BY JIM MCMILLAN
I have experienced a great deal of sadness from the destruction Tropical Storm Helene visited on my neighboring forest. In fact, I couldn’t make myself go into the woods for a couple of months postdevastation.
Living in Asheville and Western North Carolina provides easy access to the outdoors and the fabulous ecosystem of the ancient Appalachian Mountains. My home, like many domiciles in the mountains, has this natural wonder just outside the front and/or back doors.
Near my home, in the city limits along Beaverdam Creek in North Asheville, there is a small stream tributary that originates from the high ridgetops of Elk Mountain. An old horse trail from the early 1900s circles the small gorge of this stream. The forest here had been untouched for over a century.
On a sunny, cold and blustery late fall afternoon, I made an attempt to circumnavigate this old forest loop trail above my house for the first time since Helene. The year-round active stream treats this ecosystem with many benefits. It’s also inhabited by many 100-plus-year-old thriving giant trees and forest floor fauna.
I started my hike from my house on the south slope of the creek gorge. This trail climbs up 2 miles and crosses the creek at an empty pond near the top of the gorge. This is the halfway point for the loop.

At mile 1, I encountered extensive downed, giant trees that created a jumble of thick branches. Their trunks and upper branches extended 50-75 feet in both directions across the trail. It was difficult finding a path through the now-horizontal trees. The matrix of branches, leaves and trunks on a steep slope was a complex sea of vegetation in multiple dimensions on an unpredictable spongy footing. The size of trunks and root balls was massive.
I eventually reached a paved road that meets the trail. From the road, you can gaze up Beaverdam Valley to Craven Gap. In the distance, I could see the demarcation line of destruction above 3,000 feet where wind shear took down most of the big trees. This was a gut punch.
At the creek crossing just below a pond dam, I found the biggest collection of fallen old friends. They had lived over a century alongside the constant flow of the stream. Their 20- to 30-inch trunks were enmeshed together 10 feet above the ground. Standing, listening to the stream, gazing at the bright afternoon sun glittering through my fallen cohabitants’ colorful, early-fall leaves proved to be an emotional moment. This image of the distant Blue Ridge Mountains and the frozen life of these ghost trees was overwhelming.
Finally, I was heading down. After an hour of pushing, crawling over and under limbs and trunks of trees up to 18-30 inches in diameter, I had barely made it 150 yards down the trail with still 2 miles to the end. I decided to stop any further attempt to push forward and instead climb back to the south ridge trail I had come up on.
With difficulty, I got back to the trail I had ascended two hours earlier. I heard someone working along the trail ahead of me. It was the owner of a house off the paved road who has “accessory trails” around his property; he was leaf blowing his trails! He directed me to follow his trail system to avoid an area on the main trail that had many downed trees.
The accessory trail contained yet more trees lying flat against the steep slope everywhere needing to be crossed. I began bushwhacking downward, wandering in search of the main trail, when I heard voices ahead of me. I encountered two guys pushing upward into the mess I had struggled through over two hours earlier.
They were also frequent hikers on this trail who were making their first exploration attempt. They planned on returning with chain saws to clear some of the trail. Gotta love a chain-saw-toting hiker! I eventually reached the main trail that was clear all the way back to my house: a big reward after a harrowing hike.
During the entire hike, I had struggled to contain a constant fear of slipping and falling, sustaining a broken ankle and/or other body parts becoming trapped inside the dense branches of these countless fallen giants.
As the sun was setting over the distant Blue Ridge peaks, I got home more than three hours after the start of my journey. I reached quickly for my bottle of Advil because I hurt all over! No blood had been spilled, but I had felt a true sense of camaraderie as I had been grasping and scraping against the bark of these fallen comrades throughout this adventure. This memory will stay with me for a long time to come.
The clearing of the trails throughout WNC will take many months, and the remnants of these giants will remain. These will remind us of their previous, elevated majestic presence on these forest trails and the beauty of the Appalachian Mountains ecosystem that we will continue to travel.
Jim McMillan came to Asheville in 1977. He loves being in the forests of the Appalachian Mountains.
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