared to terminate in a huge rock rising 30 feet directly in front. But perseverance, which overcomes all things, brought them safely over this barrier too. Wednesday, the 19th, was a red-letter day, for they now reached the summit of the second elevation of the main range. ”

“ The whole region seems to be covered with a mantle of dark forest, excepting an occasional clearing or patch of lighter-colored grass. Very few rocky ledges appear, so that the slopes are smoothed and softened by the generous vegetation. The atmosphere also tends to the same result, the blue haze, so rarely absent, giving the names both to the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains. This haze softens everything and imparts the effect of great distance to peaks but a few miles away. ”

“ It is going to storm, and it isn't going to storm. You'd make a fine thermometer, Chops. Why, you'd have everybody crazy with the heat and the cold all at the same time."
The camp had been pitched in the narrow Smoky Pass of the Blue Ridge through which flowed a tributary of the French Broad River. ”

“ If you will look at a map, you can see for yourselves that the only region where the people of all this big section can get fresh air during the heated term, without a long journey for it, is this one line of mountains, called Alleghanies in the lump, but in reality including the Blue Ridge, the Cumberlands, your Smokies and Blacks, and others about here. ”

“ It is a broad mountain highway following the crest of the Blue Ridge, invading a world that was remote and known only to mountain folk. Today over its smooth, paved surface cars climb quickly to airy heights from which may be viewed innumerable vistas of the Piedmont plateau and 292 the Shenandoah Valley. At strategic points parking overlooks have been constructed, from which are seen tumbling waterfalls, deep and narrow canyons, cool shady forests, open meadows, and wild flowers of every shade and hue throughout the summer. ”

“ Off yonder the TVA has harnessed the waterpower of the Holston and Tennessee, made a great valley to burst into a miracle of man’s genius. Modern industrial plants steam along the banks.
Good roads, the automobile, schoolhouses, the airplane have wiped out all barriers between mountain and plain. The Blue Ridge casts a long, long shadow across blossoming valleys. ”

“ As the road wound among fair scenes where beautiful homes reposed among their delightful setting of trees, shrubbery and vines, we noticed hill rising above hill, some covered with fields of grass and grain, others clothed with forest; while the main line of the Blue Ridge rose sharp and clear against the sky with a series of undulating billows of woodland; green fading into gray-green and gray-green into blue where the Alleghanies lifted their rugged crests and divided the Atlantic from the Middle states, blending imperceptibly into the skyline. ”

“ Yet for all their seeming indifference the people of the Blue Ridge, who locked their offspring generation after generation in mountain fastnesses that have barred the world, have kept alive and fresh in memory the unwritten song, the speech, the tradition of their Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Celtic ancestors.
Down through the centuries the blood and traditions of the pioneers have carried, creating a stalwart, a fearless people. Hidden away in the high crannies of the Blue Ridge they have come to be known as Mountaineers, Southern Highlanders, Appalachian Mountaineers, and Southern Mountaineers. ”

“ We jogged on, up hill and down, through timbered land and little meadows, by the sides of deep gorges and under huge cliffs, now in the sunlight and again through such dense forests of heavy firs that night seemed to have set in, until we reached the summit of the Pass, and looked beyond upon the massive and frowning Blue River range, riven in mighty fissures, its sharp peaks kissing the azure sky, its great gorges filled with the eternal snows, now rosy under the rays of the setting sun, and over all brooding a solemn stillness that bade the heart bow in humility and reverential awe. ”

“ The sun may be scorching hot in an unprotected corn patch on a hillside, yet it is cool in the shade. And, as in California and the north woods, a blanket is needed at night. The climate is contrasting, being coldest in the highlands where the temperature is almost as low as that 8 of northern Maine. Yet nowhere in the United States is it warmer than in the lowlands of the Blue Ridge.
In the highlands, carboniferous rocks produce a sandy loam which is responsible for the vast timber growth there. Throughout it is rich in minerals, coal, iron, and even gold, which has been mined in Georgia. ”

“ Uncle Dick exclaimed, stoutly. “We jest got to find hit. Come on!”
The marshal urged the other to rest in preparation 183 for the hard climb—down the ridge, and then up the sharp slopes and ledges of the mountainside. But the old man would have none of it. So, straightway, the two moved off, leaving the others, less hardy, to repose, and in due time they came to the bar below Sandy Creek Falls.
High among the embattled cliffs of Stone Mountain’s eastern end, Sandy Creek races in tumultuous course. The limpid stream cascades in vertical sheen of silver from ledge to ledge. ”

“ Her standing ground was a rocky ridge which fell away more gently on the other side for perhaps two hundred [Pg 82] feet toward the same brook. She could see through vistas in the trees the up-tossed peaks of the main range, bare, chaotic, snow covered, lonely, majestic, terrible.
The awe of the everlasting hills is greater than that of the heaving sea. Save in the infrequent periods of calm, the latter always moves, the mountains are the same for all time. The ocean is quick, noisy, living; the mountains are calm, still—dead. ”

“ Serrated ridges, not much lower than that on which we stood, rose, one beyond another, far as that pure atmosphere could carry the vision, broken into awful chasms deep with ice and snow, rising into pinnacles piercing the heavenly blue with their cold, barren grey, on, on for ever, till the most distant range upbore unsullied snow alone. There were fair lakes mirroring the dark pine woods, canyons dark and blue-black with unbroken expanses of pines, snow-slashed pinnacles, wintry heights frowning upon lovely parks, watered and wooded, lying in the lap of summer ”

“ This slope, near the summit, is overgrown with firs, aspens and pines, which give way as the descent is made, to piñons, cedar and scrubby oak trees and a more or less abundant growth of chaparral. Small streams and springs are found in the larger canyons on this slope, while far below, at an altitude of about 5,000 feet, lies Blue River.
The country at the extreme head of Blue River forms a great mountain amphitheater, with one side so near the upper course of Black River that one can traverse the distance between the basins of the two streams in a short ride. ”

“ They seem to be as much at home on the ice and snowfields as on the crags, making their way in flocks from ridge to ridge on the great volcanic mountains by crossing the glaciers that lie between them, traveling in single file guided by an old experienced leader, like a party of climbers on the Alps. ”

“ The rocks are metamorphic slates and gneiss, with numerous eruptive masses in the form of dikes, and with many quartz veins, some of which contain considerable gold, although mining has not, on the whole, been successful. The Piedmont division forms a belt of from 20 to 30 miles in width, and may properly be considered as being the foothill border of the Blue Ridge itself. There is a marked tendency to the formation of a continuous valley between the broken ridges already noticed as forming the so-called Coast range and the Blue Ridge proper. ”

“ Neilgherries takes in an extensive range of swelling waving hill, looking at a distance as if a green gulf had suddenly become fixed for ever. On the horizon are lofty steeps, crowned with remnants of forests, studded with patches of cultivation, and seamed with paths, tracks, and narrow roads. There is little or no table-land: the only level road in the vicinity is scarcely a mile long. At the bottom of the hollow lies the bazaar, and upon the rising knolls around are the nine or ten houses which compose the first European settlement you have seen on the Blue Hills. ”

“ He felt that he had within him the power to achieve something worth while in the world. Certainly, he would not fail for lack of striving. But no triumph elsewhere could ever wean him from his love for the Blue Ridge—for his home country. Yes, it was as he had said there in the store: He would come back. He would come back to the cabin in the “cove” under the shadows of Stone Mountain—back to the old mother, back to Plutina. A warmth of exquisite tenderness vibrated through him, as his hope leaped to that homecoming, to the time when once again the girl should rest clinging on his bosom. ”

“ One singularly-shaped summit, far to the south, attracted my attention, and I was about to ask its name, when Steve called out, with the air of one who communicates something of more than ordinary significance,—"Blue Mountain!" The name, Steve's manner, and I know not what of mysterious cause, gave to the place a strange importance. I felt a new and unaccountable attraction to the mountain. Some enchantment seemed to be casting its glamour over me from that distance even. There was thenceforward no goal for my wanderings but the Blue Mountain. ”

“ The lapping waves of the open portion gradually undermine and cause it to break off in large masses like icebergs, which gives rise to a precipitous front like the discharging wall of a glacier entering the sea. The play of the lights among the crystal angles of these snow-cliffs, the pearly white of the outswelling bosses, the bergs drifting in front, aglow in the sun and edged with green water, and the deep blue disk of the lake itself extending to your feet,—this forms a picture that enriches all your afterlife, and is never forgotten. ”