Keeping the Smokies Truly Great

CLINGMANS DOME — The calendar may say August, but at 6,643 feet it was more like mid-October. Fog was intermittent: sometimes a single dense cloud, sometimes vertical ribbons with a shaft of sunlight sneaking in between. If you didn't like one version, no problem; just wait a minute or two. The scene was prone to abrupt change, thanks to howling wind. Verily, as I pushed against the car door to open it, I could hear air whistling around the radio antenna on the vehicle next to mine.

It is vast understatement to describe these conditions as "chilly." It is equally deceptive to call my sprint from car to nearby privy as "quick." This dash had nothing to do with a need to recycle the Thermos coffee I'd been
drinking since my wife and I left Knoxville 90 minutes earlier. Instead, it was a wardrobe mission. I needed somewhere to change from flatland shorts and sandals to high country jeans and boots. Mary Ann was already two steps ahead, piling on layers we both knew would be shed just as quickly as the day lengthened and we descended back into the valley toward home.

"It may have been this cold when I was up here last month," she spoke through chattering teeth, "but I was working then and didn't notice it."Since retiring from her teaching career, Mary Ann has been sampling volunteer opportunities. One of her most recent was a stint with Trails Forever (http://www.smokiestrailsforever.org), a joint project between the Aslan Foundation, the National Park Service and Friends of the Great Smokies. It's an effort to improve 800-plus miles of trails within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

This ain't for sissies. It is muddy, physical labor. Goes on 8 hours a day, rain or shine. The only reward for volunteers is knowing they're giving back to a park that means so much to their lives. In July, Mary Ann worked with a crew redoing the Forney Ridge Trail. Having pulled trail construction duty myownself more than 40 years ago with the U.S.
Forest Service in Idaho, I was eager to see their handiwork.

We caught up with the gang — NPS staffers and volunteers alike — less than a mile from the trail head. Slowly, painstakingly, they were splitting, moving, shimming and seating large rock for the walkway, channeling ditches, funneling washout drains, replacing vegetation. "Right here is my step," Mary Ann said proudly, shifting her weight from side to side to show how well she had helped position it under watchful eyes of the pros. The huge slab didn't budge. I doubt it will budge well into this century.

Not bad for free government work.