Participation Type
Reading
Session Title
Session 10.13 Literature, Poetry, and Song
Presentation #1 Title
Down and Back Up Again: A Solo Trip in the Black Mountains
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Despite the gorgeous vistas, when one is hiking alone along the crest of the Black Mountains of Western North Carolina, thoughts of falling, breaking a bone, and crawling back toward civilization are often at the forefront of one’s mind. That and the idea that a black bear could enter your tent in the middle of the night at the campground if you don’t properly wash your hands after dinner are just a few of the concerns that will be addressed in this travel essay that returns the author to a landscape that he visited almost twenty years ago. The intervening years have brought a fancy new observation deck to the top of Mount Mitchell (the highest point in the Eastern United States) and further devastation to the spruce-fir forests by the effects of air pollution and the balsam woolly adelgid. In this land of moss, cloud, and rock, plenty of interpretative materials make explicit the inflated sense of self-importance that comes with being the highest point East of Mississippi. But if one is willing to walk just a little ways away from the parking lots and gift shops, pockets of the primordial remain.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Cody Lumpkin is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Marshall University. His poems have been published in Rattle, Prairie Schooner, and Tar River Poetry.
Down and Back Up Again: A Solo Trip in the Black Mountains
Corbly Hall 354
Despite the gorgeous vistas, when one is hiking alone along the crest of the Black Mountains of Western North Carolina, thoughts of falling, breaking a bone, and crawling back toward civilization are often at the forefront of one’s mind. That and the idea that a black bear could enter your tent in the middle of the night at the campground if you don’t properly wash your hands after dinner are just a few of the concerns that will be addressed in this travel essay that returns the author to a landscape that he visited almost twenty years ago. The intervening years have brought a fancy new observation deck to the top of Mount Mitchell (the highest point in the Eastern United States) and further devastation to the spruce-fir forests by the effects of air pollution and the balsam woolly adelgid. In this land of moss, cloud, and rock, plenty of interpretative materials make explicit the inflated sense of self-importance that comes with being the highest point East of Mississippi. But if one is willing to walk just a little ways away from the parking lots and gift shops, pockets of the primordial remain.
