Back from Tennessee

I've been all over the country by living, traveling, and working in many different states. I've gotta say that I think Utah has one of the best climates I've been in. Sure, different places are certainly better during parts of the years, but when you look at the entire year, Utah is pretty great. I've been thinking about this during the last week while I spent some time in eastern Tennessee. They have a very humid climate and that takes some getting used to.

I was out there with 6 other people from my office, plus lots of other scientists from the local forest (Cherokee), national park (Great Smoky Mountains and Shenandoah Valley), and our counterparts in the USGS (EROS Data Center). Our intention was to visit 4 fires that burned over the last few years in eastern Tennessee and make an assessment of burn severity on the ground that would allow us to make comparisons to the satellite imagery we use to map them remotely.

Our actual field plot locations were chosen by me before hand by looking at severity maps, access to roads, and a topo map so as not to ask people to do any crazy hiking. In the field, it was basically like a glorified geocaching experience. We entered in lat/long coordinates and the group hiked to them using orientation skills we all learned on the job or in Boy Scouts!

The forests back east are a lot different than what I'm accustomed to. The burn severity was also a lot different. Instead of thousands of acres of obviously burned forest like I'm used to seeing here in the West, we'd see chunks of 20 acres where the canopy was gone. Things just green up so dang fast and these fires they have don't typically completely kill the trees.

We stayed in Pigeon Forge for 3 nights and I couldn't believe what a crazy town that was. It was like a child's Vegas -- lots of bright flashing lights with over-the-top decorations. It was good to get out of Pigeon Forge and to see some "real" Tennessee.

This is a powerline that drapes over a pond at the local KOA. Obviously, people have a hard time casting their lines into the pond because an awful lot of hooks and bobbers end up in the power lines.
There was a real concern of getting chiggers and ticks on our skin and under our pant legs. The solution was to tape our pants to our boots. Not a real attractive look, but effective.

This was the center of one of our plots. We draped 30m tapes out in the cardinal directions to give us a sense of the size of our plot (900 sq. meters). You'll notice a nice understory burn but still plenty of greenery around.

We arrived in Cherokee, North Carolina, after making the 30+ mile drive through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I'd never seen this scripting before and it was very intriguing to see.

This was a little cabin we came across in our hiking. I'm sure this is where "Jacob" lives in the show LOST. Also, notice just how dang green everything is! It's incredible!

This is just a picture. Fiddlin' with the camera and depth of field.

We also came across a bamboo forest. Glad we found bamboo instead of marijuana. They said marijuana was a very popular cash crop in this part of Tennessee.

The local thrift store in Newport, TN. One of my co-workers came out of the store and said, "There is a God. I put money in the drink machine and it spit out two drinks!" My thought was, "Well, duh, it's a thrift store!"

This was from one of the overlooks in the national park.

Two of my co-workers (Ruth Ann and Steve) discussing the maps we made for the field work.

Yes, some of the leaves were changing color, but the peak of that in East Tennessee is mid- to late October. Basically, some of the Maples were changing but nothing else.