Date: 2005-09-02
From: Firewardens Cabin

To: Hexacuba Shelter
Miles today: 5.3

Had company last night.   First Cucumber Boy [a girl] and Stinger arrived, but were so enthralled with the fire tower that they decided to spend the night on the top on the tower in the little observation loft. Then Slap Happy and Tree Trunks, both thru-hiking NOBO, arrived and spent the night with me in the cabin. We watched the sun set from the #3 platform on the tower ¢ very spectacular indeed. Got a poor cell signal up there but did speak with KT.   Spent a quiet night ¢ no rain ¢ and got a grand view of a very starry sky when I went out to pee in the small hours of the morning. I got up at 5:30 AM to see the sunrise from the tower, and both Slap Happy and Tree Trunks joined me there. We left the other couple alone in the penthouse because of the early hour.   The sunrise was the best that I have ever seen ¢ even better that I had hoped because it was a little overcast. As the light increased the yellow-orange-gold eastern sky began to light up the undersides of the overhanging clouds with a red rosy hue. When the first spark of the sun broke over the far distant mountains, it was a sight that I will never forget.   I had a lazy breakfast and started out late on another perfect day. Warm but not hot, slight breeze and sunny with scattered clouds. And there were NO BUGS! I had not realized how much the bugs bothered me until I was mentally comparing my last night of the previous section at Happy Hill Shelter to my current situation. There are no bugs anymore! Timing is everything.   The fall color change has not yet started here ¢ there are occasional leaves turning and falling at the higher elevations, but no other significant changes yet. The top of Smart Mountain has a lot of Fir, and I also identified Mountain Ash and White Birch.      Today¢s hike was great ¢ a long slow descent down off the mountain to South Jacobs Brook ¢ spanned by a great little suspension bridge. The water in the brook was running high and still had traces of foam from the recent rains. Then it was a fairly sharp ascent up to Eastman Ledges where I took a long break on the sun warmed rocks, and then across North Jacobs Brook [no bridge here Wingfoot!] and on up to this shelter.   The water source for this shelter is at the AT trail junction and is described as ¢an unreliable stream¢ in the Companion. Not today! ¢ it was running very well. As it turns out there is an ephemeral stream running just outside of the shelter itself, and ¢ after checking on the probable drainage area of the privy ¢ I decided to use it.   I realy like this shelter. Four of the sides are enclosed and the other two are open. It has a central pillar supporting the roof. It reminds of the Pawnee Earth Lodge reproduction in the Field Museum in Chicago. No one else here yet.   There were scattered areas of dead conifers along the trail today. Thinking about reforestation led me to the topic of invasive species. All species were invasive at some point in their development. Why then are we so upset nowadays about invasive species? It is not so much, I suspect, that they are invasive, but that they are a threat to the ¢native¢ [preinvasive] species. Also it seems that much of the blame for invasive species rest on the work of mankind, who introduced many of them into their new environment. If we are going to prevent ¢invasive species¢ do we have some sort of historical benchmark that we are trying to restore the natural environment to?    In reality I don¢t think that we would worry much about invasive species if they didn¢t kill off the preexisting ones. It is realy the extinction threat that the invasive species carry that worries us. If a new species could live in its introduced environment in harmony with the native species, I don¢t think that we would worry that much about it.   I was struck by the obvious comparison of this scenario, to the movement of races and peoples across the world. The example of the ¢civilization¢ of North America springs to mind as an obvious example of a highly invasive ¢species¢ that almost utterly wiped out the ¢native ¢ species. Something to think about there.   Thought for today ¢      We need to be sure that the ¢invasiveness¢ of our species does not involve the death of others!