Camping Connection – From Natural Disasters to Natural Beauties

By Bill Steiden

A vast, open field at a mile’s elevation in North Carolina, bisected by a tumbling river and surrounded by green peaks.

A languid lake filled with the drowned corpses of a great cypress forest in a lonely corner of northwestern Tennessee.

Another lake, like a giant azure eye, winking from its high cauldron at the alpine sky of southern Oregon.

A pulsing, steaming basin amid a mountain range, overlapping the border of Wyoming and Montana.

A beach backed with high dunes overlooking Lake Michigan’s eastern shore.

A sprawling canyon with multicolored walls, an unexpected feature in the flatlands of southwest Georgia.

What do all of these spectacular scenes have in common? Each one has been the site of a natural disaster – and all are places where today, you can pitch a tent and ponder the awesome results of nature’s fury.

Graveyard Fields, North Carolina

Nobody is quite sure what accounts for the dramatic balds of the Blue Ridge, where peaks covered with heath or grass provide vistas rare in these otherwise thickly forested mountains. One theory, however, it that fire plays a role, and Graveyard Fields provides strong evidence of that. A basin at one mile elevation surrounded by even taller, bald peaks, it is the source of the Pigeon River, which flows north, then west to form a natural border for the nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

North Carolina’s Graveyard Fields viewed from the Blue Ridge Parkway. Credit: Tsimmons

Until the early 1920s, the river, descending a series of cascades, was surrounded by trees. But a huge and uncontrolled fire that burned for months left the basin blackened, the stumps of the trees forming the “graveyard’s” headstones. The soil was essentially sterilized, and since then, nothing has grown in it but grass, bushy laurel and, in patches, scrubby trees. Just as the balds offer long-range views, the low-lying vegetation of the valley allows an unusual vantage on the surrounding peaks. High and far from city lights, it offers some of the Southeast’s best stargazing on clear nights, making it a spectacular place, for instance, to watch the annual Perseid meteor shower.

Access is easy from the Blue Ridge Parkway, and you can camp anywhere that pitching a tent isn’t strictly prohibited. There are many sites in the forested fringe of the valley, less than a mile from the parking area. Trails lead from Graveyard Fields to the crown of the Blue Ridge above, including the renowned Shining Rock white quartz formation and the 6,030-foot peak of the famous Cold Mountain, namesake of Charles Frazier’s Odyssean tale of a Confederate deserter’s ill-fated journey to his home in its shadow.

Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee

The earthquake threat to the central United States is little recognized. But the New Madrid fault, centered near the small Mississippi River port of that name in southern Missouri, produced what seismologists say was one of the largest tremors the continent has experienced when it last broke in the winter of 1811-1812. The great river in places was interrupted by temporary waterfalls as the earth heaved upward, and on its east bank in Tennessee, a basin containing a swampy cypress forest collapsed. The river ran backward, filling it to create 18,000-acre Reelfoot Lake. Almost 200 years later, the never-rotting trunks of the ancient cypresses fill the lake, providing shelter for a myriad of game fish. The remaining old-growth trees line the lake’s shallows, forming a swamp on the border of the Midwest not unlike those found in Louisiana.

Few people were around to witness the cataclysm, which occurred when St. Louis, just upstream, was a frontier trading post, and before Memphis to the south was even established. But locals repeat what they say is an Indian legend about how a chief’s abduction of another leader’s wife angered the Great Spirit, who drummed upon the land and opened a watery chasm to swallow the offender.

In the intervening centuries, the lake has become a resort and fishing hot spot. Reelfoot Lake State Park offers two campgrounds, one with a 3,600-foot airstrip, making for a rare fly-in site.

Crater Lake, Oregon

In modern times, the explosive eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington State showed the volatility of the Cascade range. Crater Lake is the remnant of another such eruption 7,700 years ago, when the 12,000-foot volcano geologists have dubbed Mt. Mazama blew its top. One hundred times the size of the Mt. St. Helens eruption, it drained a huge magma chamber beneath the mountain, causing the peak to collapse and leaving a caldera that over the eons filled with water.

Aerial view of Oregon’s Crater Lake, Wizard Island and Mount Scott as seen from the west.

That depression is now Crater Lake, filled to a depth of almost 2,000 feet with icy, clear water, fed by the average 533 inches of snow that fall on the 6,000-foot elevation basin from September to June. The caldera rim towers another 1,000-2,000 feet above the lake, providing spectacular views of its indescribably blue waters and Wizard Island, a small volcanic peak poking through the lake’s surface that formed after the initial eruption.

For those wishing to stay a while near this natural wonder, the surrounding Crater Lake National Park offers two sites, the tents-only Lost Campground and the full-service Mazama Village, where there are a lodge and cabins, as well. The Pacific Crest Trail, which passes through the park, has permit-only backcountry sites.

Yellowstone National Park

Only in recent years have scientists pieced together the ominous geologic history of the Yellowstone basin. Its strange geysers and steaming pools amid the chilly mountains have long hinted of its volatility, but it took decades of investigation to determine that it is, in fact, a volcano of unmatched proportions that erupted in the distant past with catastrophic consequences, and could again.

The basin is believed to be a thin spot on a tectonic plate, providing a sort of window through which heat reaches the surface from the Earth’s red-hot mantle below. The geothermal energy radiating through this thin crust powers Yellowstone’s thousands of mud volcanoes, fumaroles, hot springs and geysers. On at least three occasions, the last some 620,000 years ago, the basin was the scene of a prolonged supereruption that ejected many square miles of magma and dust, covering the North American continent with a life-smothering plume.

Today, volcanologists monitor the basin, measuring the changes in its elevations as it heaves with the forces below it. There is no known way to predict when it may erupt again, but the magnitude of its threat means it is under constant study.

The Upper Terraces of Yellowstone’s Mammoth Hot Springs evoke a sense of the prehistoric. Credit: Mila Zinkova

Even before its nature was understood, the area was of such wonder and intrigue that it was preserved as America’s first national park. It attracts upwards of 3 million visitors a year, many of whom likely don’t realize that their sightseeing is something akin to staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

You can join the throng at any of a dozen campgrounds, seven of which offer sites on a first-come, first-served basis. Backcountry camping for backpackers is available at designated sites by permit only.

The especially hardy (and well-equipped) may want to consider visiting in winter, when the crowds thin and the bubbling brew of volcanism offers an intriguing contrast to the snow-covered landscape.

Grand Haven State Park, Michigan

What is a peaceful bit of sandy lakeshore doing amid this list of places scarred by fire, volcanoes and earthquakes? Reminding us that nature’s destructive impulses take many unanticipated forms.

Most of the time, the eastern shore of Lake Michigan appears languid, with a light chop lapping its beaches. The constant wind has built up towering and scenic dunes. It’s an unexpected seashore scene in the midst of the Midwest.

But the Great Lakes are not the sea, even if they are so wide you can’t see across them. And they have their own behavioral quirks. One of them is the seiche. Were you to turn a fan on full blast and point it at the water’s surface in a filled bathtub, you would see an example of the process in action. The water pushed away from the side nearest the fan would pile up on the other.

Similarly, winds blowing across the lake can send the water sloshing toward the other side. Most of the time, the result is a barely noticeable rise in the lake level along the shoreline. But sometimes, a seiche can take the form of a violent wave.

That’s what happened on July 4, 1929, as 45,000 people gathered at Grand Haven State Park for a holiday event. Out of nowhere, a 20-foot wave broke across the pier, sweeping nine people to their deaths. A girl also drowned after being sucked from a breakwater.

Today, you can pitch a tent or park an RV in the park’s 174-space campsite, just a short walk from the shoreline. But if you take a beach walk, you may want to do as the natives do, and keep an eye on the horizon.

Providence Canyon State Park, near Lumpkin, Georgia

Below the Southeast’s Fall Line, where rivers flowing to the ocean descend from the Piedmont to the coastal plain, the topography is rarely interesting. Providence Canyon is a dramatic exception – the product of a slow-motion disaster in which man had a hand.

The walls of Providence Canyon State Park in Lumpkin, GA look more like they belong in the deserts of the southwestern U.S. Credit: Bill Steiden

Settlers in the 1830s and 1840s stripped the tree cover from the rolling terrain, and took no measures to prevent erosion, oblivious to the fragility of the sand and clay substrate underlying the thin topsoil. By the 1850s, a network of gullies three to five feet deep had formed, and the farmers were forced to abandon large swaths of their land. Those gullies grew exponentially, and today, they are up to 150 feet deep and reminiscent in appearance of the sandstone canyons of the Southwest, their layered walls and pinnacles hued with colors ranging from red to purple and yellow.

But this isn’t solid rock – it’s a mixture of clay and sand that nature is constantly reshaping. As a result, the canyon network continues to expand. Formations can appear and disappear in a season, and collapsed fences on the rim bear witness to the fact that the land is far from being solid rock. Even what appear to be multicolored stones on the canyon floor turn out to be erosion-rounded pieces of the local kaolin clay, easily mashed between thumb and forefinger. As those early settlers learned, nothing here is quite what it seems.

Trails wind through the canyon and along the rim, and a 7-mile backpacking trail leads to six reservable backcountry campsites.

Providence Canyon is a reminder that if there is any rival to nature’s destructiveness, it is man, and that when he unleashes forces with which he is not prepared to cope – for instance, oil and natural gas tapped a mile below the ocean’s surface, where technology does not yet permit easy access in the event something goes awry – he can greatly amplify his own mistakes.

4MoreInfo

Graveyard Fields
Pisgah National Forest
160-A Zillicoa Street
Asheville, NC
Tel: 828.257.4200
www.cs.unca.edu/nfsnc

Reelfoot Lake State Park
2595 State Route 21E
Tiptonville, TN
Tel: 731.253.8003
www.state.tn.us/environment/parks/ReelfootLake

Crater Lake National Park
Crater Lake, OR
Tel: 541.594.3000
www.nps.gov/crla

Yellowstone National Park
Mammoth, WY
Tel: 307.344.7381
www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm

Grand Haven State Park
1001 Harbor Ave
Grand Haven, MI
Tel: 616.847.1309
www.dnr.state.mi.us/parksandtrails/Details.aspx?id=449&type=SPRK

Providence Canyon State Park
8930 Canyon Road
Lumpkin, GA
Tel: 800.864.7275
www.gastateparks.org/net/go/parks.aspx?locationid=20&s=0.0.1.5

Top photo: Yellowstone’s Grand Prismatic Spring is the largest hot spring in the U.S. (approx. 250 by 300 feet), and third largest in the world. This aerial view shows off mats of blazing orange algae and bacteria that are the result of the ratio of chlorophyll to carotenoid molecules the organisms produce. The color can fluctuate from orange, red or yellow in the summer to dark green in the winter.

Tagged as: California, Camping, Crater Lake, georgia, Hiking, Lake Michigan, Montana, national parks, Oregon, state parks, Tennessee, trails, Wyoming, Yellowstone